The bits of stuff that fall in the cracks between Life, Music and outrageous fortune.		  
 
 
 
December
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1) Will you look at me when I'm talking to you! 2) You bastard!		 Joys of the cellphone-camera #101
31.12.05 - As a parting shot for 2005, I can't tell you enough about the usefulness of my mobile phone camera. Admittedly it doesn't quite match the quality of my regular digital camera, but I always have it on me and it's fairly inconspicuous - and anyway, the compromised quality lends a certain je ne sais quoi to the shots.
Take the vignette on the left f'rinstance. The lady seemed to be tearing strips off the bloke (in a very scary Germaine Greer voice, too), and I'm not sure he had anything to say in his defence. I have no idea what it was about, but I'm sure you can make up yor own version of events.
 

1) Soaking up the atmosphere of Pellegrinis' kichen 2) Peter surreptitiously sips the red

'twas the night before NYE..
31.12.05 - Every year Peter Greagg pops down from Canberra to be part of the drama and passion that is the Boxing Day Test, so yesterday when the game finished slightly ahead of schedule I sent him a text wondering if we could get together and have a bite to eat in the evening. It was on the drive into town that I had a epiphany of sorts listening to the Rude Future show on 3PBS. There was a very right-wing sounding American talking about children taking adult responsiblity from the age of seven (!), making particular reference to Richard Branson and the possibly apochryphal story of his mother dropping him off in the middle of nowhere and telling him to find his own way home. It was one of those moments of dreadful fascination, like when as a child I saw pictures in the London Illustrated News of Nationalist Chinese being peremptorily executed by Maoist soldiers and I couldn't help returning to them over and over again, even though they made me feel sick with fear.
I tried to imagine myself at the age of seven having the confidence to assert to my mum that I could find my way home from anywhere - actually, make that fourteen - and I knew that I wasn't that kid. But, I thought to myself, I'm not even that adult! Why not try a little experiment when I get into town and see if, by being Captain Assertive, I could change the potential course of the evening's events.
I rang Peter and asked if he'd ever been to Pellegrinis - he said no - so after I parked the car I wandered over to Pellegrinis, armed with the bottle of red that Bill gave me for Chrissy. They didn't advertise that they were BYO - and that's when I decided that instead of accepting the status quo, I'd actually walk in and ask if they were BYO and see where that got me.
As it turned out they aren't BYO, but as there wasn't a big crowd in, the owner decided it would be OK for me to bring in my bottle, as long as we ate in the kitchen and didn't give anybody else ideas.
Bloody hell! It worked! I felt like Geoge Costanza when he decided to do everything the opposite from normal; and he got the girl and was generally successful in all the things in which he usually failed dismally.
Maybe this is the Way of the Future. I'll give it a lash..

 

Miss Molly is over .05 again..		 Christmas passeth all understanding - again
26.12.05 - (Try saying that more than once without lisping). Boxing Day is drawing to a close and I've survived the dreaded Christmas ritual again. (Actually, if we're talking about survival, my bro'-in-law Geoff is the real survivor, having discovered he had a completely blocked artery to the heart and having a stent successfully inserted, all within days of Christmas).
As usual I had to climb down red-faced from my cold and forbidding Scrooge plinthe and expose my warm and fuzzy side to my relatives at least, if not the world. You can't deny kids the illusion that the world is momentarily focused on giving them a whale of a time - even I have faint memories of the excitement and the anticipation of Christmas eve, for goodness sake!
And even a cranky old bastard like me can soak up the warmth and generosity of that oddly complementary group of people that I happen to be related to, and actually really enjoy the experience.
 
Scrooged!
18.12.05 - I was settled in front of the TV, trusty Canora in hand, extemporising to the Country Music channel on Foxtel as is my wont, when I thought I heard the tentative ting of my front door bell. I went to the door, and sure enough, there were two boys of about nine or ten years of age standing on my doorstep.
Before I could say anything, they launched into a monotone version of Jingle Bells, which rendered me speechless for all of five seconds, at which point I waved my arms about and shouted, 'Stop! Stop! How much do you you want to shut up?'
Well, their little faces dropped - and it was only then I noticed they were rather too well scrubbed and dressed and, well, rather Christian looking for your average beggars. They looked at each other in confusion, as though they hadn't anticipated a reaction like mine in their wildest nightmares, and mumbled nervously that they didn't want any money and looking like they wanted to run home immediately and complain to God about the old bastard in Camberwell who gave them such a hard time.
Seeing their discomfort, and realising I'd misread the situation rather badly, I shook their quivering little hands and wished them both a Merry Christmas and better luck with my neighbours - but I'm not entirely sure they were mollified, the little darlings. Could be a life-shaping experience for them.
 

'That better be a sausage you're offering me..'		 Chris' birthday
4.12.05 - It's a matter of some wonderment to consider that Chris was born some thirty eight years ago. It's not just that he looks twenty-something, it's the whole damn conundrum, possibly compounded by sitting through the entire Sunbury movie/DVD last night at the Paramount Cinema, after which I felt like I was spinning in some '70s time vortex, inhabited exclusively by bra-less women and very hairy, bearded men singing, 'Oop oop pah doo'.
I rang Chris this morning to congratulate him before joining him and the Vermont St crew for a light BBQ lunch. Well, it was light until I introduced the birthday cheesecake into the equation, anyway. On the whole he seemed pretty happy with the way things turned out.
 

1) Stephen Cummings and band start the evening's proceedings (see a bigger pic)


2) The ornate facade of the Spiegeltent 3) The very civilised bar, replete with mirrors, a theme echoed throughout
Stephen Cummings at the Spiegeltent
1.12.05 - One delightful aspect of spending a longish time on this earth is that you get to meet people that you might otherwise have missed if you'd left early. One such person is Stephen Cummings, whom I've run into occasionally at festivals, but with whom I hadn't spent any time until recently. As a result, he offered me a freebie to come and see him and his band at the world-famous Spiegeltent, which currently squats between the NGV and the Arts Centre as part of its perpetual world tour.
My first surprise was how small the Spiegeltent is - I was expecting something more like a Big Top, for some reason. That's not to say it's in any way mean, but it's more like a modestly dimensioned wooden marquee (with mirrors and a bar) than a tent. Jimmy Sloggett said that Marlene Dietrich sang in this very space, and I could well imagine it - the Spiegeltent resonates of Europe in the '20s and '30s.
I got myself a chardonnay and sat down - and was very pleasantly entertained by Stephen and his band for the next hour and a bit. I didn't know much about Stephen's songs until he gave me a couple of his more recent albums, in particular Close Ups, which consists of acoustic renditions of his Sports' repertoire on the Liberation Blue label, which incidentally has some sort of tie-up with the Spiegeltent. He's a thoughtful writer who highlights aspects of relationships in their various phases with a wry kind of bemusement, which I appreciate all the more given the examination my own songs are getting at my solo gigs. As we all know he has a great voice too, and although he doesn't say all that much during his performance, he surprised me with quite a long and quite absurd story about an encounter with an Alaskan bear simply to introduce one song.
It was very hot though, and quite close, and I thought an hour was just about right, until I heard some woman complaining afterwards that it was 'light on'. I guess she must have paid..
I wandered down to Southgate with the intention of getting a bite, but confronted with one café after another full of chattering people, I decided that was going to be too lonely a business on my own and retired to the Café Vic in the Arts Centre, (which always looks as if it's closing whenever you get there), and had a toasted sandwich and a cuppa. Just right.
I gave the Archibald exhibition a cursory look on the way out, and was mildly disconcerted by the number of artists who'd decided that a self-portrait in the nude was the thing to do this year. Must've been something in the air. Anyway, I trust they pull their heads -and other bits - in next year.  
 
 
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