The Waiting Man

But I'm only just home, so it counts as the day before...

An odd day ~ starting out rainy'n'windy & more conducive to staying at home, so we did. Then, as the weather improved, we headed out to our various engagements... the Loved One to a wedding & reception & I to a catch-up over drinks & eventual dinner with an erstwhile workmate I've been promising to meet since mid-December last year

The three of us wound up in the North Annandale Hotel shortly before their turf-out time. Now home, perchance to get some sleep before the first day at the new job...

A low-key day, a late breakfast at our new local Café, then a quiet afternoon at home before dinner this evening with some friends visiting from the UK, where they moved to a couple of years ago

They're staying with a relative in Annandale ~ your typical late 19th, early 20th century single-storey terrace off the main street, with postage-stamp sized back yard just big enough for a beagle to run around in. Barbecued lamb & a selection of tasty salads were the bill of fare... A good night. Our friends were always good for interesting conversations & it got late too early... Hopefully we'll see them again before they return home

More interviews tomorrow...

Dinner with friends at an Indian restaurant this evening... Should be interesting, given the reaction my plumbing system has had to subcontinental delights the last couple of times...

Which is extremely annoying, as Indian has been my favourite cuisine for as long as I can remember, so to have it play havoc downstairs is a worry. I don't want to give it up the way I've had to give up orange juice, pineapple juice, dairy milk (mostly) & sundry other things I used to enjoy

And so to bed, to wait...

And so ~ seven days into my Exile from the mean streets of the Marketplace

Let's first backtrack to last Friday, when I spent the afternoon both chasing & pushing pieces of paper around, had a much-longer-than-expected talk with a prospective employer whom I'd visited only on spec, then played a second gig in my low-key return to musical pursuit & performance. Having stood in line at the local MissingCentreLink office for 30 minutes, it eventually transpired that all I needed could be done on the phone. Thence to the most convoluted opening of a new bank account I could imagine... Why do they need so much ID from someone who wants to give them money?

The conversation-which-became-an-interview was with the owner of a business that, 'til last Thursday, was in competition with me but now represents a possible lifeline. Sure, it was Friday afternoon & it wasn't too busy, but two hours talk & a beer was a lot more than I'd expected. Having refused the beer because I was playing a gig that night, my former competitor said he'd picked me as a musician not long after I'd walked in. Now, I've seen myself in the mirror often enough to know I don't have any instruments tattooed on me, nor do I wear a neon sign labelling me... so how do so many people I've met all seem to know that I'm a 'Musician'? And what is it about that pastime/preoccupation that makes it so remarkable to them?

The same was true of the gig that evening ~ a corporate 'Awards Night' for the advertising arm of a major media group, held at the Function Centre at Taronga Zoo. Plenty of wildlife was on display, but it was all in various degrees of fancy dress. Our singer/songwriter works for the conglomerate & had snared not only the gig, but places at a table, drinks & a three-course meal for her guitarists. And again, her colleagues were impressed that the two guys not in costume were 'musicians'... even though any one of them earns more than I do

Our five songs were performed against a cacophony of cutlery & conversation, with polite applause. My only complaints were that we had no monitors to hear ourselves & that we were called up to play just as I was about to sink my teeth into the pork belly entrée which, of course, had been removed by the time we returned to the table

The annual Coffee Festival at the Rocks on Sunday was overcrowded & underwhelming. Queuing for fifteen minutes for a dribble of espresso, then being barged into by the Great Unwashed & their double prams from all directions does not make for a grand day out. The Loved One & I agree it was probably our last attendance

Otherwise, the Jobseeker carousel spins ever around with its jaunty music & painted smiles. How many people want to run away from the Circus, I wonder?

Alors... une soirée avec La Soirée... ce soir.

If you want to know what it's like to be molested by a 130kilogram baritone Drag King/Queen in front of a few hundred people, then I heartily recommend going to see the show before it ends in early February... & get yourself front-row seats right next to the artistes pathway. You WILL be noticed & you WILL find yourself part of several acts, so you may as well go along for the ride willingly & with gusto... I did.

Though how I'm going to explain the glitter in my hair & beard to the guys at work tomorrow will be interesting. One of them is gay, the other's a racist homophobe...

Tomorrow, I'll be taking part in the annual Sydney City To Surf race/run/jog/walk/stagger... Taxi!!!... having been convinced it would be a good idea & fun by my L-SP a couple of months ago.

Now, less than 12 hours before the starting gun, I'm not so sure, but whatthehell... 14 kilometres can't be that far... can it??

I'll let you know how it all went soon... & all the other stuff from the week.

No matter how strange you think your life is... Nature can always go one better...

Now we know where the expression 'Sick as a parrot' comes from ~ Darwin.

We played Mini-Golf with some friends on Friday night, at a course not far from Warriewood Beach, so the air was misty with sea-spray &... mist. There were people on the adjacent driving range who had no hope of seeing where their shots were landing... One of those lost photo opportunities as I had no camera of any kind on me... Bugger! By turf-out time at 9pm we'd only done half of the second nine-hole course, but were quite happy to repair to the nearby Hog's Breath Café for a late dinner. Note to self: Order 'Medium Rare' next time, as my rare steak was a bit underdone... even by my bloody standards.

Rozelle Markets today... See what books & trinkets we decide we can't live without...

A metaphor for life?? All peaceful serenity on the surface, but paddling away like crazy underneath...

Today's my Sunday ~ the second of my days off during the week. Confusingly, the first one is Sunday, which I call my Saturday. Down at Debtor's Prison they're expecting a visit from the company GM today... kind of glad I'm nowhere near that.

Also today... & for the last three weeks... my L-SP & I have been waiting for the latest round of repairs on her VW Beetle to be completed, so that we can finally get a feel for driving the thing. The whole saga may one day be told in a series of nine books à la the Clan Of The Cave Bear novels covering a similarly long era, but suffice to say the latest delay came in the form of the Bug being hit by another car while the mechanic was test-driving it last week. The up-side of that is the two front mudguards are being replaced... something that was on the 'To-Do' list for the car anyway... at no cost to us. I had cleared my leisurely schedule to be ready to catch public transport across town to pick up the car, but there's now a delay in getting the aforementioned mudguards & so another week slips by without the car.

And so, it's been a minor domestic day by default ~ washing, washing up, little chores & jobs that tend to go undone & unnoticed during the working week. Dinner with friends tonight... maybe that will give me something exciting to write about.

So we went to see Lady GaGa last night. My second big American Pop Show after Justin Timberlake a couple of years ago & my third 'Pop Idol' experience. Ever.

At times visually stunning, at times visually impressive, at times pure Rock Eisteddfod cheese, the show & the Lady herself certainly gave you bang for buck. Arty & moody video footage between costume changes? Check. Burning piano during ballad? Check. Giant 'Monster' manipulated & moved by backup dancers/singers conforming to a long line of acts using slightly naff arena-sized props? Check.

Sonically, it was a bit sludgy ~ the guitars & keyboards melding into potent white noise a little too often, obscuring vocals, backing vocals, samples &, as far as I could hear, a completely superfluous harpist & bass-player. Whether that was down to a lot of stuff being already sequenced, programmed & then just mixed badly with the live players, or the well-documented sound-killer qualities of the Sydney Entertainment Centre is, by now, a moot debate. But we had good seats, a stream of GaGa impersonators in the audience to keep us amused before the show & I have to say I enjoyed it. A lot.

All the hits from the album were played, my only disappointment was the absence of a great vocalist (& a pretty good dancer too!!) from her performance of 'Poker Face'...

Time to retire the Debtor's Prison Userpic then... 'til next time.

As of today, I'm a gentleman of leisure ~ except I'm not that gentle & leisure isn't what it used to be. Today has been by turns domestic & trying to be pro-active & productive scaring up the next career opportunity. And chasing up exactly what I'm owed for my sentence time in DP... in case the next opportunity doesn't knock for a while.

( Then... Now... Soon )

Still hab a bid ob a code dough... bud id's a bid bedder, dags por arsging!

So, Valentine's weekend. Somewhere along the line, I've offended the son of Venus, because yesterday & today did not go according to any plan ~ pre-made or spontaneous... couldn't win a trick.

An overnight trip out of Sydney? Scuppered by late finishing at work & inclement weather. Breakfast at a favourite café? It's closed. A walk through Rozelle Markets? See aforementioned weather ~ no stalls. A look at cars for future purchase? Nothing worth it. A movie at Fox Studios? Insert traffic jams from Mardi Gras Opening Party & 20/20 cricket at the SCG between our location & destination, then add hordes of 'families' at Fox studios lined up for 200 metres at the cinemas to see... what exactly?! Certainly not Transporter 3 which we were running five minutes late for. Dinner at a Japanese fusion restaurant tonight? It's closed. Takeaway fish'n'chips from a good local shop? It's closed. Substitute Manly Fish Café dinner? Expensive & criminally bland.

Boy, do I know how to show a girl a good time...

Enough. Have a picture.

The End Of An Error Pt II

Today was the last official day of trade at Debtor's Prison ~ a fact I was only made aware of yesterday at about 2pm... Hey, I'm only the Store Manager... why tell me??!!

( For the next 10-14 days )

The jobsearch continues...

Legends Of Music Pts I & II.

Leonard Cohen at the Sydney Concrete Bunker Entertainment Centre on Thursday last... was a number of words: Excellent, Exemplary, Spiritually uplifting, Sublime, Surprising... & more fun than you might think or expect.

( More )

By contrast I saw Jeff Beck at the Enmore Theatre last night... ( And )

And so... to be continued: My life in the twilight of Debtor's Prison... an encore experience with Leonard tomorrow night in Bowral & then an evening with David Byrne at the Opera House on Monday night. To be continued...!!!

Like sushi?

Like computers?

Let's go here...

The world seems a little lighter today, despite being incarcerated in Debtor's Prison. I may have bounced.

Now, to open the main gatesdoor of DP, fire up the stereo & let Brian Eno, Bela Fleck, Django Reinhardt, Maggie Bell, The Church, Dave Brubeck & the Crimson Jazz Trio soundtrack my day. May it be a swift one.

Has it been a year already?! Went to the Aroma Coffee Festival in The Rocks today... Seven macchiatos later (3 good ones, 2 okay ones, 2 bilgewater), then 2 pints of Guinness in the Observer Hotel to take the hyperedge off, a wine with dinner & now a few more so I'll get some sleep before some time on Tuesday. Better not tell my local café I've been cheating on them...

Picked up a new phone yesterday & for the first time in quite a few years, it's not a Nokia, it's a Sony Ericsson C902, the camera in which has more megapixels than my late, lost Fuji did. Must try it out on some sunset shots soon.

And finally, before Boston Legal & a book before bed, a meme via Aquandrian ~ ( Pop Culture Junkie )

With not much to report/reflect & with a backlog of photos that somehow were deleted from the gallery ~ have some black & white views for a grey day... Can't wait for the new camera!!


Beside the front door of WaitingManor

( More light, tone & shade... )

Oh... one piece of news ~ went to see The Monks of the Shao-Lin Temple at Luna Park(?!?!) yesterday. Not as many impressive/inspiring moments as one might hope & just the tiiiiniest bit too cheesy, but quite the spectacle nonetheless. Maybe we Round-Eyes are just harder to impress in these post-Crouching Tiger-et-al days...