It’s true, when i don’t sleep it turns into Squires’ blog. Random inside jokes. One-liners that probably require explanation even for the people involved. Huge chunks cut and pasted from another website. Unexplained and un-related lyrics to songs nobody else knows or even cares about… it’s great, at least you know you can have a day off at some day mate and i can cover for you!

Before i start my latest series of rants, this is not my fabled ‘next blog entry’. That would require time, patience and dedication of which i have next to none of at the moment.

I found my songbook! I do not have any word in the English language to describe how happy and relieved I am not to have lost it. It is over 10 years in the making now.

Every day i take my earring out to go and work at the bank and every day i have to pierce it again when i get home. Completely covered over. I think that i am an X-man. Is that how you say it? I don’t want to offend any geeks. Ok i think i am one of the X-Men? How’s that? My eyebrow ring was even worse. If i took it out to play basketball for an hour i would have to re-pierce that one, and that one bled.

I used to think that i was hyper-observant, perceptive, even the ability to pre-empt the future – a soothsayer perhaps – because i always knew when a street person was going to talk to me….then i figured out that street people talk to anyone and everyone. They really are prejudice free. They are role models for the future.

Actually i think i just wanted to be a soothsayer because it is something that the kids of today aren’t really interested in, so i would face less competition in going for jobs. Maybe a candlestick maker…or something that still requires the use of an anvil. For CJ and red a soothsayer is ein Wahrsager oder einer Wahrsagerin. I don’t imagine the word Soothsayer would come up in too many English text books…unless you learn’t by reading Asterix.

Is there anything more annoying of a morning than someone walking behind you in high heels at a slightly faster rate than you? It sounds so panicked. Is someone chasing them? I don’t particulalry want to look around because if there is someone chasing them i may have to play Johnny hero. I hate Johnny Hero. He’s a cunt.

Why do high-heels have to make so much noise? Can they not put some rubber thingies on the bottom? Or is that one of the features of high-heels that is attractive to women? The ability to piss people off at a mass level.

60 year old woman: Hmmm what am i doing today again? That’s right i’m overseeing some examinations at the local school. Where are the exams again? The basketball court? Hmmm better take these comfortable rubber-soled loafers off that i have been wearing for the past 20 years and better put on some ridiculous heels while im walking in between rows on a wooden floor. That should help them concentrate.

Paraphrasing Catharine’s text: “I just went home to read a book, then a friend rang me to sing to me how much she loves me, so that cheered me up”

Matt’s witty reply: “Your friend’s call you to say how much they love you? Who do you hang out with, Lionel Ritchie?”

Would have been sooo much funnier had i remembered that it was Stevie Wonder.

So Coheed and Cambria were awesome. He had all the moves including singing into his pickups and some sort of weird instrument that Phil assures me Jimmy Page also once used. He’s too fat to use it now. I still managed to get sufficiently annoyed by the people around me. I really have to come up with a new strategy for concerts.

I learn’t a new word during the week. Well first of all i didn’t believe that it was actually a word, but then i looked it up and it is. I don’t normally plug any kind of products or what-have-you but i will tell you if you are looking for a Dictionary, go no further than Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law. Dictionary.com was trying to explain my new word to me when i stumbled on Merriam’s contribution.

Main Entry: fungible
Function: noun
: something that is fungible

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

I wonder what their definition of a lawyer is: someone who lawyers stuff?

A person who turned out to be a surprising fountain of wisdom once said to me, everyone has issues – it’s just that some people let their issues get the better of them leaving the rest of us just deal with the pieces that remain.

I said this 10 years ago, then i didn’t have to repeat it until about 5 years later, then a few years ago, and now. Seems the intervals are getting shorter – who needs enemies when you have got ‘friends’ like mine?

People who can not stand their own company should probably not burn all of their bridges…

Xavier’s latest offering…

I recently bought some flowers for some different people. I’m hoping it might make at least one of the recipients happy. Anyway, now the flower company is sending me emails about their specials and seasonal offers etc. Yesterday i got one titled “Admire your fiery Arian loved ones” …Arian flowers…you’d really want to make sure your audience knows how to spell and the difference between the two words. How many of those gift cards have been addressed to ‘my blue-eyed girl’…

You know how people are glad when you get Chicken pox as a kid, cause it’s so much worse when your an adult? Well you know what else sucks donkey balls as an adult?

Squires.

Just kidding…no you know what else sucks? For want of a better phrase, a broken heart. Every parent or guardian counsels their distraught offspring following a breakup that they weren’t really in love and that the feeling will pass and all that sugar coated stuff…but the kid still feels like his heart is going to burst out of his chest and kick the living shit out of him and so believes it to be love. See that’s the thing, I know my heart wasn’t broken and i wasn’t in love, i’m far too rational for that, but it still fucking hurts…a lot. And i think i know what is to blame…it’s 12 years of all-boy schooling.

Stay with me…this my take a while to get to the point.

This never happened to me when i was younger so i never built up my immunity. I tell a lie anyway…it wasn’t all 12 years of schooling that was void of girls. I did have chicks in my class up until year 4, which would have made me 9 or something i guess. You know, before you really knew they were ‘chicks’. When you played catch and kiss and they grabbed you and pulled you into the girls toilets to kiss you and you actually put up a struggle to get away… So by the time i realised that that was actually what i wanted to do it was too late and i was several years into my all-boy schooling.

Fast forward another few years and you get the uncomfortable situation where you ask a girl on your train to school who you’ve never spoken to before, to the end of year formal (prom) purely because the only other girls you know are friends of your sister, the girls at Basketball, or three or four (hopefully) girls you know on the internet…

A quick jump forward in time till you finish school and head to schoolies (Spring Break) and you find that the time that you really, really want to talk to girls also coincides with the first time you are really attempting to do so, and the first time you realise you have no idea how to.

Here’s where you falter about a bit in pubs trying to figure out just what you’re supposed to do. This is what most people learn when they are 12. Christ girls could have spoken another language for all i knew. Like Seth Efrican or something. Could you imagine? If all girls were Saffas? I would have become a priest.

Scoot forward a little to Uni (college – see how i keep Squires informed during this) and i’m being asked to concentrate in a first year Psych lecture as one of only 70 or 80 guys in a room of 400 girls. No chance. But this is what your normal teen gets to find out in primary school, so that by the time they get into secondary school they are used to it and can easily juggle both, girls and grades. That requirement was taken away from me…i suppose that’s why i got good grades.

So by the time Uni had come around, i had bypassed all of the crawling stages and was in the track team. Great on the one hand yet always missing something. The dating stage. People learn from dating. They have crushes, and then it develops into more than that and they have their heart broken and they get over it and they go through it again and they learn from their mistakes and they learn how to react and they see things coming and they can judge how well they like someone in comparison to those that have fallen by the wayside before them. Not me. I get a crush on someone and i’m picturing how the meeting will go with my parents and what she will sound like with my surname and if she’ll let me brainwash my kids into being United supporters. I missed several stages in the dating evolution. The process is now somewhat streamlined…

I want to be able to like someone…see if it works out, and if not just say, oh well there was no real spark between us. I seem to be subconsciously unwilling to get into anything with a girl before i’m sure that i think it can work. It’s like the only two scenarios available are together forever or not at all. So now when i break up with someone or become magical bestest ‘friends’ forever, the casual observer in the guise of a concerned parent will dismiss it as a passing fancy, yet for me it feels like that 12 year old kid and my world is going to end. My social retardedness is unbridled.

Thanks catholic school system!

Reasons to contact a friend with bad news. The survey says:

1. You are running late
2. You forgot their birthday
3. You’re cancelling a date
4. You’re cancelling a holiday
5. You are breaking up with them
6. You’re getting a divorce
7. Somebody close to them has died
8. You have died (from beyond the grave of course)

How many answers did Family Feud generally have? It’s been a while. Anyway, i’d say you would even struggle – depending on the friend of course – to get away with a text message for the first two…a forgotten birthday is ok if the people aren’t that close…but if you choose a text message to deliver any of the news from 3 onwards you’re taking the fucking piss! Even this social retard knows that…

Screw you Jack White…you’re not the only person who can make an instrument out of spare parts…I give you the Berger…

[Show as slideshow]

and for those of you not on wastebook…the object that will now receive all of my wasted affection…

[Show as slideshow]

I’ll make it to Bumbershoot one day…

Every now and then i forget how to breathe. I know it sounds like a family guy episode gone wrong. “Hey Lois! This is worse than that time i forgot how to breathe!” But seriously i do. It’s only certain situations that trigger it and i’m not always aware. It may be like a really hot chick sitting next to me on a tube or something and i become really conscious about breathing. Just act normal. Wait what are you doing? Are you breathing heavier? She’s going to know you think she’s hot! Stop it! Breathe normally! etc. And no matter how hard i try i can’t make it return to normal. I start breathing in and doing this “In…one Mississippi…two Mississippi…out!” crap.

As you can see i have an overactive inner monologue at times. Funny story…ok i don’t really refer to the olden days that often, but i remember this was hilarious to me. A while ago when this person i knew, let’s call her…Del…had a conversation with me that went something like this:

Me: Blah blah blah why say that out loud, doesn’t he have an inner monologue?
Del: Actually Tommy, it’s an inner dialogue.
Me: …i’m sorry, what?
Del: Yeah i had this conversation with (let’s call him…Dill) and we both agreed it’s an inner dialogue…

Errr…you know i’m no wordsmith but i reckon the hint might be in the word itself…Then again i guess it depends how many voices you have in your head – might be a Tolkien novel for some. I guess i almost had an inner dialogue the other day, but that would be conceding that Fred Durst was in my head….

Fred Durst in concert (on shuffle, not by choice): “Is everybody alive right now?”
Me: Don’t get metaphysical with me Fred!

I can’t type ‘the’.

the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the

Maybe i can, bad example.

So i went to a 3 King’s show the other day…Jealous Squires? You’re Jealous! Homer we have the same chair! Some rockabilly band from Chicago. I don’t remember the name. Standard rockabilly really…couple of good covers off “Tarrantino’s Best Of”. My biggest issue with them…don’t advertise a gig for 8:00 if you don’t intend to take the stage before 10:30! Seriously it was a fucking school night and they started about 10:45 or something. Don’t any of you people have jobs? I had to leave during the first set and still didn’t get home before 1. I remember sitting there trying to guess who was actually in the band while waiting for them to get up and play. Anyone with tat’s made the short list…as did wallet chains. Only skateboarders and Musicians can get away with wallet chains. I’ve always wanted one but sadly i’m neither. I contemplated getting up and playing at one point, just to kill some time, but i probably would have been more comfortable on the minimalist drum kit than the massive hollow body Gretsch…that thing would have dwarfed anyone.

A new nickname has been coined…Dumb rich guy…haha you need to know who before it’s funny :o)

Other notable nicknames i have heard:

• Crime – For your mate who never gets a round in…Crime doesn’t pay.
• Thrush – Cause he’s an irritable cunt.
• Susan – Starring two people who look like they never sleep…Susan Sarandon and Vince Vaughan
• Beaker – (Muppets) me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me
• Satellite – She’ll pick up anything

I was discussing this the other day on the back of a “which decade do you wish you could have been alive in” discussion – 60′s without a doubt. People like Janis Joplin or Joni Mitchell simply would not be able to make it today. It doesn’t matter how good your voice is, or how good a songwriter you are, you have to look the part today. You have to be marketable. Think about it. Name a musician today, and for this discussion’s purposes i’m thinking only of female musicians, that is not good looking and has ‘made it’? Ok maybe Alanis Morrisette – the Ruud Van Nistlerooy of music. Even that druggie bitch with all the shit in her face…Amy Winehouse doesn’t count. I wouldn’t go near her either – i’m pretty sure you can catch the hiv by watching her videos – but she did not get famous for her talent. Much like the other tosser Doherty, if neither of them were fuck ups then we wouldn’t know of them now. Despite Squires’ best pleads, Doherty is a poor man’s excuse for a musician…

Hope this is what you wanted.
Hope this is what you had in mind.
Cause this is what you’re getting!

It feels like ages since i’ve written anything so i might be a little rusty. Sort of like Basketball at the moment. I’d love to see the German’s i play with, play a game with a full referee – it would be hilarious. It’s not a foul if you lose the ball people…these are called steals and turnovers. I’ve also read an incredible piece of tedium from Squires which may have dulled my creative abilities in telling a tale so apologies up front…it’s all on your shoulders mate.

I’m still contemplating whether or not to give my parents the address for this page. My emailing has become infrequent at best with everyone it has to be said so maybe this would fill the gaps…though i’m not the most regular poster either. I think the deciding factor would be my frequent dropping of the c-bomb. I’ve toned most of my swearing down i feel but i do like a good c-bomb…pun may or may not be intended.

Well just in case i do let them in on it, here are the highlights i guess of my xmas adventure.

So what was technically my last week at work, kicked off with several Christmas parties – my work’s, pimp’s etc – resulting in too much alcohol and not enough sleep. Bring on Saturday…Squires doesn’t drink much…before 8am…

So i get up at silly o’clock to get out to Hahn, the cheap tin shed in another state masquerading as Frankfurt’s second airport. I am notoriously late for flights so i plan to get there ridiculously early to break with tradition. Phong hung out at mine the night before so i just went straight to bed without packing. Again, this is a feature of my holidays – the morning pack session. I get down to the u-bahn and have a 20 minute wait for a train…my bus to the airport leaves in 22mins…After pushing down an old lady, several feeble women and some cripples to get off the train i make the mad dash through the hauptbahnhof and through the middle of the street to stop the bus from leaving. He tried to pull away but my suicide run defeated him and he relinquished. End up getting to the airport like a day before my flight thanks to good weather – i had been banking on snow – so t’was a little boring but my holiday had begun.

Texting Squires that my plane is 20 mins late i board in reasonable spirits. Like i said before i’m not the best flyer. For some reason i cannot joke or speak during turbulence…obviously as i don’t want my voice to interfere with the pilot’s concentration…what accent is that?? I also need to look out the window at the wing during turbulence, as if my Jedi mind powers have developed sufficiently enough to stop the engines from falling off.

I had been told that the approach is quite breathtaking so i was following along admiring the view when all of a sudden we were out over water again…my geography of Italy is not brilliant but i couldn’t figure out why we would be leaving land for water. So on comes the captain to tell us – in three languages – that Pisa airport has been closed mid-flight due to snow. I check out the window again and we have bright sunshine here. How fucking far away am i? I’m not really bothered at this point…not much i can do. Maybe i could talk a bit more and the pilot might get distracted and take us somewhere else, but generally it’s out of my hands. It didn’t stop the hot chick next to me wailing her arms about firstly to the German announcement that Pisa had been closed and we were re-routing to Genoa, then again to the Italian announcement, her native tongue, and finally to the English announcement. Bout as predictable as a Tom Cruise movie that one love. Silly cow. You’ve lost your chance with me.

A lot of gesturing at the airport and i figure out that Ryanair have actually footed the bill for some buses back to Pisa. I was sure i would have to train it in. 1000 text messages later and i’m able to meet up with Squires in Pisa and we nab one of the few trains running back to Massa or somewhere near to it. He puts me in a cab and gives the name of his local Irish to the cabbie on paper. Squires sets off on a bike to meet me there. I had been getting a few looks at my Man United beanie along the way but i think Mr Cab Driver and his son were football fans as they began to have a conversation with each other in Italian about all the Italian managers in the premier league. I was going to contribute Zola to the conversation until i heard him say “blah blah blah blah Mancini blah blah blah blah Manchester United”. Well you’re about as useful as tits on a bull aren’t you…so i left them to it. I didn’t know at this stage Mancini had just signed for the massive club city. Still, an unforgiveable mistake.

We make it to the pub eventually and navigate our way through the menu, proceeding to get reasonably drunk on beers, and later Guinness with creatively-priced Port chasers. Class. After agreeing on heading back to watch a movie i saw a bit of the credits and then was out like a light.

The next day we walked around a bit to see the beach and the square and stuff before eventually rejoining the savagely hot waitress at the pub for more Guinness & Port combo’s. Said waitress kept making passes at me while Squires was in the bathroom [citation necessary] but i figured it was better if i left her to a local, long distance relationships and all that. I’m just that kind of guy really.

Unfortunately it was only a short visit this time round so will have to venture back down soon, had a great time – and i agree, i haven’t laughed that much in a long time either mate!

Going our separate ways in Pisa, Squires was off to Rome with Luca for Christmas and i was on my way to Sunny York, via Sunny London. Planes, Tubes and Trains later and i’m in a cab in York, almost on schedule, playing one of my favourite games – where the fuck are you from? I have no problem talking about Manchester United and calling the team ‘we’ as in ‘We played well’ on the weekend, and can do the same for Australia – except for some reason after i have been talking about another country. Then inexplicably i become Switzerland and don’t commit to anything. Country after country we talked about, me critiquing them objectively, until finally the cabbie utters the immortal words…so where exactly are you from, cause your accent is neither here nor there? I’m a child of the UN…me, Kyle Minogue and Elle MacPherson.

I’ve always enjoyed York and particularly seeing Lynda and Gordy. It’s always relaxing and indulgent to say the least! A few more days of solid eating and drinking and a white Christmas to boot and i was off to London.

Back down sowf of the river and my heart was at ease. I always felt more at home in sowf London than nawf London. KFC for lunch and Raclette for dinner as i felt the gut getting bigger. Only another week or so of debauchery left to endure. Reminiscent of Dad’s 50th in Cowra, we proceed to drink all of the beer on Christmas Eve leaving only a few bottles for Christmas itself. Sang and Shaun’s kid Aiden is pretty cool. I don’t really deal with kids. I’m not bad with kids, in fact they mostly get along with me, but i wouldn’t be described as a traditional caregiver. Children are just little people to me, susceptible to the same frailties and motivations that we all are, so i don’t treat them very differently. I don’t make faces at them or speak to them in an incomprehensible language – how that is helpful i’ll never know. I don’t really get anything from seeing them smile or do something ‘adult-like’. I find it amusing when they throw a fit for no apparent reason, the child equivalent of a voiced rant… Their attraction lies in their unique reactions to stimuli, just as any other grown persons.

Shaun’s present for christmas – The Beatles Rockband for Xbox! Unfortunately we didn’t get to play it but i have to say it looked wicked, particularly the guitar. It also caused Shaun to coin a phrase which would be used for the rest of the week….”Hey….” Admittedly this does not really work in printed format, but just imagine the beginning ‘Hey’ of ‘Hey Jude’ not immediately followed by the ‘Jude’. Almost like the quickie round of a musical quiz where they play the opening half second of a song and just kill it cold, and you have to guess it. Perfect pitch and tempo for ‘Hey Jude’ but just never completed. Priceless.

Waiting until the day after boxing day when trains would be running…(awful, awful system) we decided to nick down to Redhill in Surrey to see my mates Craig and Ana from the old Duke of Devonshire who have also recently popped out a couple of kids – i’m going to avoid euphemisms here as my previous attempt led me to write ‘rug-munchers’ instead of ‘rug-rats’….totally different kettle of fish there.

The original plan was to pop down for the afternoon, maybe catch a bit of the premiership and then head back to Phong’s cousin’s place in nawf London. But something happened. We’d managed to buy return tickets to sowf London and so had to arrange extensions to get back nawf. We managed that. We also managed to find out when the last train back was. What we didn’t manage was to get on it. Several pints later and about 20 quid each in the trivia machine and we were still at the pub to see the staff go home for the evening. Thanks once again to Craig and Ana for putting us up for the night :o)

Back into central London for a cheeky pint at the real Waxy’s, followed by a few more at a random O’neills for the footy. Lunch with Phong’s Dad, Sang, Shaun and Aiden and then back to O’neills for the rest of the footy. This was followed by a roadie somewhere else for a loo break and we finally made it to Phong’s cousin’s place…some 26 hours late. Not bad.

The following day we had arranged for a few of the London folk to meet up for lunch. I had suggested S&M Cafe as had been meaning to go there ever since i lived in London. Sadly it would win that round as well as it was closing as we arrived. We decided to wait in a drink-selling establishment on the corner. Boychild arrived just in time as we witnessed an altercation between the landlord and a couple eating their food. We’re still not really sure what happened but the landlord asked them to leave and the couple asked for their money back. Neither party looked too keen on the argument at first but the landlord was up for it alright. 10 minutes later and we had two cop cars and a paddywagon…hate to see how many coppers they send for an actual punch-up.

We settle for Nando’s for tea and afters at some random bar described by Shaun as “There’s a decent pub around the corner with a tranny landlord”. Good enough for this motley crew. We all gathered around the world’s smallest pool table, me guzzling a pint of scrumpy which was truly awful. The alcohol was beginning to kick in however. I had to work hard not to piss my pants when the aforementioned landlord came by and asked Boychild not to sit on the pool table and proceeded on to the ladies room, to which boychild hopped off the table and said “Sure, no worries…..number 1′s or number 2′s? It was not the last time this question was posed to patrons that night…

We headed up the road to yet another pub around Spitalfields. I vaguely remember being in this pub once before. Strange crowd, but then again we bring our own entertainment these days. We posed for several boy band promo shots – i was apparently tuning some chick with purple teeth and then it was back up nawf to the cousins….via Fried chicken for dinner number 2 :o)

In the morning i awoke to find my shoes and trousers covered with suspicious mud/poo-like stains all over them. Your guess is as good as mine but after careful consideration i have determined the only plausible explanation was that the neighbours further up the road, pissed off after having their garden ‘watered’ by Phong the night before had scrupulously hand painted their shrubbery with this mud/poo-like substance to catch this little black duck completely unawares on the encore performance. Mission accomplished.

Sammy’s sister was kind enough to give us a lift up to Stowmarket for Phong’s 30th. I just prayed that she could not smell the substance all over my trousers and shoes. The ride provided some great banter along the way with such highlights as J-Lo being a musical sorbet to cleanse the palette, and my personal favourite, in response to women being released from jail for being pregnant, that surely now instead of people sneaking in files in cakes etc, that people were sneaking in turkey basters of goo. Lads just throwing handfuls of the stuff over the prison walls and the inmates doing cartwheels across the yard to catch it….think about it…think about it…there you go!

But whatever banter we had managed there, it was nothing for what was to come that night.

Unfortunately out of the two cab companies in ‘One House’ where Sammy originates from, only one had a taxi running – go figure – and apparently they were not prepared to shuttle all 12 something of us to and from the pub. Never mind we had some board games and ourselves to keep us entertained.

Due to some mischievous misinformation Sammy’s girlfriend Lila began questioning Tyler (Sammy’s sister’s Canadian husband) why he felt it necessary to club seals? Well played to Tyler who reasonably justified it while keeping a straight face. Not entirely convinced either way, the table chat dried up in anticipation to how Lila would receive the explanation. Enter Spike (Sammy’s sister’s friend) to take some of the heat off Tyler with an amusing tale of running over a cat, and then to check if it was still alive he poked it in the eye with a stick. Phong then came to Spike’s aid with an amusing tail revolving the catching of a fish and releasing it back into the water…via the underside of a bridge. Thud!

The banter continued spiralling out of control until Spike labelled Sienna Miller a vacuous husk of a woman at which point we lost the battle to hilarity and descended into mayhem.

I still can’t believe we had fake blue wkd’s and Port and did not make cheeky vimto’s…

A few hours sleep in the morning and we were dropped off at the train station complete with visible aura’s of alcohol. A jaunt back into London, a quick skip across town and we were on another train headed North for Wigan to meet Adam and the boys in the Brocket – the Wetherspoons pub we stay at when going to old Trafford. Feeling very rough i could feel it in my bones – we only had two more days to go and there sobriety was waiting for us.

We make it in time for a shower and a few drinks at the Brocket before hopping in the cab for Manchester, and Sam Platt’s, the united only pub just round the corner from the theatre of dreams. At this point in time my body ceased to recognise alcohol as alcohol and merely treated it as liquid…something it was in dire need of. Drinking pints of cider to the others’ bottles of bud – pronounced “like having sex in a canoe….it’s fucking close to water!” – we quickly caught up and indeed surpassed the others in merriment.

Into the ground and i think Adam was more shocked than we were to find out our tickets were in the nosebleeds. About 5 rows in from the very top of the East stand it was like watching some red ants run around…run around and destroy some blue ants 5-0! In my three visits to Old Trafford we are yet to concede a goal. 2 wins and 1 draw with 8 goals for and none against. It could easily have been more. We weren’t that good, but Wigan were poor. Still, proved quite the night and hopefully a good present for Phong’s 30th.

Back in to Sam Platt’s after the match for some more chat with the lads and some more cider. Turns out we had been drinking with a Sir as well. I had forgotten that in between this and my last visit, Anthony had become Sir Anthony after being knighted by the Pope in Rome, complete with a papal seal-looking signet ring. The more i hang around Adam the more surreal life becomes. Chatting to Andy who provides us with extra tickets when needed, the topic changed to Aussie sport and he asks if me and Phong know of a Rugby League player called Amos Roberts, as he has just transferred to Wigan and now lives next door to him. I said sure! My sister used to knock about with him.

Ok, now it must be said a lot of alcohol had been consumed at this point Carly if you read this. I may have got my facts intertwined but as far as i can remember i thought my sister knocked about with an Aboriginal rugby league player at some club in Sydney until the infamous ‘cousin’ incident put an end to it. Was that Amos Roberts? I had a feeling that the he played for the Dragons at the time, so Amos fits the bill?

Anyways if you happen to be travelling through Wigan at any point in time Carly and run into a bloke called Andy you might have a few questions to answer ;)

Cab back to Wigan and we decline the search for food on icy streets and head to bed WITHOUT hurling abuse willy nilly at the bar staff for refusing to serve us after hours…

The trip back to Manchester and Frankfurt was on complete autopilot. I knew we had to make it through just one more night and then it was sweet, sweet sobriety. I’d given up going to the toilet, i had no liquid to spare.

A quick visit home, long enough to throw some laundry on and we were off to Sammy’s for more drinking and some €370 worth of Fireworks. I’m not really into the destruction and blowing shit up sort of game so i just acted as cameraman. The night kind of fizzled in the wee hours of the morning as our holidays were catching up on all of us…Strom had just flown long haul from Australia and me and Phong had been pickled for weeks so it was with no trepidation that we shelled out for a cab back to Bornheim. A bit of tv to wind down fully and i was done. It was over.

It’s a good thing i am ironman and probably have to give these shenanigans up soon enough…

We left straight after work on the Friday so we had missed most of the Friday lineup. We managed to get there in one piece even after driving through a Turkish riot after they won some match in the euros. We thought we were going to be fucked for parking and camping places seeing as we get to Rock am Ring at least a day early and still have to camp a 40 minute walk away from the action. So we followed the parking signs and drove in..only a 5 min walk to the entrance…so we’re thinking we’re in the wrong spot. Following people and the sounds of a distant Thom Yorke whinge we see lots of free camping areas so now we’re sure we’ve still got a long way to go.

Walk through the gates and we can see Radiohead playing…we stroll up to the bar, no lineup, push a little closer so that you can almost catch Thom’s tears…what the fuck? Where is everyone? Where is the pushing and shoving..where are the queues? Thus is fucking bizarre. So then we dread walking back to the car and trying to find a camping spot. But it’s fine we just stroll up about a 5 minute walk to the main area. Flat ground, no music playing, no broken glass…i’ve been in hostels with worse facilities than this.

So the next few days were intriguing. Not as many rocking acts for my liking but we still saw Xavier Rudd, and Chemical Brothers were surprisingly good even though they’re not my cup of tea. Thanks to Phil, me and Phong managed to see the most bands we’ve ever taken in. So it was a good gig. I don’t think i’d go again, unless they got a really fucking good lineup. I think next year if the Rock am Ring lineup isn’t that good i might take on Pinkpopp fest or Roskilde or something to try a different one.

So what else has been happening? I went back to Sunny London a week or so ago for work. Found myself eavesdropping on conversations just because i could…have become so used to blocking out what is going on around me it was actually nice to hear random conversation. Good news for Germans…it’s not just Germany which pisses me off. Found enough things in London to shit me to tears…lets start with boots….Boots ok is a Pharmacy. At least that’s what they’re supposed to be…so i went in there looking for bandaids (plasters). Nup. Can get fucking Parsnip Crisps and some mayonnaise-laden pre-packaged monstrosity but no fucking bandaids. Wake up to yourselves Boots!

I was thinking about something the other day. I’m not drunk enough to call myself a musician so lets just say as someone that loves music, going off which beatles song’s bands cover i start to wonder why musicians / people who love music in general seem to find Eleanor Rigby as one of the best, if not ‘the’ best Beatles song? From the opening line to the chorus it assimilates loneliness, and perhaps unintentionally alleviates any stress or negativity associated with feeling lonely. This from the band with surely the record for the most songs with the word ‘love’ in the title, or at least the body of lyrics. How does one love when they feel lonely or feel lonely when loved?

It’s another long one. Sorry, but it is a little treat for y’all. This is the blogging equivalent to a time capsule. Every computer i work on – work, home, laptop, etc. has text files scattered about, normally called something ingenious like blog.txt with one-liners and point-form arguments or stuff i want to write about. The idea being that occasionally i open it up and flesh some of them out into a post. Sometimes i can’t be arsed or don’t think they need further explanation which usually provides the shorter snippets at the beginnings of my posts. Example:

It never ceases to amaze me, Australia’s uncanny knack of achieving notoriety for something really really good, or really really crappy. It’s instilled in us from a young age. I mean we’re constantly reminded at school, “We’re the world’s smallest continent…but the largest island!”. Me and a colleague were looking up parts of Australia on Google maps the other day and were hovering over Darwin. I said oh you don’t want to live up there, they get cyclones and stuff. Really? Well they had one that i can think of – Cyclone Tracy – that was pretty bad, caused loads of damage. Interest sparked, i pulled up the wiki page to pad out my story with some ‘facts’.

cyclone tracy…world’s smallest tropical storm…

Seriously. Whatever the criteria are that defines a tropical storm apparently we had the suckiest one ever. Why was everyone banging on about it so much?

Every now and then my keyboard settings at work switch from German into English. There is some key combination that i can’t be bothered turning off that makes the change mid-sentence. It’s really only the z and y that gets you, until i tried to end a sentence with an emoticon…

Same key combination:

German settings – :o)

English settings – >o(

Smiley happy-go-lucky in Germany is angry frown in England… speaks for itself really.

They are advertising a Jamie Cullum album on tele at the moment. Quote at the bottom of the screen:

“Jamie is fantastic”

- Clint Eastwood

yeah cause that’s going to make me buy it. I like records that 100 year old cowboys like…

How many songs does Robert Plant use “Hey baby, oh baby, pretty baby…nah nah nah no do me now”? 7.

What are the limits to the term ‘no offence’? Exactly how much does it cover? “No offence mate, but you’re a cockstain!”

So looking through my documents the other day to find something i stumbled across an old entry that i wrote and never posted. Meta tags showing creation date of 15 February 2007 13:04:00, and given the subject content this is a pretty accurate description of what my life was like almost 3 years ago.

To set the scene, i’d been in Frankfurt for i guess 8 months or so, and was working a Praktikum/Internship for an absolute pittance for the Walt Disney Corporation – Life rocked! Only 2.0 can probably relate to how this really feels, though Kat had to listen to me whinge about it incessantly and did help me though it.

So i bring you (unedited)…

Me T-3

This is every week since getting a job in Germany. This goes way beyond being a creature of habit.

Monday:

Wake up and curse that it feels like minutes ago that I finished work on Friday. Promise to rest more next weekend.

Walk to work. Pass old man with a bike just standing in front of a building. If I don’t pass him he’s late or I’m late. Or he’s dead. But he doesn’t look that old. Still wonder when he’s not there.

Pass short girl with brown hair in between Bockenheimer Landstr and Taunusanlage tube stop. She is always smiling or almost laughing yet is always alone. Only two possibilities…she leaves an incredibly funny person at the tube who always tells her a really funny joke that lingers enough to keep this ridiculous smile up till I have to walk past her… or she is torturing some guy and is cynically laughing at how she holds his heart in her hands…im thinking the latter is more believable.

Get to work and do ‘Monday morning activities’ which invariably includes fitting in the development of whatever whacky zany improvements my boss has ‘thought of’ (please read as ‘read in a web designers magazine’ AND/OR ‘seen on one of our competitors sites’.)

Monday morning meeting. Discuss whacky zany improvements. Provide feedback. Feedback is ignored. Make suggestions as to why this is a bad idea. Suggestions ignored.

Go back to Monday activities which now include fixing up ‘whacky zany improvements’ from last week and making them how they were before – see ignored suggestions from previous week.

Lunch.

After lunch, spend a lot of time cursing under breath and watching the clock.

Stay back after work to catch up on emails. Started the day with 44 unanswered emails in email box. 22 of which are from people saying why have I not answered my email. Now have 74 messages, 30 of which is Kat and Squires saying shots on a Sunday is bad.

Go home leaving 44 unanswered emails.

Put music on.

Cook cheapo spaghetti from Pennymarkt which only has 20% tomato in the sauce. I hate tomato sauce. I hated spaghetti 6 months ago. Eat half and keep half in lunch box for Tuesday.

Watch snooker/MTV/Bundesliga 1 on tele, AND/OR play Spider Solitaire.

Go to sleep between 11 and 12.

Tuesday

Wake up and curse that I didn’t go to sleep earlier.

At work before I have woken up. Same boring tasks, unless there is more whacky zaniness.

Eat left over 20% Spaghetti for lunch and continue working. Can’t take lunch break cause have to leave early for school. Positive this is illegal however working full time for €400 a month should be as well.

Curse a bit after lunch and count down minutes until 5:00.

Go to bathroom till 5:15 when it is time to go to School.

Walk two train stations so I can save 40cents and get the 3-stop ticket.

Have my first coke of the week. Think about my plan of only having coke when I’m at school so that I develop some sort of Pavlovian association with thinking in German and Coke. Marvel at how I have a psychology degree.

Nervously squirm through 2 and a half hours (3 in German time) of Deutsch Lessons.

Catch train home three stops and walk the rest.

Cook something on toast. Options are: Toasted Cheese Sandwich / Beans on Toast / or Virgin BLT’s. Generally haven’t done shopping and only have cheese and butter in fridge and loaf of bread. Narrows choice down significantly.

Watch snooker/MTV/Bundesliga 1 on tele, AND/OR play Spider Solitaire.

Go to sleep between 11 and 12.

Wednesday

Wake up and curse myself for being so tired. Can’t wait till weekend.

Same things today at work.

Go home for lunch – something on toast, or fish-fingers. Sometimes have lunch with Phong.

More usual work stuff.

Finish work and stay back to catch up on emails. Spend most of time writing this blog that only 30 people in a week look at and they are all in Germany. 28 of which is Squires opening up his browser at home where he has our blogs open up automatically.

Go home leaving 44 unanswered emails.

Put music on.

Cook cheapo spaghetti from Pennymarkt.

Watch snooker/MTV/Bundesliga 1 on tele, AND/OR play Spider Solitaire.

Go to sleep between 11 and 12.

Thursday

Wake up and curse that I always curse in the morning.

At work before I have woken up. Same boring tasks, don’t care for more whacky zaniness.

Eat left over 20% Spaghetti for lunch and continue working. Thinking about weekend already. Look at what times Man U is showing so I know when I have to be in pub. If Man U aren’t showing, look at what time Chelski is playing so I know when to be in pub. Continue process ad nauseum till I find a reason to go to the pub. Under 21B’s Georgia Vs. Lichtenstein…. I’m there.

Curse a bit after lunch and count down minutes until 5:00.

Go to bathroom till 5:15 when it is time to go to School.

Walk two train stations so I can save 40cents and get the 3-stop ticket.

Have second coke of the week. Coke has no effect now. Just want sleep.

Nervously squirm through 2 and a half hours (3 in German time) of Deutsch Lessons.

Catch train home three stops and walk the rest of the way to the pub. No food at home so going for Midnight Buffet. Play pool until midnight buffet. I love Pool. If no family there, play pool by myself and have a beer, eat and at home in bed by half 12 at the latest. If family there, play Pool with squires, have several beers, 42 Jägermeisters, fall over, put buffet somewhere remotely close to mouth, and stumble home for a few hours sleep.

Friday

Thank fuck.

Don’t care how tired I am cause it’s Friday. Tell myself and everyone else I’m going to have a quiet weekend. Invariably end up going out anyway.

This could entail:

• Video Night at Squires: Typically pick up two bottles of red on the walk over….each. Check email, listen to music, drink wine, talk shit, every now and then put a DVD on, Squires getting tired at about 12 cause there’s no girls for him to try to tune, me and Kat leave, have to walk past Irish to get to both of our places, discuss for entire journey the pro’s and cons of stopping in, invariably decide to stop in for a quiet one…next few hours can vary….get home by 6 if we’re lucky.
• Playstation night at Ben’s. Meet Ben at Wormland. Get off bus at supermarket near his house in the sticks. Buy crate of beer and frozen pizzas. Walk back to his. Play playstation, listen to music, watch movies, look up good united goals on youtube. Finish crate of beer about 3 or 4. Walk to service station to buy more beer (crate) and pizza. Come back and eat pizza, fall asleep halfway through first beer.
• Laundry on a Friday (Cause United play early on Saturday). Meet Kat at Irish. Catch train to Laundromat. Throw clothes in machine, turn it on, go to nearest pub. Have one pint, go back, take our washing out, throw both of ours into one enormous dryer, set it to run twice and head back to pub. After pint, take clothes out, walk home, dump clothes on floor next to bed, but hang up work pants. Priorities. Head to Irish – carnage ensues.

Saturday

Wake up swearing out loud. Head hurts. Need to do laundry. Head hurts. Go do laundry with Kat. Eat Pizza. Wave to the same waiters at pizza hut. Order the exact same food. Have the same conversation about how we shouldn’t be drinking this much. Try to recap the night’s events. Text other people we might have seen the previous night to try to piece together what happened. Begin to make plans for tonight. Find out when football starts. Watch football. Head hurting less. Swear that we won’t still be here for Karaoke. Shots..blurry..walk Kat home.

Sunday

See Saturday with a bigger hangover. Throat sore from singing. No laundry so night begins earlier. Typically go out to eat food cause forgot to do shopping on a Saturday. Run out of bread. Still have butter. Options limited. Start thinking about work tomorrow. Know that I can’t afford to go out and plan to stay in and not go out. Receive a text that anyone is out anywhere…last remaining will power dies, liver cringes.

Possible exceptions to this are:

Man United playing Champions League or League Cup or any other reason they would be playing midweek. In which case, add beer / Jaegermeister and midnight buffet to mid-week schedule.

I have work for London to do – substitutes for TV and Spider Solitaire.

Greener pastures…

Ok i have another post written but i’m still deciding if i should post it, so in the interim here’s another old Xanga one.

I saw Johhny Cash this morning. He’d lost a bit of weight and turned German but he seemed well…

I Strongly suggest, given the opportunity, that everyone walk home drunk at least once in their life listening to my ipod. Admittedly this is a goal very few of you, if any, will ever achieve and i am sorry for this.

I suppose i have to give a bit of background information if this story has a chance of working.

So i have a new ipod now after my old one didn’t survive the journey home. A lot more memory to play with this time so i don’t have to be restrictive in what i throw on there. Anyways, i went through a phase once when i tried to ‘acquire’ as much of Mike Patton’s work as possible. Basically i would google and read as much as i could and try to find it. Similar to the endless search for the Nine Inch Nails Halo’s…i digress…So now i have several hours of Mike Patton’s finest and indeed worst creative moments scattered about my Ipod.

This is a good thing!

I think it is a sign of someone’s genius when their good stuff is sooo good it makes you overlook how bad their bad stuff really is. It’s the same with Trent Reznor, Maynard etc. They have all released some really really really bad stuff. Yet if you were to float an mp3 out there with a description “Rare recording, Trent Reznor, Mike Patton, Maynard James Keenan collaboration” it would move like hotcakes. Apparently hotcakes move really fast in America. Actually, probably add Bowie or Nick Cave in there as well for a bit of obscure credibility, Rick Rubin as producer and you have a hit on your hands. Pretty much they could fart in the general direction of a microphone and people would try to ‘acquire’ it…i digress a little further…

So during the day, my ipod is not that bad really. Bit all over the shop, but generally good enough that i don’t have to take it out of my pocket to skip through something. But at night, particularly when under the influence, it appears to take a life of it’s own. Do you remember the first time you saw the video to Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy? Now i like my horror flicks, and possess a good consitution when it comes to gore and violence etc. I found Dr. Gunther’s Anatomy for Beginners quite amusing and interesting, not shocking. Remove the skin from a cadaver and hang it on a giant hook next to the exposed cadaver flesh…good idea! Have a naked live chick standing next to it so the geeky guy with better English than Gunther could point out what we were looking at…tops idea! Having a bloke with his bits out so the geeky guy could do the same…not so necessary.

How far can one digress and keep it within the realm of a digression as oppose to a loss in focus? Is there a difference?

oh yeah, come to daddy…this was truly shocking to me. The flashes of clips proving to be slightly more suggestive than subliminal…the little girls with his face. It’s truly chaotic and horrific…welcome to my ipod. One minute you have Foy Vance tip-toeing through a melody and then suddenly Mike is screaming in 7 different tongues at you, and then he’s gone… magical!

That was really a long explanation for such a small point…I think i have contracted Squires…is it treatable? :o)

Basically i have just tried to namedrop as many alt-rock (insert cool dark music alternative sub-genre here) people into this entry so when google sweeps over it i should get a few more hits from Internet Goth fiends…

Something..something..something..generic darkness…..
Something..something..something..bleeding…..

Saturday

A decent nights rest and very little to drink the previous night meant we were feeling fine. We set off to enjoy Prague during the daytime. not phased by the seemingly ineffectiveness of the ‘Slavic plan’ it was decided that if we were to run into any nefarious creatures on the trams or in the streets silk would address me in Serbian – though sadly not on the Serbian finger phone – and i would respond with ‘Da’. What could possibly go wrong? I actually do know some Czech. My old boss taught me some. It goes something like this (ignore spelling):

Me: Ahoj (hey there)

Czech Person: Ahoj (hey there yourself!)

Me: Jak se mas? (how’s tricks?)

Czech Person: <insert random Czech sentence here>

Me irrespective of what the Czech person has just said: Velmi Zaji Mavi (Very Interesting)

Colt 45…

I try to pick up useless bits of other languages when i meet people. My Swedish friend Jon taught me a very handy sentence in….Swedish coincidentally…and made me use it at the Nordic bar to some chick with an enormous Welsh rugb playing boyfriend:

Jon: Say it!

Swedish Chick: Go on tell me.

Me with a wary eye on aforementioned Welsh Goliath: Du oer soert (i think you’re cute…to the chick not the goliath!)

Swedish Chick: awww

Me preparing to duck: Skavi hongla? (Can we snog?)

Swedish chick: *giggles*

Welsh Goliath who apparently doesn’t speak a lot of Swedish: What did he say?

Swedish chick: He thinks i’m cute…

Pretty sure i was in there. Goliath was just cramping my style.

I used to have a cheat sheet in Spanish written by my New Zealand mate’s Portuguese wife in preparation for my trip to Andorra for those non-French speakers… still with me? It’s like a story by Tolkien…How many fucking characters did that book really need? Anyway at that stage i just assumed Portuguese and Spanish were the same thing just with a different accent. So when i finally got around to using them it went something like this:

Me: Tu tienes ojos mui belos (it is important to note here that i lost said cheat sheet some time ago and these are words that i remembered but could quite possible be a combination of all three sentences. They were something like ‘You have nice eyes’, ‘you have nice hair’, ‘would you like to throw shapes on the dancefloor’).

Spanish girl laughing: You speak old…like the bible.

I dated a French Canadian girl for a little while and when she went back to Canada she wanted me to call her, but her Mum generally answered the phone and didn’t speak any English so i had to ask in French Canadian…it’s not French no matter how much they claim it is. Cypress Hill don’t speak Spanish, they speak Mexican.

Me: Puige parlais a Manon sil vous plait? (Not as bad as Brad Pitts Inglorious Italian but pretty fucking close to it)

French Canadian mum: <insert some 15 minute rant in unintelligible French words that i don’t know, but i assume mean she’s not there>

Me: *click*

Guess i probably should have had a backup plan ready for if she was not available. I don’t know why she went back to her ex either…

So we were walking around Prague weren’t we…anyway it turns out that Jaywalking is a crime there. I know it probably is a crime everywhere but they seem to enforce it there. Seriously this copper stopped these tourists and asked for their passports saying the light was red. We fled the scene. Tourists got to stick together right? Da!

Silk stops to check out the TGIF’s they have there. For 4 years living in London i have avoided TGIF’s and mocked people for travelling to the other side of the world (i’m looking in your direction Americans) to eat the same thing as at home so i was not looking forward to breaking with my traditions here.

We head across the bridge – you know, ‘the’ bridge – to look for Silk’s cousin. Hey if you want real place names go read a travel blog. This is a place for ranting free of all bridles of spelling and facts. I used to give tours to friends visiting me in London starting in Greenwich and taking in the old pirate docks:

Friend pointing to Tower bridge: What’s that?

Me: A bridge over the Thames. Come on the next pub is just over there….

We meet Boban, Silk’s cousin who sells watercolours on ‘the’ bridge. I really liked one of them but was a bit out of my price range. I believe my excuse was that i was worried about taking it home on the plane….we’re driving…smooth…

Next stop was some more Mexican at a place called Azteca. Apparently it’s another chain but as i hadn’t heard of it i felt at ease that it wasn’t in the same vain as TGIF’s. Was a little disappointed when Silk said Mexicans would never go there. :( It was really, really nice though, easily the best Mexican i have eaten. It is number 1 out of 4. The order goes something like this:

1. Azteca, Prague
2. El Pacifico, Frankfurt
3. Mexican who’s name i can’t remember in Dresden, Dresden
4. Mexican who’s name i can’t remember in Maastricht, Maastricht

The Maastricht one takes number 4 by default as i can’t really remember it…at all…and can only remember Squires being disappointed with it so i will have to trust his judgement on this one. It was about the same time that i told Silk i only eat to avoid getting headaches and don’t really enjoy food. He is yet to forgive me.

Following the Mexican and a few beers, we split up to go our separate ways for a few hours. I’m trying to find an Irish pub that will show the United match and Silk was determined to give his winnings back to the Casino cause he felt a bit bad for them.

I go to the first pub offering me a free beer to go in. A classy establishment. Rocky O’Paddy O’Shannaheys or something to that effect…you know, traditional type place. I get there for the end of the Chelski match if i’m not mistaken, which i may well be as the beers were flowing down quite smoothly. I remember they had a live webcam in the bar and texting Squires to look for me on the webcam. I’ve had this before in Amsterdam in my one and only visit, while having a lemonade downstairs at a cafe and boychild asking me if i was the one in the wheelchair. (This post is making me seem really international isn’t it…) To clarify it for Squires i had to let him know that I wasn’t the fat bald bloke in the Giggs jersey…for once.

I remember United got up and the Waitresses were hot.

Silk texts to let me know he’s running late so i will stay put. I’ve already had 5 beers and have moved on to ciders. Would be 8 by the time Silk showed up…i want to go to sleep…oh right…Mudhoney.

Some Random Irish guy starts chatting to me on the way back from having a jimmy in the jacks. I have a bit of banter with him. After my next return he leans in and says “i’ve just given these English lads a bit off stick about their crap football side. You might have to have me back here in a minute…”

You fucking what? I AM NOT IRISH! Falls on deaf ears with him as he beckons me to start singing about the green fields of wherever the fuck he was from. I try changing the subject and ask him what he was doing in Prague. He said something. I may have said Velmi Zaji Mavi. I said i was here for the Mudhoney show and did he know them?

Irish twat: Yeah man, Every Good Boy Deserved Fudge! *Cue air guitar playing*

I’m sure the air-guitar playing fraternity are exactly who Mudhoney are targeting with their power ballads…

It does occur to me though that the saying (moniker?) Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge – on this occasion a Mudhoney album though generally a way to remember the notes on the treble clef E G B D F is different back in Australia, well at least in my music class it was. We were taught Every Good Boy Deserves Fruit. America – Fudge. Australia – Fruit. You do the math…

A quick stop at Masturbation and it was time for Mudhoney. Masturbation is KFC kiddies. You always go back to it, it’s always the same, and when you are finished you swear you’ll never do it again.

So 8 beers under my belt and i’m feeling dandy. We meet up with Boban again and head straight to the gig. I was facing a T-shirt dilemma however. I would ordinarily buy a t-shirt, but i have already been quite vocal about people wearing the shirts of the band who’s gig they are at (Greenday fans i’m looking in your direction)…and i definitely didn’t want to walk backstage wearing one of their shirts. A quick change and now it was hidden beneath my other two shirts….I’m so grunge.

We were a little late getting to the gig, so we missed the support band but just in time to grab beers before Mudhoney took the stage. No backstage before this gig. Made a few film clips from where we were, and it goes without saying they were great again. Bit different crowd – well at least from where we were standing – but the band had so much energy considering they drove straight to the gig from Warsaw. The stage divers appeared to be a bit more knowledgeable at least.

I go to make some comment to Silk during the set and was shot down. I had forgotten the rule. The most valued of all rules as well so i was chastising myself for the next song or two. There should be no talking during songs, unless it is super super important. This rule hasn’t made it to Australia yet but needs to. Australians are perennial threats in concerts. Normally i am an avid supporter of this rule, mainly cause i am deaf and can’t hear anything anyway. Flip is a habitual song-interrupter. The Australian influence might have spread to the Philippines. I’m used to it now so i end up nodding and smiling a lot. Backfired once at a Modest Mouse show. Flip leans in to say something. I give him the ear but can’t hear anything as per usual. I make out something like “blah blah blah Johnny Marr”. I look back up to the stage and say yeah he does kind of look like Johnny Marr. About another 4 or 5 occasions during the gig flip shakes my arm and i hear variations of “blah blah blah Johnny Marr dude!” at varying levels of excitement. After the show we go outside to smoke and finish beers and whatnot and the band makes an appearance at the window. Flip starts screaming like a banshee “Johhny Marr! Johnny Marr!” I’m like fuck Phil, yeah he kind of looks like him but i don’t think he’s going to get the joke….turns out Johnny Marr plays with Modest Mouse now…

We move a little closer during the encore to take some more movies and Guy spots us during one of the songs and nods. Recognition from the band! As soon as the set is finished Dan is at the side door beckoning us backstage. Did i mention i love these guys?

This time there is hardly any record company folk backstage, just us and the band. Whilst the 10 or so beers by now has given me confidence i’m still unsure how to approach the subject of a photo with them. Cue Boban. Bless his little cotton socks.

Boban: You are big rock band from Seattle yes? We take photo.

And promptly throws himself into the mix. Well if Boban can i’m not missing out.

Now the ice is broken there is more chit chat. i introduce myself to Mark and Steve finally, Silk still hasn’t redeemed himself as an introducer…if only his awesomeness could spread to other areas… Mark and Steve think my accent is Scottish, Guy thinks it’s Irish. I’m still coming to terms with Mudhoney having a discussion about me.

Boban is deep in conversation with Mark and Steve so i join silk and Dan over by the couch. We have a good laugh about the Serbian finger phone. Dan is awesome, a really top bloke. Apparently i can’t hang out with Silk if i ever go to Seattle – something to do with the awesomeness level i think – so i’m going to annoy his sister and her husband, but i really hope to run into these guys again one day, especially Dan and Guy, they are just champions! Dan played in Nirvana for fuck’s sake and you’d think he’s more interested to hear a couple of drunk guys explaining talking Serbian into their hands to a Czech cab driver…

We can tell they’re tired but when we asked Dan if he was enjoying it his answer sums it up:

“Look at me man, I’ve just finished playing music i love, i’m backstage having a beer in Prague, of course i’m having fun!”

Substitute “playing” for “watching” and you could have taken the words right out of my mouth. Meat Loaf pun unavoidable.

Unfortunately we inevitably have to leave the guys so we part ways. Full of courage now i’m shaking hands with them all. I don’t know if we were on handshaking terms but we are now. Boban takes us to a local bar where his Serbian mates have congregated. Like Silk put it, it certainly brought a different and great element to the weekend. Completed it in a way. We had done the mega touristy stuff, stuff people wish they could do, and now stuff that hardly any tourists do and locals take for granted. Most of the chat is in Serbian so i just listen and nod and smile…bit like being at a gig really. One guy in the group is Czech and says he can only speak Czech and German. We try to shoot the shit in German but i am really unsure who knew less German between the two of us. It was a dismal effort.

We head in to town when the bar shut. Nothing happened outside the bar did it Silk? Apparently some Japanese company has paid to close of the main square – you know, ‘the’ square…the one with ‘the’ clock – and have giant smoke machines filling the air with…smoke. Looked really eerie. Have a few great photos but now i wish i took more. One last beer and then it was off to bed. A few hours sleep, a long drive and we would be back in Frankfurt and unfortunately reality.

That ending is supposed to have been poetical but on second reading looks like the blog equivalent of finishing an essay with “and then i woke up and it was all a dream…”

It did all happen, it just felt surreal. Part 4 will be pictures and Video evidence if i ever get around to putting them on youtube. Stay tuned!

Without further ado, i bring you – The Road Trip.

Thursday

I don’t do early mornings that well, so it’s normally got to be something special to make me get to work by 7. Finding out that Silk’s name was on the door and i was his ‘+1′ was enough for me. I had spent most evenings that week cleaning my flat, however the last two nights were about picking the right outfit, nay, t-shirt. See I don’t normally give a a flying proverbial about what i wear, but everything i know about the Seattle scene is that it is full of cliques. If there was even the slightest, remotest possibility of meeting the band i was going to be the Switzerland of music. I’d finished reading Grunge is Dead a few month’s ago and was well aware of the possible divides – Punk vs. Grunge, Rock vs. Metal, Punk vs. Metal, punk vs. Hair Rock. What happens when you are like me and like Pearl Jam and Nirvana? Throw in a healthy affection for Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and where does that leave me? No i was playing Switzerland alright and not entering into that debate. I went with the ‘Living End’ shirt. Aussie Punk Rockabilly…work’s every time…just like colt 45 init Billy Dee…

So Silk picks up the car and i meet him. It was some sort of Mercedes mini-people mover thing. We’re not what you would call auto-aficionado’s. Put it this way i had never driven it on Gran Tourismo on Playstation so the chances of me knowing it were slim to none. The following day the conversation would go something like this:

Silk: What kind of car is this?
Me: I dunno. Some sort of Mercedes.
Silk: It’s a golf right?
Me: Nah some sort of Mercedes.
Silk: But it’s a golf right?
Me: Nah Golf’s are VW’s. This is some sort of Mercedes.
Silk: Nah, we chose a Golf.
Me pointing to 3 inch Mercedes symbol horn on steering wheel: Nah it’s some sort of Mercedes.

I have been getting worried about my hearing and what sort of damage i am doing going to shows all the time. I give Flip crap for putting tissues in his ears at gigs but i probably should be doing the same. I was contemplating bringing some for the Mudhoney sets cause i had heard they were loud…turns out I should have brought them for the car trip. My lord that boy can talk! I think that is easily the most conversation i have had over a 5 hour period ever. I’m sorry Mudhoney, can you play into this ear please…i’m deaf in that one! All jokes aside, luckily Silk held the floor for most of the conversation…i would have run out of things to say before leaving Frankfurt and had to have started reciting the alphabet. I’m not the most talkative of people.

So we make it to our hotel without too much of a fuss, it’s two U-bahn stops from the gig, perfect.

I realise that i have no idea whatsoever of the procedure involved in having your name on the door. I can only remember one other time when my name was on the door of a gig. One time at Uni i was roped into group work in Psychology with this guy Anthony and this girl Kira. Both seemed fairly cool. Our task was to test how long it took for a rat to work out a skinner box under the effects of alcohol. We were supplied with warm flat, low alcohol beer… Tooheys Blue if my memory serves me correctly. You wouldn’t give this shit to your worst enemy. Not wishing to subject our little rat to this torture, we nipped off to the Uni bar for some ice cold Bourbon & Coke. Well didn’t little Splinter like that. He figured that box out like it was yesterdays news and we got a half hour early mark. As only a teenage sitcom would have it, we walked out of class thinking we were all mighty cool and needed to instantly find out more about our cool selves. Turns out they were both Guitarists. Isn’t everybody i thought? Kira’s band was playing that weekend and she asked if we wanted to go. Of course! Mainly cause she was devilishly fit. A quick scout on the internet and it turned out she was in an all-girl metal band called Nitocris. I was well chuffed to be on the door of a proper band. They were supported by Pre-shrunk another Aussie band who had two bass players and a drummer. Nitocris finished off with a heavy cover of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls which was pretty funny to hear sung by 4 hot chicks. After the gig Kira made her way through the crowd to say hi to us. I offered to buy her a drink, using the entirety of my smoothness…

Me: Can i get you something to drink?
Kira: No it’s cool, they have a tab for us to drink for free.
Me: Ok then.
Kira after returning from the bar: Actually, the tab has been closed…is that offer still available?
Me thinking she’ll say a beer: Sure
Kira: Cool, a double Vodka and pineapple juice please.

wtf?!? Who orders a double off someone you’ve met once? Did i mention she was crazy hot? She got her drink…

So what was i saying that story for? Oh yeah…past experience of being on the door and what the procedure was…

I forget.

So we enter the venue. It’s pretty packed. The support band is playing. First impression, i would have to go with the lovechildren of Joey Ramone and Courtney love. The lead singer with black hair over half of his face, with black sunglasses on, black leather jacket, screaming non-sensically into the microphone. The female drummer belting away like Meg White only wishes she could in some sort of white wedding dress you’d expect to see Courtney Love throwing up over in some tabloid picture from a few years ago. The bass-player, a transvestite Sandra Bernhardt looking creature of Amazonian proportions was accompanied by a slight-framed, porn-moustached Borat on second guitar. Despite only Squires being intrigued by that description they were actually very good and a lot of fun. We would later find out they were from Israel. Charlie Megira & The Modern Dance Club (http://www.myspace.com/themoderndanceclub) if you feel like checking them out.

So Silk sends a text to Dan Peters, Mudhoney’s drummer. All of a sudden there is Dan waving to us and motioning for us to come back stage. Well i wouldn’t like to have been rude to the man so it was the least we could do.

Now i don’t have any hilarious stories representing a backstage precedence…except maybe the school band which doesn’t count. So on the way in im thinking…ok just try not to act like a muppet. We walk in and it’s just the band, me, Silk and three women from some German record label. Silk does one of the worst introduction sequences ever…introducing me to Dan before saying hi to Mark Arm and Steve Turner, leaving me to stand awkwardly just inside the door as they look over to see who the guy in the living end shirt is. Cue smiling nervously. Silk hands out the beers, which was another of the procedures i was totally unaware of. I was planning on not touching anything and speaking when spoken to.

At one point, a double live vinyl album is passed around for the band to look at…presumably it is the pride and joy of the 3 German record chicks. They ask the question, how many live albums do you have? Steve and Mark start reminiscing and mention one about the same time of Piece of Cake. I’m about to blurt out ‘the BBC sessions one’ when it sinks in – i’m not really sure if it’s a real album or not. Perhaps it’s some bootleg i downloaded unknowingly, and i could expose myself for having illegally downloaded their stuff. Here I am, backstage for free and i haven’t even bought their cd’s…i should be ashamed…oh look free beer!

I promise i will buy the actual cd’s when i have a fixed residence…there is only so much i can cart around Europe with me.

So it’s about the time where I am supposed to tell you how normal the band are and they are all regular people etc. Well Fuck that. They’re not. They are really really really cool people! Regular people are poo. These guys were easy to talk to, friendly, and just great knockaround guys who you’d love to have a beer with and talk shit until the cows come home. They looked like they felt awkward when i was feeling awkward when the Drummer of the modern dance club started fishing through her bag for gypsy trinkets – fair play to Steve for wearing the good luck arm bracelet throughout the entire gig. Apparently it’s bad luck if it doesn’t break…im sure that was arranged at some point. It was not like watching Ozzy Osbourne going through Christina Aguilera vocal gymnastic warm-ups, or talks over long instrumentals or planned cover songs. It was just four lads sitting around having a wine or vodka cranberry and chewing the fat. When the stage director or whatever his role was, came and said, well the stage is ready if you want to go on, it was almost like they had forgotten they were doing a show tonight and were fine to just sit and chat for a few more hours. I’m glad they went on stage though, they were awesome!

Now i must say i wasn’t a huge fan of Mudhoney before this trip. I had their cd’s, knew a few of their songs and could appreciate the music, but i wouldn’t have called myself a fan at all. I can blame my sister for that. When i was listening to Boyz II Men and Arrested Development, she was sending away for obscure bands that i’d never heard of, because our record stores in Sydney had never heard of them either. Green River? Soundgarden? Mother Love Bone? Who? No i don’t want to go to see Jeff Buckley. (oh my god i will never live that one down). Of course we had all the Pearl Jam bootlegs before they started releasing them, and all the Nirvana stuff…but she kind of missed the boat there with Mudhoney. Nice one Carly. :P

But you can now call me a fan. In fact i’ll tell you i’m a fan.

The show was great. In terms of a complete contrast to the backstage atmosphere, it was as if Mark Arm has a chemical reaction to the crowd which makes him spasm about the stage screaming out venomous track after track with barely an acknowledgement that he is on our plane of existence. Dan Peters marauds through songs, building up to the final crescendo of rolls leaving you intensely waiting for the final symbol crash and kick of the bass drum to signify applause, which never comes. Guy Maddison attacks the songs with almost a boyish sense of having been deprived of this experience prior to joining the band so he is going to enjoy it twice as much now to play catch-up. Steve Turner’s guitar seems to be wanting to feedback at will, a la Jimi Hendrix, where unless he keeps actively playing it is going to spiral away into uncharted chasms of noise. Perhaps that’s a feature of all Seattle guitarists…

Even with my head right next to the PA the sound and timing was great. Such a tight unit. The crowd seemed up for it as well, even if some of them weren’t too up to speed on stage diving etiquette – “The idea is to get up and get back into the crowd as quick as you can before security drags you offstage” Guy instructed.

I distinctly remember wishing i had a Dictaphone to remember the phrases i was creating to describe what i was seeing…sadly you get the descriptions of my memories.

At the end of the first set we headed back stage on the premise that there wasn’t going to be an encore. Nice one Silk. We bust through the door to the band standing in the corner discussing whether or not to go back on. Cue annoyed security band dude staring poignantly at us.

Silk: It’s ok, we’re with Mudhoney. I’m from Seattle.
Security dude: Funny. I’m with Mudhoney and i have no idea who you are?
Silk: Oh. Hi, I’m Pete *shakes hand*

Class silk! ;)

A small moment where some of the band weren’t completely seeing eye to eye and all i could think of was how much the ‘serious’ Steve Turner now reminded me of Matt Stone in BASEketball – i kept waiting for him to pull Brittany’s mum’s pube from his mouth.

We watched the encore from side/back stage, including a cool video from behind Steve and Mark facing out towards the crowd. I couldn’t help but wonder how many people out there could see me and were thinking “i wish i was that guy”, like i have done so many times at so many gigs.

Backstage again after the show and all was rosy with the band as we all resumed chatting albeit with several more folk about the place. In the end, Silk and I might have played the game too well…while everyone else was schmoozing etc, me and Pete were in the corner talking about our weight…Über Rock n Roll.

We say goodnight to the guys – they are on their way to Warsaw in the morning. We will meet them again in Prague in two days time.

So i’m not allowed to discuss the c-bomb and now i can’t talk about fashion either. There’s just no keeping Squires’ high-brow audience happy is there. I might go back and edit my post (if i can’t write a new one) to include ugg-boots worn outside the house – that’s a definite no-no.

Me: There really are a lot of fit women in Frankfurt
Berger: There is a huge difference between ‘fit’ and ‘accessible’.

I used to watch a lot of stand-up comedy when i was living in Australia. I’d go to uni during the day and straight to work at the Rusty (RSL, club, pub) and then get home at 1-2 in the morning or so. Of course you can’t go straight to sleep as anyone who has done shift work will tell you, so i’d watch tele. What else is on at 2 in the morning than the comedy channel.

I remember this clip and I’m paraphrasing something i saw about 8 or 9 years ago here, but if it rings a bell and someone could tell me the comedian’s name i’d be much appreciative. Google gave me nothing.

You know when you fancy a girl and she tells you that everything is so good between you that she’d just like to keep it as friends? Imagine that in a job interview…

Thanks for coming Tommy. We’ve had a look through your cv and it’s very impressive. You’ve got written down here that you’re honest, not afraid of commitment…you’re good looking (creative licence rocks!)…we’ve seen you’re hilarious…basically you are exactly what we are looking for, but we’d just rather not. We admit, you are perfect for the role, in fact so much so that if you wouldn’t mind we’d like to keep your cv on file and call you to complain about the guys that we do take on and how bad they are at the job…

Want to know how to keep a fool waiting? I’ll tell you next week…

No seriously, do you want to know how to keep a fool waiting? Send him a text message which reads:

* some text missing *cking Amazing!!!

Watch how long they wait for the rest of that message to show up…

I have realised i have become desensitized to life in general. For a while i thought my body was just rejecting life. Strange illnesses, bites and rashes…it was just like i was allergic to being. Now it seems my mentality has joined the party. I don’t know that i experience polarities of feelings anymore. I don’t really get happy, or sad, or find things funny or scary or horrifying – i get annoyed a lot but that doesn’t really count. I find it hard to remember a time when i could truly answer “i’m happy”. Sure, United winning cheers me up briefly, and music still elicits a reaction, but the rest is some sort of unresponsive, indifferent, grey numbness. I can’t surround myself with music and football every day. I watch movies and tv and barely register that it’s on. How did i like the movie? It was ok. Was it? I have no idea. It is my standard response to everything. How are you? I’m ok. Am i? I wouldn’t know. I’ve given up caring. I’ve managed to remove almost every thing or person which was causing me anxiety or stress from my life, to the point that i just float around independent of connection. I look forward to the occasional argument to fire up the coals of my wit to see if it still works. Would a change of scenery help? Probably not. I don’t know what would. I’ll just carry on my semi-detached existence hoping that something sparks me back to life. I’ve gone from being a man of bridled enthusiasm, to being a man of bridled participation.

Told you i was fucking hilarious.