The Life and Times of Peter Green
updated 8 November 2024
 "Mr Ghost flies overhead while we pose in our Halloween sheets". (Kalorama Halloween 2024). |
October 21stI catch up with my friend Ros , who is one of the main people for Halloween on the Green. We have a coffee at the local and get our work lists together for the event. A joy to volunteer and support this, all the monies go to help local schools up here in the Hills. So I'm stage managing and Marky will be my assistant. It feels good to do this.We watch "The Paper Boy" and Zac Efron as handsome as ever, we thought Nicole Kidman was excellent in this too. These obscure type movies suit her. She was great in the rarely mentioned "FUR" (An imaginary portrait of Diane Arbus). October 22ndSis is rushed to hospital again, and taken up to Sydney. Her brother and mother are so worried. I look at flights. Thankfully overnight she improves, but still has to stay in hospital for 4 days. She is such good person, she doesn't deserve to be so ill.A conspiracy guy started rabbiting on about chemtrails outside the bakery today. I let him waffle his b.s. and then said "you know they are actually called "Contrails". He said "what do you mean" oh never mind. Good grief. I make a bit of a Horror Movie dvd table today. The Salvo's doin't like halloween but I sneak this one through. Crazy as Vinnies etc all make money for their charities from Halloween. The Salvo's still out of touch. October 23rdMarkys Youtube Wednesday is up. This ones really great. It's Crowded House performing "Four Seasons In One Day" but has a special start which we tagged as "Bomb Scare". Neil at his best with his ad lib , so cool. Filmed at the fan club show at London's Hanover Grand in 1996. Really, REALLY worth checking out.I wash the gargoyle for the Halloween event and somehow break the wing off. I spin dry the Wilfred costume with a bag of herbs so it will smell better. Working on something for my side kick to wear. I have a new dog lead so Mark can take me for a walk. All goes well. October 24thI score a really great mirror for my band room at the Halloween event. $4.00 and it has multi light mode and can charge via USB too. Perfect. Thanks Carol.Sausages for dinner, non fat ones and this really nice cheesecake, I'll have trippy dreams tonight. October 25thI call our sound man Justin. Sounds like he was at a wild party, all of us are relaxed around the Halloween stage, he knows his stuff, I know mine. Stage managing is second nature now.I sit and chat to Ian, Ruth and Carol outside the bakery. It's nice day to sit and chill. I call my Uncle Des as he turns 79 today! Home in 2 months for Christmas so will see the family soon. October 26thWe wave goodbye to Tayla, as it's her last day at the bakery. I will miss her, she has great sense of humour. We will stay in contact I know that.I try to make these capsicum Jack-O-Lanterns and they are bit of a flop. The filling tastes nice but they look more like some scary twisted clown. I meet two filmmakers, Zac and Pip at the bakery. Nice smart people, and we get along perfectly. I remember Ed Vedder telling me, when you meet like minded people that may be your friend for ages, take a photo. (He took one of us). So we did, the first day we met. We promise to stay in contact and hang out. I can help them with a few location shoots up here. Mark and myself fill the car with some Crowded House backdrops from our archives, the Gargoyle and other Halloween stuff and head to the Ferny Creek Reserve to do bump in. The stage is great, it's not massive, but bigger than I thought. Mark is great he works so hard with me. The backdrops look fabulous. We meet Justin and he's happening. Between all of us we get most of it ready. The side stage band room is good. Ros turns up and we put together our running list and go through all the speeches etc. 4 hours later we head home, and grab a Pizza on the way. Duncan lends us all the walkie talkies for the event. He is a good bloke. I support Olinda Pizza because they support all the community events. October 27thUp very early and Mark on time too. We both have a quick coffee at the bakery and arrive at Ferny Creek reserve which is a hive of activity. About 100 store holders setting up, rides, and loads of volunteers. I am wearing my Wilfred the dog suit. A face painter tidies up my painted dog nose so I appreciate that. Justins adding some finishing touches to the stage and we re-work the band room. I go for a walk with Marky (he has me on my dog lead) . I'm wearing a sign around my neck saying "Do Not Pat, I BITE"! As we go into the "Sacred Lodge, my friend Lillie spots us and jumps across the tables and hugs us to death. So awesome to see her. She has her team cooking up a storm, she is an amazing cook. She tells them, whatever we want to eat today is free. Mark just adores her cooking. He'd run off with her if he wasn't connected to my dog chain. I chat to organiser Andrew, like all of us he is trying to do 10,000 things at once. Ros looks brilliant in her Mexican day of the dead makeup. The Lodge is mind blowing inside, it's like the ultimate Halloween hang out and it also has a small live stage.My first band arrive, a bunch of youngsters who won "The Battle of the Bands". They are called Trubug . They've made an effort all dressed up in scary outfits. The drummers Mum climbs onstage during soundcheck and adjusts her son's Ghost outfit. The bass player is painted green with a Frankenstein look. The rest of the band equally cool. They get a solid reaction, half decent crowd, people dancing in freaky wonderful outfits. The drummer gives me his ghost outfit when they depart. I keep it, you never know when you will need a Ghost costume. We tidy up the stage and meet the female Mariachi band "Queen of Hearts" when they arrive. We hit it off instantly and I try to time the Trubug guys going and the Queen of Hearts arriving in the band room. The Hearts are playing three sets today. The third band, the lead singer has lost her voice at the 11th hour. The reserve is now full of people, just everyone having a brilliant time. The giant Halloween stilt walkers are out and about. I spot a young girl who made her own Barbara Maitland from Beetlejuice creation-you know the long Spy V's Spy type head. She has this dress and matching wig-a great effort, we love this. I encourage her to go in the Best Costume contest. I show her to Mark and he just has the biggest smile "Perfect" he shouts. The Queen of Hearts are onstage and amazing, great voices, beautiful older style instruments. They win the crowd over in a few minutes. The rides are all underway and I take out some giant buckets of Halloween treats for those who are dressed up, which is 80% of the crowd. I run into several people from the Bakery, several customers from my Salvo store and Shardie who works with me with her daughter. They get some of my special Halloween bags, the PG silkscreened ones. The Halloween Parade makes its way around the oval, a giant horse drawn coffin carrying Labor member Daniela De Martino leads the way. As she rolls past me I shout out "Good one Labor" and she pops up and says ‘Love you Peter Green". HA! It all stops in front of our stage, I go and assist Daniela to climb out and join us all on stage. Liberal Aaron is up there, and someone calls out "Did you come as a Librarian" as he made no effort to dress up. But thats ok, we treat everyone equally up here. They've asked me to do the applause meter ,well the get the crowds to do it so the Dog is on the microphone. It goes well, lots of noise. Lots of prize winners. I bring them up onto the stage with us. They are all so excited. Barbara Maitland wins second prize, we are delighted for her. BeetleJuice BeetleJuice BeetleJuice. Back into the music, Mark goes and visits Lillie and brings me some lunch. We have bit of cuddle and the weather is simply stunning. I am working up a sweat in this giant fur onesie! I catch up with about 40 people from my Facebook page, try to spoil them all with the candy bags. My friend Teali turns up and her cool son is the Riddler. I drag them up onstage for some photos in front off the Crowded House backdrops. Good to see them. Queen of Hearts final set and I get the stilt walkers to dance in front of the stage while they sing. It looks wonderfully freaky. They finish the set and we hang out in the band room and have a drink. I get a snap with these talented lovely woman, I'm the one in the dog suit. Woof! An hour to go so we start packing up the stage and the band room. All done in record time. We thank Justin who has been brilliant. Wave goodbye to all our new friends too. A fabulous day and looking at the crowd numbers a great day for the fundraising. It feels so good that the money stays up here for the local schools. We did well Marky. October 28thKind of a day off, a day to recharge. Tomorrow I start work for the VEC and spend 2 weeks doing the council vote counting. It's money gig, gotta pay the bills.October 29thI wake up 1 minute before my alarm goes off. Midnight gives me that "where are you going" look. I make my lunch , into the car and drive to Silvan to meet the crew and start work counting votes.It's a quick drive, 13 minutes, not bad. I head into this little community hall and get a huge cuddle from my friend Sally. A surprise , extra good as she will be my "boss" on Team A. Great to see her and she has brought along 3 of her marvellous dogs. It all goes well but the cutting machine hates me. It makes me nervy. The vote part is fine and we get through around 9000 votes. The other workers are nice , I like them. I try not being so loud or whatever it is that I am. Control it Green. We work 9.5 hours today so I am worn out. But being paid well so that's the up side. Sally seems happy with me and the others, if they are happy I am happy. I head home and manage a Nana Nap. Marky makes me dinner so that is great. October 30thPretty much repeat cycle but a different electorate counted. We get 3 penis drawings in 3 votes, I get one for Elmo and another for Ned Kelly. Two for Trump and two for Harris. Plus a nice post it note thanking me for my work.Home with enough time to put up today's Markys Youtube Wednesday. It's Crowded House again, a potent version of "Tall Trees" from Woodface. I filmed this one at the Royal Court, Liverpool UK. 1992. Neil Finn is playing so well at this show. Check it out. I shout Mark dinner. It was going to be Kelly's but too packed so we settled in at the Mt D hotel. I was so tired I almost fell face first into my parmigiana. It was delicious though. October 31stHappy Halloween.I am settled into vote counting now. I felt today was my best effort so far. Focused. On the way home I call into Woolworths at Monbulk and score the very last Halloween Pumpkin. Worth waiting for, down to .50c per KG . As I head to the car, I help an older lady with her shopping trolley. She thanks me, and says I am so kind. I tell her that Halloween brings out the best in me. I hope her hearing aid was working, she might of thought I said it "brings out the BEAST in me". Yikes. As I drive down Main Street there are about 100 kids in Halloween costumes, I have the biggest smile, they are having the best time. In a tougher world it makes me happy each time I see a kid having fun. Home and I do the quickest pumpkin carving ever, boy it is a HUGE Pumpkin. I rush and set a table up, a few Halloween decorations and the last of my silkscreen bags full of treats. Two kids turn up instantly, Atlas and Nova in mighty costumes. They love the bags and tell me I am "cool". HA! Another 2 follow- Pussy and La More in cat suits. I'm not even in a costume so feel "Halloween Naked". I rush inside and grab the Trubug drummers Ghost sheet and tell Mark to grab a sheet out of our linen cupboard. Yes old school we are ghosts tonight. Boo! Within an hour every candy bag gone. A record number for us. We take a few photos of the ghosts down the hallway inside. I arrange a big ladder for one shot, drape it in Marks sheet and climb up to the top in mine. I suddenly look like the tallest ghost alive, well tallest ghost dead!!!! We take a few photos together. Little did we know that the one shot I used has an extra ghost in it. Yes flying over our heads the camera captures what could be the real deal, if such a thing exists. It will be the main photo at the top of the diary page, what do you guys think? Anyway I love it. That was my treat for Halloween-thank you spirit world. We hope your Halloween was just as much fun. November 1stHoly hell November already. I book our return tickets from Sydney at Christmas, so our two airfares are done, just leaves the hire car. Today is great day as the new Paul Kelly album " Fever Longing Still" is out and it is a FANTASTIC record. If you love Aussie Music get a copy of this. Much as it pains me I wish Crowded House would have made a record this good. We love the songs on "Fever Longing Still". Fell in love with it after the first listen. I hope it goes well for P.K.I manage to get in half a day at the charity, my regular girls are not in, it's not as good and someone is having a sulk (not me) but I ignore it and get a bit done, the Book Nook looks great again. I get some fuel for the car on the way and my Petrol station gives me a free coffee. Yay! November 2ndSo many of my FB people spot "Ghost #3" about 100 messages, because yours truly posted it on FB. I never spotted it till people told me about it. I've grown to like it, the extra Ghost doesn't scare me. It feels ok. I imagine him flying backwards and forth along the corridor roof.We work around the front steps today, clear some of the wildness away from our Egyptian Sphinx. Still a few more Green bins to fill but we are making progress. I love working outside with Mark and Miss Midnight enjoying our company. The weather is perfect. November 3rdI'm sitting out the front of the bakery with Bev and tourists are watching me in awe as I call a sulphur crested cockatoo to come sit with me and he does. Later I head to my car and get my container of wild bird feed out, various seeds etc , all healthy stuff for him. I'm worried the Tourists will try and feed him a pie. He seem so intrigued by me. Locals ask if he is my pet-pat him and see I say, they don't.I work in the office today, spread some good vibes around Harris-the American election is so close. I worry for America, I worry for the world, let's hope America does the right thing and flushes the big fat orange turd , for once and for all. Fingers crossed that decency will prevail. Trump you suck! Stay positive everyone. Love PG |
archives * images * merchandise
| brought to you by frenz.com, the springboard for all that is frenz of the enz |