2002-03-18

OH fuck I'm tired. Yesterday, Bitchcraft played in Wollongong which is a four hour drive from Newcastle, at a gig that started at 12 midday and went til 7pm. Three Newie bands were playing: us, Wiseheimer and Conation. As such it was quite a mission, with days of car math, gear co-ordination and babysitting to line up, and the unknown variable of a heap of people who just wanna play rock, not organise anything!

On Sunday morning, we woke very early to lug very heavy, large, unwieldy black boxes into my car. I had been chosen to carry all the speaker boxes in my van which means lug, LUG, LUG!! And we love to do it first thing in the morning. My passengers were Michelle (bassplayer and my flatmate), Janice (our drummer), Zack (Janice's boyf), a Marshall speaker cabinet, a big generic guitar cabinet, two (not ONE but TWO) nuggety little bass boxes. The car was a little heavy but not too bad.

The drive down was OK and my first drive in Sydney. I was just about to say it was uneventful, but that would be overlooking the near miss that I did have. With a BMW. A new one. Gah!! Trying to change lanes, I was unable to look at everything at once and nearly rear ended this horrible olive green BMW. Proving that taste and wealth do not automatically go together, this rich bastard bought a fugly car, but at least it cost a fricken bomb. After I heard Michelle saying "Woh! Woh! WOOHH!", my previosuly imagined brake squeezing ability became reality. Phew!!

We got to the show at about 1.30pm, after only a little bit of driving around Wollongong lost. The gig was on the grounds of some half arsed markets, where some folk were buying plants. There was a sunken grassed courtyard to the rear of the markets, with an old train carriage to one side. The bands played on the grass, and delicious vegan food was cooked in the train carriage.

It was a fun line up of acts, keeping it varied, cuz it was quite a long day! A Nowra band called The Interlude played first, and they were a bit nervous but very good. Babymachine, Gong girls, rocked my fucking world, as they always do - this time whipping out a tooled up version of "Touch Me" that was originally done by Samantha Fox. And of course, I love Wiseheimer....mmmm.....We played pretty good and I did a solo on my knees on the grassy ground.

AFter the gig finished there was a fair bit of standing around in the car park - this is a common exercise for large groups of people in rock bands. It got so boring for Jake and Smales they drove off without their designated passenger Heath who then hooted around the carpark that he was "having fun! I'm going for a swim!" thus sending the whole thing into further spins. How would Heath get home? "I'll walk!" he reasoned. At that point, I decided to leave the carpark, since I had a full car and could do nought to help anyhow.

I hate driving in the dark. Everyone is winging it. You can't see more that 100m in front sometimes. Dickheads.

One of the suckyest things about driving long distances to play rock music is the fact that you don't really get anything good to eat. Its all junk food. Now in conjunction with that, I have found that as my age increases, my ability to happily digest flouro yellow potato chips, fizzy, alien coloured drinks and strangely shaped, candied chocolate is declining. Fast. Everytime I now go to a service station and buy junk food, I end up with the most heinous belly ache. Oh dear, I'm gonna start saying stuff like "Oh, I'm sorry. No crisps for me. They don't AGREE with me!".

Now I've had a nights sleep, so why am I tired? I had it in my head that I had a training day for work, and that I had to leave home at 8am this morning. So I dragged my arse out of bed at 7.20am, made coffe, fed the cats. I decided to check the timetable for the days training and found the printout I had been given. Wednesday. The fucking training day is on Wednesday. And I can never go back to sleep after that much activity. Pissed. Off.

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I'd been remiss in mentioning here that the house I rent is ON THE FUCKING MARKET. You may remember my last rental house was sold from under me also. So anyhow, the last several weeks we have endured real estate agents coming through the house, open day on Saturday where the doors are flung open for one hour for any for any fool to wander through. I have been having palpatations about security, had a huge, ugly sign erected right at my front door, had ugly, damaging WOOD CHIPS put on the garden and just feeling way too open.

Saturday was finally the auction day. On site. So hordes traipsed through my home. They then threw bids about for half an hour and passed the bloody thing in. It didn't sell. And it turns out the most serious buyer was aone of our neighbours. The Porsche wanker who has a dog acccessory (a beagle that is hideously under exercised) and has material possessions on the brain. And he's just a stupid scammer.

So for now we wait. Do we have to move? dunno...just dunno....