musings

it’s been cold all day. today was the coldest day since, well, this time last year, according to the weather bureau. and the rain started falling an hour ago. which is fine, as I’m home and staying put for the eve.

did a segment for a tv series yesterday, some new show for mtv pitched at young up & coming bands. I walked into the guitar store, they said, go upstairs with this film crew and talk. so I did. we talked about equipment, guitars, amps, that kind of thing. they wouldn’t have wanted my true opinions on the real state of the biz, and I’m sure most of my bit will end up on the proverbial cutting room floor anyway. but it was a larf.

I’m not a huge tv fan, but there’s a new series that has me hooked. called the hollowmen, it’s an aussie take on the yes minister style of poli-commentary, done by the working dog folks. very clever stuff, and as with the bbc classic, already echoing real political events.

bert newton’s 70? sheesh….

standing at the corner of walk and don’t walk. waiting for a friend, watching the detectives and keeping my hands to myself.

I’ll never be your beast of burden, but I still got the blues for you. we tripped the light fantastic and went dancing in the dark. now the sun’s coming up, I’m riding with lady luck, stars beginning to fade. not fade away. it’s better to burn out then to fade away, anyhow.

it’s been a hard day’s night, and I’ve been working like a dog. but when I paint my masterpiece, the hills are alive with the sound of music. please release me, let me go. and if you leave me, can I come too?

I saw her today at the reception when she turned and doubled back, and started walking toward a coffee coloured cadillac. but I’m over the road and down the mountainside, keep on walking, don’t look back.

rocky mountain high, mississippi queen, way out west where the rain don’t fall. lord, I was born a ramblin’ man, wherever I hang my hat is home. little pink houses for you and me, imagine me and you, I do. pack up your suitcase and hit the road, papa’s got a brand new bag.

lying in a burned out basement with the full moon in my eye, it’s a wonder tall trees ain’t laying down. are you ready for the country, old man, because it’s time to go. acadian driftwood, gypsy tail wind, up on cripple creek she sends me.

to live is to fly, both low and high. you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave your hat on.

between the usual work stuff, family descending on the house like locusts and gigstuff, it’s perhaps best left as a rhetorical question.

househunting continues. writing/recording doesn’t. think I need to wait for the move to reinvigorate. sunday gig with lucy was good. stepkids and sparekids have come & gone.

haven’t even updated my foodblog in a while, although tonight’s grilled scotch fillet with an aged-cheddar infused beurre blanc rocked.

speaking of time passing, today it’s been 28 years since live aid. sheesh.

happy 30-somethingth b-day to vodka ally, and happy 50th to richard.

as some of you are aware, we’ve been looking to buy a decent lil house in the mountains, west of sydney. property prices are cheap there, especially compared with the city, and I’ve always kinda sorta kinda wanted to live up there. the relative cold doesn’t bother me, having grown up where I did. in fact, all day today the locals were commenting on the freezing weather and wind chill. it wasn’t a garden party, but it weren’t too bad, by my pa’s reckoning.

however, both the gypsy gal and I are astounded at the lack of, well, can’t call it ‘professionalism’ per se, just the lack of attention and diligence paid by the (purportedly) competitive real estate market. we’ve met quite a few flakes, and they didn’t fall from snowclouds.

so after another day where we had one agent call thinking we were meeting in his office (why on earth would we go to your office? we’re here to look at a house, you idiot), three that cancelled viewings for various odd reasons (the best being they couldn’t locate the keys to the premises), one who simply failed to turn up at the appointed time, one who thought we were seeking an entirely different type of property, and one who was simply confused, we didn’t get as far as we’d hoped.

a good moment was at the ‘renovator’s delight’ deceased estate, wherein the agent told us that in spite of the dilapidated overall look, the structure was sound enough. I then opened a kitchen drawer to reveal a family of large, quite alive rats nestled within and shooting me very annoyed looks thru their beady lil rodent eyes. it’s our favourite place so far.

so the beat goes on. as my hero and role model buckaroo bonzai once said, ‘wherever you go, there you are.’

we’ve been migrating big rock radio to its new home on live365. the stream’s up and live now at live365.com/stations/bigrockradio . if you’ve got a sec, please have a quick listen, then lemme know at cletisATcletis.com. I’m keen to see if their popup player loads without winamp etc being called up. thanks.

the big rock website is under rebuild as well, although I’m still fussing over intergrating CMS into static html and xhtml.

I’m trying to remember the days that were mainly consumed with music, food, drink and girls…

killing an hour before meeting up with some pals at the deadsetter’s sunday gig, so as I’m perusing the net, here’s a few odds n enz:

many of my nortre americano friends and relatives ask if we have a 4th of july in australia. we do. it falls between the 3rd and the 5th of july.

this weekend’s househunting endeared me further to those colloquial real estate terms such as ‘renovator’s delight’, ‘fixer-upper’, ‘one for the handyman’, ‘needs ‘tlc’, ‘great potential’ and the like. oy vey. I’m pretty damn lousy with a hammer, but I can do a good version of tim hardin’s ‘if I were a carpenter’….

some of the tunes I played at the sonoma on friday: robert johnson / come on in my kitchen; muddy waters / can’t be satisfied; lightning hopkins / icewater (nods to peter case’s arrangement); bob dylan / just like tom thumbs’ blues; elmore james / it hurts me too; allen toussaint / get out of my life woman; neil young / for the turnstiles; willie dixon / little red rooster; john fogerty / long as I can see the light; robert johnson / 32-20 blues; leadbelly / bourgeois blues.

one of science fiction’s most profitable and enduring franchises is the star trek series of television shows and feature films, which all share one thing in common - colossally bad acting. my own personal ‘hall of shame’, which I’ll dub the shatner award for gratuitous overacting in the face of an otherwise perfectly sensible script (listed by character names):

original series: nurse chapel, scotty and chekov.
next generation: riker (I’ve seen scarecrows slouch more than he does), counselor troi (dishonorable mention for her mother) and doctor crusher.
deep space nine: major kira (worse than dr smith in ‘lost in space’ for interstellar annoyance), doctor bashir (what’s with all the medical staff….), and anyone playing a ferengi (had to look up the correct spelling of that one).
voyager: let’s make this easy. the whole cast gets a shatner award. the entire lot. and two for the talaxian-badsuited-whatever-dude.
enterprise: captain archer, only because I keep seeing his abrasive mug pop up in other bad action series. the gypsy gal would award one to the vulcan gal, whom she affectionately refers to as ‘duck lips’.
and finally - the william shatner lifetime achievement award for overacting to…. well, shatner of course, and a second pip to james spader for starring opposite him in that shockingly abysmal boston legal.

well, that’s guaranteed to bring some hatemail in my monday morning inbox.

I’ve got some new work on this week, and need to get my non-tech head around a few things. anyone out there had much experience integrating content management modules into existing static html pages? I really don’t want to rebuild the whole site.

big rock radio is offline, we’re setting up a new home in the next day or two. and the big rock record site is undergoing a rebuild as well.

once again, at the forefront of modern 21st century orators:

“Perhaps freedom is not universal. Maybe it’s only Western people that can self-govern. Maybe it’s only, you know, white-guy Methodists who are capable of self-government.” — George W. Bush, London, June 16, 2008

had a good start to a new residency gig for me, this one at the sonoma bakery and cafe in south sydney. friday afternoon from midday til 2pm, home by 3pm? I’ve got the post-gig buzz, not from alcohol but caffeine. great place, great folks running it and will be a great regular gig to have.

we’re off to the hills again this weekend on the long-running househunt. our budget drops us firmly inbetween “small but nicely appointed” and “roomy renovator’s delight”. we’ll see where we end up.

congrats to hunter & suzy owens on their tenth anniversary gig tonight. seems like only, oh, a decade ago that we all graced the sticky-carpeted corner of the long-gone tattersalls hotel in rozelle.

had a couple of great gigs over the weekend, which the ol’ soul really needed. luch desoto band on saturday night, then blues pirates on sunday. I was on bass duties with the lds band,  hadn’t played bass in years but used to with her original band back in the 80’s. was mucho good indeed. great crowd, someone had the bright idea to kick on afterwards, and I had the dim idea to say yeah.

we ended up at the empire. it used to be a great rock pub, I played a regular sunday with chris turner & the boys back in the 80’s, then it was home to the sydney blues club for years. but, as with most things pub-like in this country, a management company bought it and renovated the joint to within an inch of its bricks n mortar. add that to a very loud band o’ rawk pretenders, and… why did we go there again?

sunday, I shook off the inevitable hangover to re-set the stage for the pirates. amazingly, many of saturday’s crowd returned, including jim finn who joined us on drums. sore heads soon gave way to happy faces as a bluesy groundhog’s weekend wound up.

got a nice lunchtime gig later in the week, plus a rehearsal for this upcoming neil young tribute show, more about that later.

oh, and I have two years’ of taxes and books to do this week…

friends around me are losing gigs, we’re all struggling to get thru each week, my rent is about to be hit with a serious increase - third in a year, work is tenuous at best. I’ve got a bad case of the blues, and not the good kind.

any good news stories out there? I’d love to hear some.

happy b-day to lani, and to lynie. much love to you both.