The Waiting Man

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...

Sometimes I find myself in the strangest places...

Like the Golden Sheaf pub in Double Bay ~ a pub once, & for all I know still, the favoured hangout of both students & teachers from my Alma Mater up the road in Bellevue Hill. It's a strange place this one... one of those pubs in the Eastern Suburbs that always seems to be full of yobbos ~ a mixture of the young & feckless & the rich & fatuous. Ex-private school rugby forwards positioned under the outside cast-iron stairwell to take full advantage of the view as girls go up the stairs in the latest designer micro-dresses... Over-made-up or expensively reconstructed 30(40? 50??)something women with nips, tucks, plumps & pumps, tanned to basted perfection, all mingling with a curious assortment of dregs & drongos who wouldn't be out of place at the Wetherill Park Tavern...

Especially tonight, as Spy Vs Spy were playing. Except they weren't... Well, they kind of were. There were one & a half original members (their 2nd drummer now plays rhythm guitar & sings), with a ring-in rhythm section half the age of the other 2 & no C-C-Craig Bloxom on lead vocals & low-slung bass!! It was actually a good show though... Mike Weiley still looks like a dag but plays great delay-laden guitar lines at excruciating volume & Mark Cuffe was starting to sound like C-C-Craig by the end of the 2 hour set. The young blokes were competent enough to not be noticed...

The dance floor gradually filled with a microcosm of the Sheaf patrons & the dances were just as varied. One guy was ensconced at the front of the stage taping (yes... taping!) the show on a Walkman, getting up occasionally to do a version of the Robot ~ the way Marvin from HHGTTG would... with a terrible pain in all the diodes down his left side. A modified Mullet in skinny jeans & t-shirt did every bad 70s & 80s pubrock boogie move except the Birdman Cockroach, while a filly in expensive dress & more expensive shoes shimmied in one spot. There were 2 stage invasions ~ one from a guy whose birthday was today... or tomorrow, it didn't really matter, he stood on the small stage playing air everything to "AO Mod", stealing Mike's hat & hugging every member he could stagger to. The other was immediately after, but he didn't last as long ~ especially when he asked the guys to play "AO Mod", as he hadn't heard it in years... or in this case ~ seconds . Mark Cuffe took it all in stride, occasionally making the obvious jokes about Double Pay in the Eastern Suburbs & every 2nd song saying "Stuff it! We'll play one more!!", in between doing battle with a wayward spotlight gaffa-taped to the ceiling.

It felt like the mid-80s at any number of long-gone pubs, like the Manly, Manly Vale, Bondi Lifesavers, Lansdowne (okay, it's still there, but it's an "Entertainment" venue now, not a band pub...) & the assortment of inner-city venues which changed their names, owners & decor each time the licensing board shut them down for breach of whatever regulation they could think of... then sprang up from the cellars again.

I left after the show when the 80s video jukebox threatened to play Wham! at me...

And now, home. Awake. With a slight ringing in my ears & the inevitable insomnia for company.

Anyone who reads the Sydney Morning Herald website has probably already had a bash at this game...

Everyone else ~ go for it!! Release that pre-election tension!!

VCed Wafflers tonight. Not a bad bunch of speakers on the whole, but nobody respects the flashing 'Time's Nearly Up', or Time's Up, Shut Up' lights very much... For my meeting next month, I'm considering a shepherd's crook.

Tired.

At the tail-end of my weekend, having achieved a great deal & driven a great deal more & it feels like I've eaten only slightly less than that. The fridge is full of leftovers, the lounge is devoid of guitars & I'm about to return to the prone position & Harry Potter Book IV, to wait for sleep to claim me.

( Of Music, Miscreants & Movies )

And so, Bon Voyage to LederHosen, leaving on a midday train to a new career in an old town (to paraphrase D. Bowie & Randy Crawford), never to be seen again, for about a fortnight, anyway... then about a week or so after that... then...

A small farewell dinner was held last night & in typical style, it featured more food than you could poke a fork at (courtesy the redoubtable Reynardo) & 2 movies that were, at the very least, left-of-centre. The first featured Japanese wrestlers mystically transformed into a variety of crustaceans & cephalopods, duking it out in the Square Circle for no good ~ at least no good translatable ~ reason... subtitles weren't included. Which was probably a good thing. The second film featured Salma Hayek & Penelope Cruz as a pair of bumbling, bitchy bandidas out to save Mexican peasants from some New York bankers. I can't believe it went straight to video... oh wait, yes I can.

The rest of yesterday continued the accomplishment of outstanding small stuff & a 90 minute job interview that left me talked out by the time SarinG & I arrived at Chez L & R. Result ~ unknown, but it would/will be nice to get back to having a proper career again, so extremities & eyeballs are crossed.