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The bits
of stuff that fall in the cracks between Life, Music and outrageous
fortune. |
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| March |
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Close
this window to return to Mike Rudd & Bill Putt's Stop Press |
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Team
Nauru tests the Starpark Café's furniture |
The
Games come to Camberwell
27.3.06 - I was having a cuppa at
the Starpark Café last week when these three enormous
gentlemen (pic left) sat themselves down to peruse
the Progress Press and have a few gallons of vegetable
juice. The older gentleman in mufti, whom I took to be
a team official, was having an animated discussion on
his mobile phone, which I wasn't party to as it was conducted
in what I imagine was the native dialect. However, I surmised
he was in touch with some local Nauruan immigrant about
the possibility of emulating the Sierra Leone athletes,
and melting inconspicuously into the local population.
I wondered if the person on the other end might've been
pointing out a couple of flaws in the plan, one of which
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might've been that Howard's
Pacific Solution calls for refugees to be plonked on Nauru
for a decade or two while the government waits for them
to die of frustration.
It's exactly the sort of thing that happens to you when
you've got a shit economy. |
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1)
Box seats at the Dome |
Love
at the Phone Dome
24.3.06 - You may have detected the
faintest whiff of disdain when Melbourne's flirtation
with The Games is mentioned here, but in fact, apart from
the incesesant media coverage, they haven't really impacted
one way or the other on me and most of my fellow Melburnians,
which is how it should be. However, I was pleased at Christmas
to be the recipient of a ticket to see a night of swashbuckling
rugby sevens, and the fact that it was part of The Games
was incidental.
I met my bro's-in-law Geoff and Wee Michael (plus Michael's
son Luke) at Geoff's shop in Canterbury last Wednesday,
and we took the train in to the newly opened Spencer St
station (Southern Cross). Quite impressive too. I remember
not being overly-whelmed the last time I saw it, but actually
being in it and seeing it functioning was quite, well,
grand.
In the past I've not been too thrilled watching rugby
at the MCG, but watching it from up on the third tier
over the half-way line at the more modestly |
2)
The Southern Cross' wavy ambience 3) A couple of
Maori guys sang a song for us |
proportioned Phone Dome
was actually better than watching it on TV.
We met Miss Molly's dad Steve at the Dome. Steve's
Scottish and completely wasted his voice on the
Scottish team and even suckered me into participating
in a Mexican wave. Hmm..
I have to put a word in here about travelling by
the Melbourne's much- |
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- it was terrific. I even plan to travel by train
today when I go into town to meet up with the Rudds
- it should be quite economical using my Senior's
Card.. Bloody hell - it's come to this.. |
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1)
Cab driver in secure cockpit |
Post-Cosmopolitan
Mike
20.3.06 - I hadn't travelled
by plane for a while, so when I went to the For Pete's
Sake CD launch early last week I got a little tense
before take-off. For some bizarre reason I imagine the
reports as they might appear in The Age should our flight
come to grief. I look around for other celebrities whose
portrait might be in The Age's archives, and if there
are none that I recognise, I fantasise that they'll be
forced to drag out some out-of-date shot of me - from
the seventies most likely - to garnish the item. Of course,
on this particular flight I'd be out-ranked by Russell
Morris, so no mug shot of My Crudd to mystify the plebs
this time around.
My uneasy mind moves on. Are my affairs in order? Nope,
they're far from it. I've started to put a will
together, but it's not finished, and anyway, no-one would
have the patience to find it amongst all the crap on my
computer. And the Spectrum album remains uncompleted,
so there's not even a posthumous CD to charm a disbelieving
audience. (How could we not have known? etc.)
more |
2)
Gus McNeil and a saturnine Mike do brekkie (pic Ryan)
3) 'I think I should head off to the airport', says Ross |
4)
The home of EMI's 301 studio 5) The War Memorial
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Post-Cosmopolitan
Mike
(cont.)
But there's a corollary. The morning
after the FPS bash, Ross Ryan and I were taken out
to breakfast by my publisher and Ross' former manager,
Gus McNeil. We had a nice leisurely chat over an
Italian ex-boxer's idea of breakfast and multiple
teas and coffees, until Ross said with just a hint
of urgency that his flight left in less than an
hour and Gus offered to take him to the airport.
Gus dropped me off at the hotel on the way and I
went for a little wander around the immediate CBD.
I checked out the old 301 studio where Ariel had
recorded with Peter Dawkins, and then |
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strolled through Hyde
Park. I was struck by how little had changed - Sydney's
still a racy old tart, and taxis are so easy to
get - but Melbourne's evolving and growing and,
well, optimistic. Then I remembered The
Games..
Having survived the flight up, I felt a little more
secure on the way home, but I still managed to conjecture
about my hideous death in a plane crash, however
statistically unlikely. No Russell Morris this time,
and Ross Ryan had caught an earlier flight, so there
was just a chance they'd have to dust off my photo
afterall. It was a pretty full flight too, so all
systems would be straining at optimum level and..
But who's this smirking down the aisle? That's bloody
Ross Ryan! (pic right) What are you doing
on my flight? Jesus - outranked again. |
6)
Look who's here! The man who wrote I Am Pegasus.. |
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1)
The headless meter 2) The city neuro-surgeon fixes the
meter |
The
city has a heart afterall..
9.3.06 - I complain a lot about shit
happening, so it's nice to have one's faith even partially
restored on the odd occasion. As is my wont I went into
the city to lunch with Richard, fresh back and invigorated
from his NZ trip as he is, and went to park by the Victoria
Market. A couple of parking inspectors were standing by,
twirling truncheons and laughing evilly, and when I got
out to feed the meter, one rounded on me and politely
informed me I could park over the road at a recently beheaded
meter for no cost, and quite legally - as long as I obeyed
the time restrictions of course. I had a lovely lunch
too. What evil lies in wait? |
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Mike
and Dave face life with no roots at all.. |
Dave
Orams magically appears
6.3.06 - I've mentioned already that
one of the reasons for going the the Big Day Out was to catch
up with former Bari and the Breakaways bassist, Dave Orams.
Of course, Dave's done a lot of things since those days, but
he said yesterday at the Willy RSL that it was in Christchurch
back in 1965 that we last met.
Subsequent to the Breakaways, Dave played with a number of
bands, including Quincy Conserve with Bruno Lawrence, whom
he remembers fondly as one of the best drummers he played
with. I saw Bruno playing with Claude Papesch in 1965, and
then Chants' guitarist Tim Piper joined them both a few years
later in the Electric Heap, who I remember appearing at Berties
in 1968.. |
Jeez.. Well,
I remember them appearing at Berties all right, but there's
no way I actually remember those dates - I had to check out
the New Zealand Music website
for those. My chronological memory is even more hopeless than
my actual memory, which is by now totally unreliable (while
entertaining).
And websites can't be relied on either. Myth gets repeated as
fact, then gets plagiarised holus bolus by some media
history student and and slips into the realm of historical fact.
A case in point: I did an interview with a charming young reporter
last week to publicise the GBYR concert, and in the published
article she quoted some background research she'd dug up to
the effect that I'll Be Gone 'topped the charts and
stayed in the No.1 slot for twenty weeks.' In fact I'll
Be Gone would've been lucky to hold the No.1 slot for twenty
minutes - it may have been in the charts for twenty
weeks. So, you can see how mis-facts can get to be perpetuated
as actual fact.
Anyway, it's going to be interesting catching up with Dave in
future. In some ways I can detect already that we've been leading
very similar lives, but in parallel universes - Dave's been
in Melbourne since the mid-seventies and I didn't even know
he was here, and vice-versa. That's bass players for
you.. |
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