Batshit and beaches...

First day back in the saddle at work after 11 glorious days off...Been down at Bellingen at the charming bat shit reeking caravan park for a few days - we suspect we all got a mild case of lyssavirus there, & then went north to Minnie water on the coast to schmooze around there. Travel partners were the rudderless, but very charming M & B - these guys came up for a holiday & ended up sacrificing 2 days to help us paint our house - freaks! ...and what a mighty effort it was - I'm convinced that with enough coffee, beer, cheese platters, good music, zealous workers & 40 grit sandpaper anything is achievable. If I was house proud I'd post a pic of freshly painted house...but I'm not that house proud...yet.

So after 2 days of manic brush-wielding we jumped in cars & motored south. Bellingen is not unlike Bangalow, ie - recreating itself as nick-nack central with fine foods thrown in (yes, it does have a touch of le wanque about it). There is a nearby bakery in Repton that does the wildest gutsy organic olive bread I've ever tasted - it makes all the Byron & northcoast breads of similar style look like the fluff they are. I would happily move to Bello & eat bread for a week...

Highs: bread, wine, Dorrigo visit, cute caravan, amazing waterholes at The Promised Land (this is what it really is called!) near Glennifer...
Lows: Lyssavirus, batshit stink

Headed for the coast next - Minnie Water & Woolli are 2 little villages within Yuraygir National Park - great place, beautiful beaches. Went fishing & motored around in M&B's boat - much to The Kids delight. Only 1 fish caught by the inimitable J, but undersize. Went to Harry's Chinese in Woolli - heralded as "an institution" in the local blurb. I agree with J that this is just not possible,as Chinese food suffers from "excess goop" syndrome to an alarming degree. Anyhow, old Harry knocked up all the standard Chinese stuff for us, with minimal goop & it was OK, but nothing more mediocore than any other Chinese joint - well, the prawns weren't frozen I suppose...

Highs: Digger's Head beach, Woolli Woolli River, fires at night
Lows: Kid falling out of bunk, not catching fish of edible size,coming back home...

Laying rubber...

These are my trusty thongs - $2.99 at Woolies (as I recall) & still going strong after 8 years of quality service. I've been noticing the thong revival lately, & of course now that nothing ordinary is acceptable these days, we now have the sub-genre of the 'cool thong', ala yr Havallinas (? or whatever they're called). The 'cool thong' is invariably funkily coloured & sold in surf shops & cool boutiques etc & usually retails from $17.99 & upwards...but here's the rub...the cool thong is a show pony, a ponce, a cream puff which is fit only for shopping or sipping lattes. The cool thong is not suited to lawn mowing or ditch digging or anything vaguely physical at all! I would be surprised if you got a year out of a pair of cool thongs...but I suppose by then they may be out of style & need replacing anyhow...

Anyhow, this post is a salute to the traditional thong - cheap, ugly & enduringly practical. Long may they survive & never be usurped by their chic contemporaries!

Proposition me not...

Watched The Proposition last night...apparently it was 'superbly poetic'..alas I must return the verdict of superbly crap. Why is this film so lauded & praised? I don't think Nick Cave can write a script to save his life - 'Ghosts of the civil dead' was bad enough, but 'The proposition' drags out every western cliche you've ever seen - the tough law enforcer, the wild & murderous gang complete with inbred brothers & a poetry spouting leader (think of the inbred hayseed family from The Simpsons, sans poetry), haunting visual shots of the rugged outback, and bad western style font (yep, even the font gave me the shits!).

Basically it's 'Apocalypse Now' set in colonial Australia - a man given a mission, a journey to find an enigmatic leader, and of course (violent) Confrontation. The other bad thing going was the whole made-for-TV feel it had, or maybe that's just because most colonial era film depications always end up as TV mini-series (almost always stretched over 2 or 3 'compelling nights'!). Anyhow, 'The Proposition' just didn't deliver. A few flaming sunsets & gnarled trees complete with a standard Western plot, does not a good film make. I suppose the film is being adventurous in that it is the first Australian western, but then most westerns aren't exactly innovative are they? The soundtrack was also supposedly haunting & evocative - courtesy Mr. Cave & Warren Ellis (Dirty 3). Like most soundtracks, it's mangled in the edits, & Nick Cave does some very interesting trebly warbling that is pretty inane - listen to Dirty 3 CDs in their entirety instead...

I really wanted to like this film...feels bad to can it, but it was lame lame lame...even J thought so too! Anyone got any good movies out there to recommend?

Sometimes I suck...

Admission of lameness...I forgot my Mum's 70th Birthday on the weekend - this is bad! My sister organised a party down in sydney & all I had to do was contribute & send a card. I managed to do that, but on the actual day I forgot completely & didn't ring to congratualte her at all...she ended up ringing me to thank me for the gift which I had played no role at all in choosing...I think many times my good old Mum has been charmed & amused by my hopelessness...but somehow I think this was not one of those times...shit! SORRY MUM!!!!

Slabwork...

Went in to the hire place on Saturday to hire a jackhammer for the weekend...

Me: Hi, I rang up about hiring a jackhammer
Hire Guy: Aaaahhh, got some slabwork to do have you?
Me: Umm...Yeah...
Hire Guy:So, what kind of a slab have you got?
Me: (describes slab dimensions)
Hire Guy: Well, you'd probably be best off with a Hitachi H65 for a job like that...

...and I've gotta say after 2 days of intense usage, the Hitachi H65 is an amazing tool - we bonded in a cloud of concrete dust, grit & chunks of rock...& today my hands are still vibrating...God knows how those guys use these things day after day...& they use the next model up which is heavy as hell & makes the H65 look not unlike a toy!

Anyhow, it was a beautiful sunny w/end here, so while J & The Kid went to the waterslides I got stuck into my slabwork...which was kinda fun in a perverse way. Picked up The Drones latest CD on Saturday....this is a great record! Raw, messy, fucked up & painful...very nice stuff indeed. If I was a reviewer I might describe it as "viscerally exciting"...it is just damn good - imagine 'horse stories' era Dirty 3 channelled via early X (Australian) with contributions from The Saints and Nick Cave...

...after finishing my demolition for the day, I had a beer, cranked up the Drones & sat & watched the cows next door...simple pleasures...