Recapping and mentioning t-shirts. A lot. (reposted from The Lucas Letters)

"Dear Family;

Well, Bill Bailey was very funny and extremely entertaining as always. Plus I got to learn that when it comes to music, the augmented fourth chord (or diminished fifth chord, depending on your worldview) in considered not fit to be played in a church or in hymns. It was classified as a dissonance, because the sound was supposed to awaken bad thoughts. All this means for us today is that it's used in every haunted-house movie because it's very sound provokes uncertainty. Cool. The show wasn't all about historical musical nerdery. There were jokes too. I bought a tour t-shirt, which was the first shirt of that sort that I've ever bought at a show.

Oh! Also at the show I had a wonderful moment. As you all know, I print t-shirts for people. Most of the time it's for people I know or work with. So imagine my surprise when, while waiting in line at the Bill Bailey show, I spot someone wearing one of the 10 shirts I made for a band called Xquabed a year or so ago. I even saw the little Ampersand on the sleeve. I wanted to go over and talk to the guy, but common sense (and Tanja) told me not to embarrass him. Oh well. It was still a thrill.

Speaking of shirts, I've just had a monster order put in by various work-people. I ordered 20 blanks online, and I'll need to print them as soon as they get here. One guy originally said he wanted 2 shirts. He then got on the phone to his brother and ordered shirts for his brother, his brother's wife, his brother's son, ending up with 8 shirts total. I felt like telling him "You know, guy, you can place more than one order. I'm not dying next week."

Poor Tanja's been feeling a bit sick lately, but my super-immune-system has been keeping me safe.

All for now!

-Lucas"

Friday Off

dDue to my ATLing this week, I have to work a Saturday and have Friday off. It's been ages since I had a weekday free that wasn't annual leave or a sick day.

I went into the city and got a new cover for my iPod. I had bought one before, but apparently the new 80 gig Pods are thinner than the old ones. So I had to get a silicone case that could stretch.

Got an interview next week with this place. Looks promising.

Watching the Rifftrax version of Eragon. It's silly.

Went to see the David Hylton Band play at the Sando last night and took a buttload of pictures. He won't be short of Myspace pics for a while. I also slightly overimbibed. Well, I don't think I did, but my head this morning seems to think so.

I also dragged my laptop into the CBD looking for Wireless networks that all the cool kids are talking about. All I could find was the Tesltra Hotspot one. I ain't paying for Internetz!

So, yeah.

Not much to update, only that Tanja and I head to the Hunter Valley in about 3 weeks time.

Work continues as work does, only more so.

My hair and fingernails continue to grow.

If you’re thinking webcomics, I’ve been reading Home On The Strange, Flaky Pastry, and of course, Penny Arcade. I’ve been looking up Alice In Wonderland (which I’m not a fan of) and a Vertigo series called Fables (which I might be if I could find it).

Zombie Ghost Train was very good, despite wasted Jane and not much money in pocket. Cat empire was great, despite (at first, soon remedied) not being able to see and standing the whole damned night.

The flies in the city and its surrounds have been fucking nuts lately.

(That’s what you get when you bug for an update, Ted.)

Busy, busy, busy.

So I have a busy weekend ahead of me. Tonight, Tanja, Ted and I are going to see the Cat Empire at the Metro. Should be awesome. As this is Ted's first Cat Empire show, I hope they're going to be on-form. I reminded Ted (who had forgotten that he gave me ticket money) who then reminded me about band practice with JesusPete Saturday morning (which I had forgotten about). Making my weekend that much busier because Ted and I are going to see Zombie Ghost Train again at the Annandale Saturday night. The show starts at 8:15, but ZGT doesn't come onstage until 11. So Ted and I are going to go early and drink. :)

All this is of course compounded by the fact that Tanja is on Study leave for the next three days (and last night) to write her BIG-ASS MAJOR ESSAY. Which means she's understandably stressed. So I'm walking quietly at home. That not hard. The hard part is MY stressing that SHE'S stressing. This is no fault of hers. Example: my father came over to borrow some movie last night. Due to his wonderful timing, he showed up just as we were about to start dinner. He was also in a taking-the-piss mood, and didn't know why I was acting so twitchy and odd (I was the equivalent of Bruce Willis in Die Hard 2: Die Harder, kneeling on the runway, waving torches to stop the plane trying to innocently land, unaware that it's going to crash and burn on the runway). He saw her piles of post-it notes that she had arranged to help her organise her argument. "You missed a spot. And they're out of order" he says. (Wave, wave, pull up!) Tanja, slightly tersely, explained what they were. "Why would you do that? (wavewavewave, stop!) Tanja starts eating, and my food starts to get cold. I was acting so twitchy and tense that Dad left, thinking I was a bit batty (and slightly narky with me for being short 'n' sharp with him). I gave myself a tension migraine in that 15 minute time that nearly comatose'D me for the rest of the evening.

So yes. Now at work. They've cut off the booze run today because legal bigwigs will be walking the floor. Bugger.

Live Earth

Went to Live Earth on Saturday with David. I shall sum up in my usual bullet-point style.
:: Tons of people. Official records say 45000. Yet, oddly enough, didn't seem crowded. You could move freely on the floor or (as we did later) up in the seats.

:: Free water! Nice to see a festival taking responsibility.

:: Sneaky Sound System were good, but would have been better for a night groove as opposed to the sunny afternoon spot they got. The reverse for Jack Johnson, who got second-to-last spot.

:: Chai Tent! David got what he referred to as the best authentic Chai he'd had in a while, and I ate dahl (which is the only lentils I'll eat) and it was chilled out 60s and 70s soul and reggae. Solid.

:: Very positive vibe throughout the whole event. Only saw one punch-up with security and that was dealt with quickly. No beer-fuelled mayhem.

:: Big downer: They wouldn't let you leave. No stamped hands or anything. The theory was that because the tickets were barcoded, we could pass them out through the fence and others could get in. Of course that meant you had to pay for slightly over-priced food and WAY-overpriced beer. I bought the former sparingly and the latter not at all. The larger downside came when the temperature dropped and we couldn't go to Dave's down the street and get a sweater or a jacket. Happily, I had gloves and a beanie in my bag which Dave borrowed (making him, with his full beard, look like a homeless guy) and I zipped up to the chin. Brrr.

:: We missed Blue King Brown and Toni Collette and the Finish. Oh well.

:: Eskimo Joe are WAY overwrought. FULL - OF - EMOOOOOOOTION!

:: Wolfmother were terrible. Not only could they not hold up the energy of their albums, not only was their singer clearly pissed, but the sound was atrocious, just for them. Zero high end. No treble. That meant no lead guitar, just the bottom end of the rhythm guitar, no cymbals in the drum kit, and the singer trying a LOT harder to carry the show. Despite his changing guitars four times for five songs. And whenever he'd walk away from the lead mic to (apparantly) shred out a solo, they'd turn his vocal mic down. Then when he'd run back to it to say "Hello, Sydney!" or sing some more, it didn't work. Dreadful. They got a huge ovation walking onstage but the audience enthusiasm waned in about 30 seconds.

:: John Butler Trio were incredible. Talent up the wazoo.

:: Missi Higgins was surprisingly good. She really can sing, and she was going off onstage and having fun.

:: Jack Johnson nearly put me to sleep. See early about sundrenched afternoons and NOT chilly evenings.

:: Crowded House very very good as well, and it was quite cool to have 45000 people singing along to EVERY song (except the one off their new album). Plus they did that thing where they get all the other artists back onstage to sing Better Be Home Soon with them. And John Butler brought his baby onstage. Daaawwwww.

:: Very well planned public transport. After the gig was over, I was back at Central 20 minutes later.


So yes. Good experience. Glad I got to go (still wouldn't have paid $99 or more for a ticket, but still). Also, my first festival! So woo hoo.

Woo hoo!

It seems that after a call from David (whose show at the Sando I'll be photographing Thursday) I now have a free ticket to LiveEarth! Holy crap!

Addendum.

My newish love of beer is tempered by the fact that beer-drinking leads to beer-drunkenness, which I find deeply unpleasant. Vodka-, tequila-, and wine-drunkenness are pleasant and fun. It's merely the drunkenness that beer places upon me tends to make me stupid and incapacitated. And ridiculously hungover the next day.
It's this (and other) circumstance that caused me to cancel on poor Ted for the Sounds Like Chicken concert on the 3rd. That, and the fact that though the doors opened at 6:30, the band had 5 opening acts, and the real band would have taken until 11:30 or so to be on stage. And I had to work at 9 the next morning. And I didn't want to be the prick who, halfway through the set, had to prevail upon Ted to give me a lift home. So no SLC. Oh well.

Busy Week Continued (long posts bother me)

....so anyway, we went up to Katoomba on Friday, stayed in a scary motel (causing the following exchanges: Me: "How often do you think the train will go by? So often we won't even notice it?" and Tanja: "where's the alarm clock?" Me:"It's okay, I'm sure we can just get a wake up call... where's the phone? THERE'S NO PHONE!"), ate lovely food, and went to see Worth's band. Things I learned on this trip:
::Pokies are boring as shite.
::If you sneak up to see the band setting up, and find a taped-shut paper bag at an empty table, and then open it, and find a 1977 7" single of the Sex Pistols doing "God Save The Queen" and are guilted by Tanja into leaving it there in case it belongs to a band member, and then come back after the gig starts and find it again, you get to keep it!
::Some place have rum-and-coke on tap for $3 a glass. This is dangerous.
::If you know people in the band, you get invited to the afterparty!
::Cooper's is actually an ok beer after 8 rounds of rum-and-coke.
::Morning-after lunches turn into late second-breakfasts.
::French onion soup warms from the inside out.
::Motels come with free dead spiders.
::You should really return DVDs to Civic before you go away for the weekend.

My feet are cold.

That has nothing really to do with anything, but it's a truth. Cold.

Anyway, last week or so has been of a busyness. I've had school holidays, and Easter in the Blue Mountains (where I got a motorcycle ride with Tanja's dad, to which my father later explained to me "You know, Lucas, boys shouldn't ride with boys." Thanks Pop.) and then the Robert Cray/Buddy Guy concert on Wednesday.

I had the Plan. I was making Peurco Pibil (slow roasted pork with Mexican spice-stuff), Dave was showing up at 6 or 6:30, we eat, we drink, we take off for the concert which starts at 7:30. Of course, Dave encounters every obstacle known to man and beast in the getting here, and he doesn't arrive until 7:15. Ah well. Foods were scoffed, drinks sculled, and we were off. The show didn't actually start until 8 anyway, so we were fine for time. Turns out, though, that despite buying the tickets within 5 seconds of each other from the same distributor, David and I were both in row H, but in seats 5 and 37. we tried just sitting together, but we had angry people in my (potential) seat, so we had to make a deal with the usher. She found us two seats in the second to last row of the balcony. Sounds disastrous, right? Well, not thanks to the wonderful acoustics and design of the Enmore. We had a crippling view of the stage (thanks to their being no one in the two seats in front of us). Robert Cray came on, and he was good, better live than on CD and he usually sounds so restrained.

Then came Buddy.

Good. Lord.

Keep in mind folks, that just because Buddy Guy is classified as a blues artist, and is turning 70 this year that this was a quiet, down-home blues rendition. Not in the least. This was the guy (no pun intended) idolised by Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and most of the names in rock today (Buddy even did a cover of "Voodoo Child which was up there with the original). The guitar work was phenomenal, and he played the crowd just as well. Who expects to laugh when they go to a concert? Not me. But I did. I laugh myself stupid. Why? Because he's a funny guy, that's why. Example, he paid tribute to John Lee Hooker as being a blues pioneer, then slyly played 30 seconds of "Boom Boom", then stopped and made a face, communicating to all that he had just encompassed Hooker's 40-odd year career in those 30 seconds. Bwa ha ha.

Anyway, it was incredible.

Update. Post. Thing.

They just proved on Mythbusters that if you're under 6 feet of water, your enemies can fire a .50 cal at you and you won't get hit. The speed decrease actually causes the bullet to disintergrate from the pressure. Good to know. I have a lot of enemies.

Tanja and I were walking in the city, and Tanja spotted a woman who was... gifted. In the chest area. And her comment to me?

"Goddang, you see the size of them things?"

THAT'S my girl.

Oh, and the Magic Dirt concert went great. I learned a new band (the Fuzz), and confirmed that I liked two bands (Magic Dirt and the Spazzys), and Tanja survived a great deal of noise. Good for her. and she even admitted to liking the music. I'll corrupt her yet.

Halloween was fun. You know, except that only ONE Borders person turned up. Out of the TWENTY I invited. Craig, Ted and Catherine showed up, all costumed (Ted and Meg as the White Stripes, opposite genders I.E. Ted was Meg and Catherine was Jack. Fun freakin' times). We watched Army of Darkness, Shaun of the Dead and The Mummy (at Tanja insistence). We didn't go out to the bars, but fun nevertheless. Pictures forthcoming.

Shenanigans.

Argh. i'm sick. I have a stupid cold. Which is worse than a smart cold.

My Flogging Molly CD ran out of tracks, and the stereoo switched over to Tanja's Aqua album. I'm too lazy to go change it.

Ok, next few weeks will be busy ones. Well, ok, just the week after next. For shenanigans have been planned!

(have decided just now to burn CD of Crystal method, Lemon Jelly, and Beastie Boys remixes to combat Tanja's Aqua)

October 28th: I drag Tanja to go see Magic Dirt and the Spazzys at the Metro Theatre, after convincing her that yes, it will be fun, and no, these bands aren't way too loud. Hurrah for persuasion!

(CD finished. Playing "Acetone" and annoying neighbours)

October 29th: Halloween Shenanigans! Yes, ok, I know it's not actually going to be ON Halloween, but Halloween is on a Monday, damnit. I put up a poster at work, to let people know about the arrive-at-our-place-watch-cheesy-films-while-drinking-then-hit-the-town-thing. Was told by doom-and-gloom Assitant manager that apparantly, American music boss is having yearly Halloween party on same night, and that no one would come to mine. Bint. Spoke to American music boss, who said that he gets like 5 work people out of everyone he invited, but if the people at mine want to swing by his later, the more the merrier. Very decent of him, no sarcasm at all. Yes. So that is the plan. People arrive here. Watch film. Drink heavily. Get costumed. Go to this guy's party. Apparantly his theme this year is "come dressed as a song (and you're not allowed to come as Nirvana's 'Come as you are'. Heh)". Craig, you could be "Don't Fear The Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult, or "Crimson Ghost" by the Misfits. Ted (if he wants to be a pirate again)can be the "Last Saskatchewan Pirate" by the Arrogant Worms. Catherine can be... Well... Catherine. By PJ Harvey. Or whatever. I don't know. Do I have to do all the thinking around here?

October 30th: Plan to be hungover.