if you're happy and you know it....

Yes, you know how it goes!

So, I was just reading Arj Barkers blog and he recently went to see Radiohead. I have to agree with Arj on many things - Radiohead are a must-see live band. They rock like there's no tomorrow, then tug at your heart strings and make you question everything you thought you believed then throw some rock action at you again. Before you know it you are buying the TShirt and signing up to the Johnny Greenwood is God fansite.

I love live music. The whole bit. The last gig I went to was Belle and Sebastian. Man, how good are they. I had no idea what to expect, as this was the first time I was seeing them and you don't really get photos of the band with their CDs or much to go on by their film clips.

They were just magic. They also have a lot of songs that you cannot help but clap along to - and they are very happy to start a bit of a group clap along - you know, where the guitar is just left hanging for a moment while your man out front claps his hands above his head until we all join in. This happened a few times and I was smiling and bopping away, clapping my hands up high....that is of course until that moment when the clapping dies down and you realise that you are the only one still clapping. If you stop immediately, the people with the funky haircuts around you will know that you could not handle being alone out there in the clapping stakes - no you cannot just stop. You have to let your own clapping die down too, then quickly replace it with some sort of little dance that requires your hands so that the funky haircut people think nothing more than you were ready to progress from the group clap to your own little dance because you march to your own drum....in which case by this stage the front man is letting his guitar hang again and leading the crowd in a mass clap-along.

I am intimidated by people with funky haircuts.

So clap your hands.

10 weeks and counting!

I must be crazy. Or bored. Or just so free from commitment that I feel the need to justify my carefree ways by doing something carefree. Because that is exactly what I have done. Or decided to do. As in I have decided to do something carefree....

After an early morning phonecall from the other side of the world, I have been coaxed to spend a paltry sum of dollars and get my behind over to Dublin in order to join some friends for a weekend in Venice.

Talk about an adrenaline rush....within 24 hours I have booked five flights (heck - if I am going to Dublin, I might as well visit my mate in Amsterdam and end the trip with a London West End show - you'd do the same surely.) Now, I just have to sit and wait for the time to pass and pack my things for the "AB Lightning Tour!" I cannot wait.

In the meantime, I think I am reaching a fork in the road, or a corner that needs turning or something. I am incredibly restless at the moment. Slightly disatisfied with administration work - don't get me wrong, I still get excited by a cleared "in tray" - but the rewards are few and far between....I kinda feel like everything should be moving at a very fast pace and that there are things in the post, alas, I am a tad on the stagnant side of motion at present with the only promise of excitement being the end of financial year....

Thank god for the passing of time and the countdown of ten weeks until the Lightning Tour....

Maybe I should stop listening to Morrisey for a while. Now where did I put that Funky Soul Sister CD???

It Used To Be About the Music

So, I realise I am getting old. I have always known, what with the passing of time, that I would grow in age but the signs are becoming more and more obvious.

I learnt recently about a new kind of music, a new genre if you will. Emo music. I heard it mentioned a few weeks ago and I passed it off as being a lame name for a band, little was I to know that a whole sub-culture was forming under this lame title.

How could I not know about a whole new kind of music. I am very musical - I have hundreds of CDs, and yet, there nestled in between popular and heavy metal/thrash was this new section. How had I missed it?

On closer inspection of course, I realise that maybe I had subconsciously missed it because it is entirely unlistenable. At least complaint rock sounds just like what it is. Its a little whiney and a little whingy but it rocks out. Emo? Huh?

I wonder how the bands/singer/song writers feel about it all. Garage days spent with electric guitars and posters of Kiss or The Beatles dreaming of the future....only to write some fluff with a bit of distortion on it under the banner of Emo music.

I really am getting old.

Satan, Santa and so on.

You would have to have been hiding under a rock not to know that the significant date of 06.06.06 recently passed us by - afterall every radio station and news program reported on it in completely original and interesting styles. Needless to say it was more talked about in my office than the weekly "footy tipping results" which I have to say draw even more yawns from me than the topic of the so-called day of the devil.

What I found interesting about this day however, was the car accident I was involved in. Sydney has recently had incredibly wet weather, so you know, the chances of ploughing into the rear end of a ute has been that so much higher. And if by chance you are me, and you are listening to yet another report on the radio about how Satan is coming, and you chuck a little tantrum about how sick and tired you are about being forced to listen to yet another disc jockey put his spin of hilarity onto the subject than the chances of you ploughing into the rear end of a ute is no longer a chance - its a certainty.

And that is exactly what happened. Whilst throwing my hands into the air to show disgust at the radio, the ute with the huge tow-bar in front of me came to a dead stop. I slammed on my brakes of course, but what with the excess of water on the road, my dead stop was about a metre too late.

The other driver pulled over so that we could access the damage and as he got out of his car he said, "Well, what else would you expect on the 06.06.06?" (Well, I would not have expected anything as original as that!)

Low and behold when we checked both vehicles, there was no damage. Unless you consider a scratch on my front bumper damage - which seeing as I had just been stopped by a utility tow-bar, I don't. So much for the day of the dark lord - I was feeling pretty damned chuffed!

As if to soldify my good fortune for the day, I was treated not five minutes later to a Santa sighting. Its true. Father Christmas is working the off season, driving a cab around Sydney. Maybe you don't believe me, but what else could I expect on the 06.06.06?

The whole "Scotch Girl" thing...

So back in 2000 I went to the States. It was a great trip and I went with my awesome pal Becks. One of our stops was Las Vegas and while we were there we checked out a show that was playing in the casino Circus Circus, which was where we were staying. We had to find our way to the venue and so enquired at the information desk...the conversation went like this:

AB (me) - "Hey how are you? I'm looking for the comedy show that's on tonight..."

Lady - "Oh my God! A Scotch girl!"

AB - "Uh sorry?"

Lady - "You're a Scotch girl!"

AB - "Ummm, no actually, I'm Australian."

Lady - "Honey, I know a Scotch person when I hear one....Ken! Ken! Come listen to the Scotch girl!""

Obviously, she didn't know a Scotch person when she heard one...I imagine she also didn't know a Scottish person when she heard one.

And that is the Scotch Girl thing.

Why Blog?

Well why not. I figure, if I can blame the fact that I had a pack a day smoking habit on peer pressure, then I can plead the same here - everyone else seems to have one.

Though, I did quit smoking five years ago (not counting when I get drunk and have one and then swear blind I will never have another, until five months later I get drunk again ... see the pattern. Though I get drunk plenty without having one...HEY! Don't judge me!) so you know, I may quit this soon enough.

I am currently cat sitting for my friends Lee and Marlo. Lee said I could use his computer and I was all like "Uh, no, I am sure I will not touch it..." and well, I could not help myself.

And no, I am not scottish.