Night in the sticks

We spent last Saturday night at a 50th birthday party for someone who was, prior to the weekend, simply a friend of a friend.

As far as 50ths go, though, this one was a standout. For reasons I'm yet to really know, birthday girl Carole is nothing like the "typical 50 year old". I sort of knew this prior to the weekend, but it kicked in even more as she regaled the gathered group about her marathon stint at the Byron Bay Blues Festival the weekend before. When a group of 40- or 50-somethings turned up with guitars, a double bass and a saxophone, you know it's going to be a cracker of a night.

Alas, for the Tiger and I, it was not too be a purely enjoyable eve, thanks largely to QRs ineptitude. Rather than go into a big sob story, I'll just say that due to a "police incident" at Ormeau, trains were not running between Robina and Beenleigh. About 6 phone calls later (to both Translink and QR), and I was finally assured that we would not be left stranded some 100-or-so kilometres from home. How pleasant. What ensued, however, was a marathon bus and train trip, still partially intoxicated from the beer bong Carole's young son and friends peer pressured me into. Joy!

This is not to detract from a great night at Carole's. Before the evening, we were merely "acquaintances", hanging out at various gigs and events in Brisbane thanks largely to her then boyfriend John. Accepting the invitation to her 50th was not taken lightly, due pretty much due to where it was (Palm Beach) and my absolute hatred of the feeling of being "trapped" somewhere without an easy plan for escape (as we don't drive, this can be a drama).

Just a few minutes into the afternoon, escape became the absolute last thing on my mind. Carole and her extended family of adult daughters, a teenage son and thriving gaggle of friends and compatriots made us feel completely at home straight away. It was with a sense of sadness, in fact, that we were wrenched away from the madness of her teenage son's beer bong shenanigans to venture home. And, despite the dramas imposed on us by Queensland Rail and Translink's absolute failure at both communications and customer service, I was bouyed by the beauty, joy and love such a humble thing as family, friends and laughter can bring. And it made me glad that my now 1-year-old marriage has (hopefully) put me on that path of such things as I head towards my 50th.

Reflections Of A Sound

The Easter weekend has almost evaporated, and as I sit on the "nearly back at work" side of the scale and look back, I can honestly say I loved every second of its lazy goodness.

Just sitting at home, soaking up the Love Den's wonderfully welcoming embrace as the slow, lazy and overcast days rolled by was sort of cathartic, in a way. I have even managed to sleep in every morning, which is pretty rare in my world (thanks mainly to the construction worker's union remaining strong and ensuring NO work was being done around my home this weekend... it's easy to forget how quiet it can actually be on Sandgate Road sometimes). Hanging out with the Tiger was bliss, too. Our lives have been slowly circling away from each other's in the past few weeks as she focusses on her study, and I find most of my evenings wrapped up in either the gym or the gathering steam of the jamming sessions.

Late this afternoon, however, in the usual innocence of the Tiger's curious ways, I was slapped in the face by where my life had come in the past few years. Researching places to stay down the Gold Coast next weekend for a friend's 50th birthday party, we clicked on to Google Maps. As usual, we get side-tracked and the Tiger takes us on a Streetview tour of Albion... a tour back in time, as it seems.

Google isn't that keen on new-ness, it seems. A cursory glance around streetview shows the pics in my little neck of suburbia were taken about 2 years ago. The office block/restaurant across the road was nothing more than a lone cement slab standing as an omen to its future emptiness (the place is still not fully tenanted!). The curtain shop next door was still the curtain shop (it's now empty); the laundromat across the lane was still the laundromat (before it was turned into the mysterious upholstery shop which never seems to open). Heading down the lane is when you get the most stark view of where this corner of Brisbane has come from in such a short time. On the screen, the corner house was still there: it's now 2-story a construction site, complete with a high-level crane and countless to-ing and fro-ing from very early in the morning 6 days a week. A little further down the road, and the streetview single storey brick workshop is still there and in business. Today, it's a 6-storey concrete slab monstrosity which has topped out and add to Albion's big grey box skyline. Across the road, and the old mill is still completely intact (although, the hoardings are up advertising its future): today, it's nothing more than the old brick mill building, the iconic blue and white silo and a motley collection of weeds slowly taking over the site.

It got me thinking, naturally, of where I'd traveled in the same space of time. Sure, 2 or so years can fly by without you noticing it, but when you pack as much into those years as you can, 2 or so years ago can seem like a lifetime ago. And it also gives you a bit of a kick up the bum to get on your way to filling at least the next 2 years with as much fun, excitement, joy and love as the past 2 or so have been.

And while it's easy to get dismayed as you see the heart of your sweet suburb get ripped out from around you (and possibly even swallow your home), it can also be the necessary siren-song for the end of an era and the beginning of another. I'm rapidly turning this into a positive, as I look at the uncertainty of both my professional and personal worlds, and see it as nothing but a great thing: I know I'll land on my feet... I'm just pretty darned anxious to see exactly where those feet will end up.

I'm cool

No, seriously. Like, really cool. Like, cutting edge of everything. Like seriously, amazingly fashionable that people want to do what I do. Want proof?



Take guava, for example. A couple of years back, I lamented the lack of fresh guava in this country. Sure, you can buy guava nectar in the shops, but it's not really the same. And then, what do we find in the fruit shop a few weeks back? Guava! And pretty soon, it wasn't just in the pinko, lefto, commo organic fruitstores... but also in Coles! Lordy above.

Still not convinced of my coolness? Well, let's continue the fruity theme with dragonfruit. Previously, it was a delicacy spied only occasionally in above-mentioned lefto, pinko, commo organic fruiterees. After lashing out one day with ex-Love Denner the Angry German, I was hooked. Now, you can't move in the fruit section of Toombul's Coles without coming face-to-face with a bloody dragonfruit.

But I can see you're still not totally convinced by cutting-edgedness. Well, let's go on a holiday, I suggest late last year to my fellow Love Dennion SatomiTiger. We hire a car and bolt southwards to a little nook called Yamba and Angourie and instantly fall in love. Such a lovely little corner of the world, it is. Realising our gem, we decided to tell the world it was crapola so they continue to be amazed by the slowly decaying and plastique Byron and not trample all over our paradise. And then I see this: the death-knell. Now instead of fish n chips down by the sea, it'll be latte-frappa-wotsits, gourmet fucking pancakes and playing dodge the fricken Beemer.

Seriously, I'm either ultra-cutting edge, or someone's following my every move and taking notes. Either way, I'm cool. Yeah.

One of those funks

Commenting over at a friend's blog just now made me realise something - I've been a little bit out of the blogging loop. And I promised this one would not become another of those started, not continued numbers. Plus, I should really get back into the rhythm of writing again.

It's not that I haven't had much to talk about. In fact, life's pretty 'interesting' right now. And my head is teaming with a swirling soup of fantastic ideas which may simply be blog stories in the future, but may also be the seedlings of something larger.



I've completely changed my way of living in the past couple of months. Part of this whole 30s/looking after myself/being healthy thing which began about 10 months ago with giving up smoking. I've joined a gym (and still regularly attend!), I've had some personal training and am keeping a food diary. I have no burning need to lose heaps of weight (although some would be nice), but I do have this strong internal feeling that I haven't really been all that healthy for the past 30 or so years, and it's time to turn that around.

That in itself is pretty monumental. By nature I'm a fairly sedentary creature, so being fit and active is a 180-degree turn. But that hasn't been the be-all and end-all of my activity lately. There's an edgy feeling around my workplace at the moment, with whispers and rumours flying everywhere. Suffice to say, with 5 years under my belt at this workplace, I'm a little excited and a little apprehensive about what the future may hold in that regard.

Add to that a renewed musical activity, which is keeping me busy at least 2 nights a week. Nothing too ambitious or thrilling - just a loose collective of 4 mates with a semi-decent grasp of their instruments getting together to belt out a few numbers after work and on weekends. It's been good to get that creative outlet up and running again.

It's been a pretty cool couple of months, actually. A sort of rediscovery of myself in a way. For the past couple of years, my life's focus has been on the complicated and time-consuming elements of conducting a long-distance relationship, then the visa hassles, then the wedding drama and then just settling into coupledom life (can't believe our first wedding anniversary is this Monday!). It's been really enlightening to spend the past few weeks turning a little bit inward again and finding the joy and passion with those purely "me" things again.

And now tapping back into that writing vein... wonder what this will bring. Hopefully not a heap of boring diary entries like this one. But thanks for indulging if you got this far.

Right now, I'm intrigued by shuffle on my iPod. It's really loving Alex Lloyd tonight. Strange.

Top 50,000 countdown

About 2 years ago, I got hooked on this site called Last.fm - which has taken me back to my childhood feelings in so many surprising ways recently.

For those not in the know, last.fm is a music-based social networking site. You download a tiny little bit of software which tracks which songs you play on your iTunes and iPod and presents them in a multitude of charts. It's fascinating stuff, and it's been my bread and butter website since about August 2006. And, as I'm about to click over to the 50,000th song on the chart, I reflected on why it fascinates me so.

49,995: The Church - Pharaoh

And it does go back to my childhood. One of my most prize possessions coming in the glorious double figures was a clock radio one of my family members gave me. Living in pre-JJJ times, I was stuck between a few sparse radio choices for a pre-teen, desperately cool kid. Until I hooked into Barry Bisel and his Top 40 Countdown every Sunday or Monday night. Eagerly, I'd listen to his dulcet tones as he counted down to the top spot for the week (and desperately trying to dodge my 8.30pm curfew to ensure I was awake enough to catch the Number 1, yet constantly waking up the next morning disappointed in falling asleep before it was announced). Barry was a fascinating radio character, interspersing the songs with fascinating tidbits from this world they called rock.

49,996: Tori Amos - Horses

It had me by the short and curlies from that point. I learned how to program the "sleep" and "alarm" functions so that I would fall asleep listening to the radio every night and wake up every morning listening (interestingly - it's a habit only recently broken thanks to a less-than-tolerant partner who does not like the night-time intrusion).

49,997: Andy Mitchell - Tell Me

It's more than Barry Bisel, though. It's also the blissful Saturday mornings spent camped on the lounge floor watching Rage's Top 50 countdown. Lazing about in your PJs, with breakfast crumbs scattered around and anticipating "your song" miraculously jumping from number 48 to number 1 in a week (and being disappointed with it being beaten by Richard Marx YET AGAIN!). It's your Mum being the sweetest she's ever been by waking up extra early to video tape the first 10 or so songs so you could go back and watch them later. It's the skipping to the local shopping centre's dodgy music store (but, by it's nature as the only record store around - the COOLEST. STORE. EVER!) every Wednesday after school to grab the latest copy of the Aria charts and scanning it's reddish/pink ink for the latest trends. And then drooling over the CDs and cassingles on display and dreaming of the day when you could buy it all...

49,998: REM - Aftermath

So here I am, at the age of 32, listening to music and wondering what the magical 50,000th will be. It means nothing, with my 8000 song iPod set to random. My charts will probably not change for some time yet, with the Top 5 dominated by my musical guides Pearl Jam, The Frames, Silverchair, Something For Kate and Augie March. Anyone who spends a couple of hours with me will know they are my top artists.

49,999: Something For Kate - Impossible

And yet... this magical site keeps me coming back. I watch the charts with wonder. I design iPod playlists to deliberately skew the results. I follow artist's links and constantly discover new music....

And, so - with great fanfare, I give you BrisJamin's 50,000th song:

50,000: George - Change

And I'm pretty happy with that.