on par

Confirmed. Getting a brazillian done for the first time hurts way more then getting a tattoo or having your leg veins pumped with saline.
Its about on par with splitting your labia during sex, urinating whilst said wound heals, and sliding down the road sustaining a 40cm x 15cm gravel rash injury on the front of your shin.
I guess its all just a matter of perspective.

the great camping battle of barrington tops

Prologue

Once upon a time there was a big old Kookaburra who lived in the bush. His name was Kanye and in the hot summer months he made his home in the biggest tallest tree in the national park at the top of a mountain. Kanye picked this tree as his summer abode because of the sweeping views of the valley below. It also boasted cool breezes and a strong clean river nearby where Kanye could feast on fresh water eel if he was lucky. Sometimes Kanye would help himself to an abundance of leeches who lived in the marshy swamp not far from his tree.

But what Kanye loved most about his lofty penthouse was ribs. Pork ribs. In particular, pork spare ribs  from Aldi. You see, Kanye’s apartment was smack bang in down town Camping Central. And every couple of days during the summer months a different group of humans would come huffn n puffn up the mountain in their dusty cars and make camp at the bottom of Kanye’s condo. These humans were all pretty much alike. 2 Legs. 2 arms. No feathers. And they all ate these special marinated ribs from Aldi. Kanye knew this because he would listen to the humans crap on about how these ribs were the best ribs in the entire universe. And Kanye agreed. He LOVED  ribs. Smokey Barbecue, Honey Soy, Texas Ranch. Kanye liked the Texas Ranch ones best, they made his beak spasm with uncontrollable delight whenever he smelled them on the fire.

In his younger and more agile days Kanye would sometimes swoop down and  steal a rib straight off the hot plate.  He got his belly feathers burnt a fair bit, and once a human even stabbed him with a fork on the way past. Luckily it was only a superficial wound and Kanye got away with a nice fat juicy rib for his efforts. Mostly nowdays Kanye would just keep an eye on where the humans would toss their ribby scraps. He’d drop down under the cloak of darkness and  forage about after they had gone to do whatever it was they did in their sweaty stinky plastic dwellings. These pickings were no where near as plump and delectable as the ribs straight off the flame, but Kanye had grown fat and lazy in his golden years. He had also pretty much seared off all the feathers on his underside so he generally took the easy option more often then not now days.

One day Kanye was doing some circle work around the clearing when he spied a nice tender morsel of rib that had been overlooked by the previous group of humans. It was still wrapped in plastic,  twinkling in the morning sun light, attracting butterflies, march flies and pesky gnats.  Kanye recognised the morse code, extended his left wing and dropped into a nose dive landing almost on top of the shiny packet.

“SSSSSSSSS”  an annoyed hiss came from the tall grass nearby. It was Kanye’s mate, El Guerdo the Goanna. He was a big mutha licker of a lizard with super cut shoulders and arms. “Back off, Mon. Thassss ma piece o bakey tharrrrr…”

“Woah now Big Chief. Hold your horses. Its me, bro’, the K-Man!” Kanye had’nt seen El Guerdo for a few months.Last time they hooked up they got well messy down at the water tank in town and Guerdo got his tail run over by a dirt bike whilst playing chicken with it on the track.

“He he he ha ha ha ho ho ho BEEG BEAK! Wazcrackalackn?”

“Jus laxn d’hood, y’know. Howz yo’ tail?”

El Guerdo shrugged his great shoulders and sighed ” Eeeees ok I’spose. I lossss’m feeln my toess but now the peeeesky anzzz canno huurrrt me when I rrrrraida tharrr nest. He he he.

“Nice one brother! Speaking of chown down, why don’t we share this ‘ere tasty wib together?”

” Cool mon. Eeet jus so ‘appens that I peeecked up some primo greeno from our friend Estella the Bower Bird theees very morning. Fancy a blaze w’me before we eeeeat?

“A’ight! L’ess roll!”

The 2 friends sat down and divvied up the rib between them. El Guerdo pieced together a medium sized doobie  and sparked up.

“Tha’ some decent reeeeb.” Guerdo passed the reefer across to Kanye who took it in his beak. ” Humans here yeesterday?”

“Cough. Yep, they left very late last nite. Bit weird them leaving at that time. Made a heck of a racket before they left too. The whole mountain was up”

“Yiiiiiiis, I think I heard them. Wassss’  that big bang round 3am? It wassss BOOOOOMN!”

“Well, I saw the whole thang. It all started a couple of days ago…”

Chapter One: The Kids

Chapter Two: Carnage

Chapter Three:  Revenge

e.w.j

still here

long time

try to delete you from my heart

don’t know why

i feel you

half full

still fuckn coughin up snot

totally over this flu tell u wot

my throat’s in a tether

i feel worse then the weather

but i’m very glad for the mates that i’ve got

the cardinal sin

today i rode janis into the cbd for a meeting. this was the first time i’d taken her into the city centre during a week day and i was a bit concerned about parking. before i left the office i looked up various web sites dedicated to free parking for motorbikes etc so i had some idea of what to expect.

on approah to my premeditated parking patch, however, i spotted a sneaky lil dodgy park next to this other vespa. it was off the footpath, snuggled in next to a building, all safe and sound. hesitating only slightly i flick my lite, swerve to the left and nestle janis in between the wall and the other moped. it was a pretty tight fit (as i may have mentioned, janis is a bit of a porker).

kill the engine and go to do the ever ungraceful centre stand dance to get her in position when i notice my fatal exception… i’d parked on a bit of tiling that was super slippery so the metal stand couldnt get a grip. i tried and tried to get that mutha licker to stick but to no avail. all that huffn n puffn just kept pushing janis closer to the wall. with me stuck in between.

and then, of course, i lost my grip on her. down she went. over to the right. she went down quite slowly, like the titanic. but then again maybe it was cos i watching in slo mo horror as she hit the deck…taking the other scoot down   in her wake. smash.

AAAAAAAAAGH!

lucky for me a courier came rushing to my aid (he heard my death cry over the engine of his 5 tonne truck). together we quickly got both bikes up and i decided that i should make haste for my planned park down the street. it was at this point that some smart ass came up and informed me that where i’d parked was actually a fire escape (with no signage). i needed no further encouragement. janis and i high tailed it outta there quick smart. it was a crushing moment.

i have learnt the following lessons from this ghastly experience:

– never park on tile. ever.

– motorbikes are very easy to drop.

– vespas are resilient. they hardly dent or scratch and are suprisingly easy to pick-up. must be the full metal jacket.

– someone will probably knock janis over at some point and unless i’m there when it happens, i would never know.

– a blood curdling display of vocal range will get you help very quickly (i discovered this after the push bike incident but its handy to remember for other such ugly situations)

– stick to the parking bays in the city, they are way better then sneaky dodgy cheeky fire escapes that have no signage.

– a good belly laugh after is essential to keeping this shit in perspective. served with beer. 6 pack min.

viva la vespa

ring-a-ding-ding, gots me some new wheels.

aye, she’s a beauty, i’m quite smitten truth be told. she’s pearl white with snake skin trim on the oh-so plush seat. she’s got a massive matching top box and a big fuck off head lamp. the best bit is her size. she’s a lane hoggin monster with 200cc 4 stroke engine which gives me plenty of head room. and she’s FAT. its like sitting on an overfed shetland pony. my flat mates caught me out the back fussing over her tethers and nuzzling in her ear (when she has her cover on, she looks just like a horse). like i said, smitten.

anyhow, i rode her home the other day and tried to organise a small welcoming party. the idea was that everyone would be assembled in the back yard and i would reveal her by fanging around the corner, barging through the gates and come screeching sideways to a well timed halt. of course noone arrived when they were supposed to (dusk, to catch the gleam of the setting sun wink off her flank) so i ended up munching down on the cheese platter and a few beers and by the time everyone rocked up i was pretty well cut. it had also started to drizzle. regardless, we partied on and everyone had their photo opportunity sitting on her well endowed lap. even the palm leaf got busted out for a few of the more burlesque shots – we’d rigged up a makeshift tent thingy with a tarp, broom stick and some string, it looked like we were camping in Cairns.

rode her to work and was grinnin like it was Tweekin circa ’96. so. much. fun.

i’m in luuuurrrve!

p.s her name is either Pearl, Mercedes or Janis… what you think?

fundamentally incompatible

When a guy sweats out his comedown in your bed while you are at work and doesnt strip the sheets.

When a guy sends you a text saying that you have to change the sheets when you get home.

When you get home and find that a guy has left your room in a state of disarray with his clothes strewn all around and the bed smelling like a toxic gymnasium.

Just.

Plain.

Gross.

uncouth

World Youth Day has been and gone, thank fuck. For one endless week Sydney was awash with hordes of flag bearing pilgrims all wearing the same silly backpack and large ID tag around their neck. They tended to move in large packs and bellow football chants which got old quickly. Pilgrims were privvy to free public transport and food whilst the rest of Sydney couldnt get to work or go about their business in peace. We endured this inconveneience by sharing tales of how thousands of cashed up Catholics were shacked up in school halls and freezing on ovals (some even got frost bite!), sleeping on bits of cardboard and getting as much nookie as possible.

Dazzlebatz and I tried to have a beer and pub meal at the Edinburugh Castle during the plague but we were descended upon by 100 backpacks who swarmed in and plonked them selves down at our booth without asking. After giving them a loud serve of truth and justice we moved to another table. They sent over the flag bearer who offered to buy us a drink by way of apology. Whatever. I thought they were supposed to be pilgrims with no money to buy bus tickets and here they were hitting the turps like it was New Years Eve. They even had the audacity to ask the wait staff if they could get a discount on their $8 meals!

das ist das

I got my new passport in the mail.

Feel like slipping into some lederhosen, eating kransky with sauer kraut and guzzling big beers whilst laxin in my beamer listening to kraftwerk on the funken gruven stereo.

Ja.

heavy duty

Numb.

Exhausted.

Feel like I’ve been marinating in legal juices forever

Every day a cold court room with nasty seats. Stiff neck

Every day the warm faces of the judge and his associates. Stolen giggles

Every day some drama, some objection, the C word. Often.

Instant friends. Easy laughter. What’s for lunch?

Scrabble. Cribbage. Sudoko. Crossword

Mario!

A walk in the park if we are lucky. Lap of the fountain. High blue skies

I want to sit on the grass for a while. In the sun.

Stay together, move as a group.

Think as a group.

Decision time. Beyond reasonable doubt?

Common sense.

Yes. No?
Slow mo’.
Over

For me.
I will go back to work next week. It never happened.