The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 12 February - 24 February 2001
February 12th
We keep working on the book, am starting to like the title of it "Hussy". Even though it is a subtitle....."Famous for 16 Minutes- Book 1" is a bit of a mouthful...so it's easier to refer to it as "Hussy". Everytime I think of "Hussy" I think of Paul Hester in that damn dress....we are all Hussy's I guess. Some are "shameless Hussy's"....Have a photo of Hester and Richard Pleasance from BCO in these really bad wigs so that shot HAS to go in the book. There will be a decent chunk of photos and we are going out of our way to keep the price right down. The readers should be happy with it, I like having something available that is a bit left of centre, that you can slip into the back of your jeans, and pull out on the train home from work, or those long flights.
February 13th
Tim Finn gives me a quick call from N.Z. He's decided to call the album "Feeding the Gods", now this is weird. The last album was "Say it is So" BOTH titles are songs that he demo'd (at the same time), must of been when we were doing the Finn Bros USA tour- but only the titles have been used, NOT the songs (demos). Think I have a case to get both of these songs out on some sort of club cd......will have to ask him why. Is this just a Tim oddity? So he's doing these gigs at The Continental in Melbourne, the Basement in Sydney and Tilleys in Canberra, the Sorrento gig is really unsure..."you should come to Sydney". I never know if he is saying work on this mini tour, offering me a ticket or saying c'mon on up ...but not offering to pay, that puzzles me! We'll see. He sounded great, glad Marie is coming along, she is a sweetheart, I like the wives- all good women, the steel in the backbone.My hair is a disaster today, it's going blue- black again soon with some blood red pieces, I'm over this Summer look...need to see Edward soon and get it chopped a bit too. Hair today, gone tomorrow!!! With Spock making my hair blue-black on the Hussy cover I decide I'd better go back to cover colour, so that it matches.
February 14th
New Zealanders will be banned from getting the dole in Australia from early March, about time. I've always thought that treaty thing was strange, of course Nzers will think Australians are just being mean bastards again.Meeting with Spock and we are both amazed at how fast this is coming along, the cover is great- he has several versions...my Pg on the tour bus photo takes on a life of it's own, it starts getting substance and depth...and even a bit of Mr Magoo-ism....art rules! I am so excited, I send the jpeg to a few mates, ok I send it to several thousand people....no I actually go door to door and show the cover of Hussy to total strangers. I push several Mormons out of the way, just so I can show people Hussy! I am addicted. He's used 3 of the "death series" photos of Vivienne...she should be a good sport about it. Mark comments that Vivienne "looks incredibly good"- yieks!
I hear that Deadstar have split up- Mushroom didn't pick up the option and the band obviously thought it was all getting to be too hard. I suppose having 3 flop albums didn't help, but there were times where Mushroom didn't help the situation. Peter Jones is such a talented drummer he'll be o.k. I tended to like Dead-stars singles, usually the best tracks on the album.
February 15th
Looks like Bardot are heading off to England (and Hong Kong) 6 week jaunt this time, Popstars is just starting to be shown. The Face magazine are running a feature- "Bardot's Sydney". Good exposure. Would love to show them around London, but I don't think there is a budget for PG. So the girls may have to do this one without the ol' Gryphon. Fortune favors the brave so you never know.....We watch the Rocky & Bullwinkle Movie on dvd. What can I say, some parts I loved, other parts were strange, odd, off center, and occasionally they tried too hard. But the weird germ in me liked it....most people will probably hate it. Natasha was great...nice Purple outfits. I still like the scene where Bullwinkles antlers stop him walking through the doorway...cute!
Send Deb even more date changes for the Frenz.com Neil site, the site is really nice, nice and clean..but all the right info. She's done a great job, and it's been getting record number of "hits".
February 16th
Speak to Nick Seymour, he's off to the surf for a few days. He made the papers today, they forgot to mention that he's back in town for his parents 50th wedding anniversary. He looks VERY brown. kept saying "what have you got for me". Hell I wonder if he meant drugs? I just thought of that, no I think it was him recalling my last email- I have a Gold record for him. I like having Nicholas back in Melbourne. Tells me I am a bad boy.Well today I finished off the text for Hussy. Well the first edit. I did well, was working on ten pages a day, in the end I did a massive 18 pages. It also has a surprise ending......it's like an extra page got added, in the Hussy alternative universe. The question is , will I return for Year 2. It's very Fox Mulder......book two will be called BANG!
So the Famous for 16 minutes Diary is not all that it seems.....thank god the chunk of text editing is done.
February 17th
Catch up with Rosemaree, I lend her CAVE IN THE SNOW, think she'll dig it. She's out buying Doc Martens and taking massive amounts of drugs at dance parties. OK that's a lie, but she is buying new Docs!See Renee for lunch and she flies out for Thailand today, give her some blue satin sleepers, so she can wear on the plane. She's excited to see Jj, he has been writing too. I shouldn't say "too" because I really don't think what I do as "writing" , it's more like abstract scribbles from my pebble like brain.
It's hideously hot in Melbourne, roll on Winter. The heat is shit.
Speak to the office and Amanda locks in a date for me to work in New Zealand with Neil. UK and Europe is still being talked about- 11th hour I hope not. No sleep....mind ticking over like a bomb.
February 18th
Bolt to Babble to see Ben and Bob. I find him eating some massive meal and Bob is nowhere in site. Maybe he has eaten her by accident? Here she comes, straight from Alana's sale. Introduce them to the Babble boys.They come home and give Bob the 5c tour, she likes the house. It is good, I do love it, touring means leaving it for months at a time. It's damned if you do and damned if you don't...tour for work (and enjoyment), but miss the other half and Melbourne.
Qld Labor Party kick butt in the State election. One Nation are crowing, but in reality they had less votes then last time. Still Pauline Hanson (you know her, she's the mother of those Hanson boys.....the pop group...she's not, oh sorry) well she's really the One Nation mouthpiece. If nothing else she is determined, despite not having much of a clue, and racist without knowing it. John Howard must be crapping himself. In some ways he must love having One Nation around because he can at least blame them, instead of admitting defeat to the Labor Party. I worked out why treasurer Peter Costello smiles so much- even in the face of massive voter backlash..... it's because he see's the writing on the wall for Howard and knows he will be the next head of the LIberal Party. he probably does a secret little dance each time Howards arse is in a sling. Ah Politics...and we won't even talk about Bush! America what were you thinking.
February 19th
Well we made a major decision today and we now own a book company! All registered, and a lovely logo. Welcome to the world- ROCKET POCKET BOOKS. I loved the name...covers all my angles. Rocket- Sci Fi, Pocket Books, small books that fit in your pocket......OR taken from "gotta rocket in my pocket baby"...yes it's a sexy title too! Gotta have both.It could work out well, especially for the fans, means we could have so many cool books around tours, and the various groups, all small size and portable.
So Famous for 16 Minutes- Book One ("Hussy") will be out on Rocket Pocket Books. So it will be the test, I think people will be supportive, hope so because it could be a great area. So many cool book related ideas. There is a good chance that a major distributor might be interested so that means across the board coverage. Don't want to jinx it- so weird how things take on their own life...it's always good when "projects" roll along.
Call in and see Vali- she's already had some of her teeth done, GOLD. They look good and not at all freaky, beautiful really. Those Russian dentists know what they are doing. She tells me she is flying out this coming Saturday she thinks...
February 20th
Well Neil's tour kicks off, it's more like pre-tour. I think the tour starts in Auckland, that seems more "real", these early NZ dates seem like warm up gigs.Hope to catch up with Katie Bardot this Friday, Tiff sends me an email and she sounds excited about England. Will have to email them some good places to eat. The girls are in Singapore CLEO magazine, countless pages, Bardot were the 12th biggest selling album in Singapore last year.
Do my Doris Fish interview. Thought it was good to do some pre-interviews around Hussy. It's ok, thought the book lacked SEX, so I stupidly confessed this and was instantly asked a SEX question. Hell I agreed to answer all questions, more the fool me. The Mickey Mouse sexual encounter sounds far freakier then it is, it's in the interview. Guess even Mice get horny sometimes...... head to: http://hussy.fameis.com/
February 21st
Watch I Shot Andy Warhol- dvd.Now I always spell Valerie Solanas's name wrong..I always call her Valerie Solaris...it comes from an early Warhol book where her name was spelt incorrectly and I picked up the bad habit.
Was really excited to get this on DVD...they reproduce a lot of the Warhol Factory really well......ok they totally got it wrong with Valerie and Candee Darling's friendship- they wern't that close..the movies writer (well one of them) Mary Harron always admitted that when they were writing the script they just kept adding more and more Candee, because she was fascinating and also they found a symbolic contrast between the two " the boy who dressed like a girl and the girl who dressed like a boy".
The Warhol Factory was reproduced so well that the Samuel Goldwyn company had to destroy all the fake Warhol art when shooting had finished.
Basically Valerie is like a 50 tonne truck heading down a very steep hill, when she hits rock bottom she try's to take Andy with her. Bang Bang Bang.
One of my Warhol original pieces of art that I have always wanted, is one of the Warhol "Marilyns" that have the bullet hole from Valeri's poor shooting. That would be cool.
It's sad though....Valerie died alone, with Pneumonia in some flop house in San Francisco....where as Candy Darling died of Cancer- very few survived the Factory- Edie, Valerie, Candy....but they are all represented well in this movie. I always thought I would make a good Gerard Malanga...not asa film director...but Malanga at his best....doing the whip dance in his leathers while assorted members of the Velvet Underground played behind him.
So that leaves Andy, was going to write dear sweet Andy, but really Andy wasn't. Paul (Hester) asked me what I thought of Warhol. I told him as an art student I was in awe, but it felt like I had fallen into a pit where time stood still and even Andy's speech was slowed down (and no I hadn't had any drugs)....Paul told me Andys hands were like cold dead fish. Jared Harris is ok as Warhol but not amazing- he's a hard character to play, despite him usually saying "oh my..."
But I still LOVE "I shot Andy Warhol". Mark always holds me down for an hour so I don't wrap the whole house in silver foil....al la' the Factory.
As a final mention, we found our copy of Valerie Solanas's SCUM manifesto (SCUM= Society for Cutting Up Men)- Valerie if nothing else can make you laugh, even though she didn't write it to be funny. Let's leave the final words to Valerie herself...."Look, I'm a revolutionary not a nut. That kind of thing takes organization". (1968).
February 22nd
Hmmm Fame by Association. F.B.A, it's our latest catch cry around the office. We know it, we live it, we are it, we cherish it, we kill it.February 23rd
Wake up and it's nice and dark outside, maybe Melbourne heat wave is finally over...the finest mist of rain floats (not drops) through the air. Babble is full, manage to get our regular table. Jacquie from the window group asks if I want to go to the pictures.....not in the mood, very quiet. (yeah rare). Maybe I should do my faves of the week? OK let's do that:Fave DVD- I shot Andy Warhol- featuring Lili Taylor, Jared Harris but both are overshadowed by Stephen Dorff as Candy Darling.
Fave Book- My face for the World to See...Candy darling's Diary. It's girl and pink, has a lock on it, great photos. As Warhol described Drag Queens "Ambulatory archives of movie star womanhood"!!!
Colour-Silver
Bedroom Accessory: Giant silver pillow balloons.
Person that made me laugh the most: My Sister...
Extinction award: Australian Liberal Party...going going gone. Roll on the Federal Election.
Finest TV Moment- Buffy V's Dracula. Great one liners, especially the Lestat reference.......and did Buffy's Mum really "do it" with Dracula?
Fave Art moment- the first time I saw Greg O'Connors HUSSY cover art....he can even make me look good. Blown away.
Fave Flashback- Sherbet reforming for Ted Mulry's charity show. Weird thought of the month-Sex with Pauline Hanson.
Neil Finally announces his Auckland gigs. So we are employed for another week, working backstage at his St James Theatre shows on April 2nd-6th. Tickets on-sale March 5th.
Have had about a two dozen emails from readers and friends saying "great" about the F.16-Hussy Book, the support has been cool. I know it's my first book project but it takes the stress out when you get an email full of support. So thanks everyone.
Jen in the U.K. is running the Doris Fish interview, gave her a few photo images too- wish I had a better shot with Neil, I'm always taking the damn photos......she (Jen) did an amazing job, I was just happy that the interview was up and running. Anyway check it out....on the wonderful FAME IS site:
http://hussy.fameis.com/
Much appreciated JR.
February 24th
We watched "Jewel of the Nile" last night, Romancing the Stone is better, I think it's that really horrid Eighties music in "Jewel" that turns my stomach a bit, especially the title track- how bad is it. Sadly it wasn't "bad" enough to be cool, just outright terrible. The movie is fine, it's a good escape- we especially enjoyed the donkey sitting on Danny De Vito. Talk about head up a donkey's arse!!!!Well the Neil solo with addition of Nick and Paul is on tonight, it's been getting some good media attention, pity it is on at midnight. Loads of VCRS will click on I'm sure.
Vali flies out for Positano, so I'm back in the art studio next week, at least I can get some work done their. She was really excited about seeing her animals, I'm hoping that if I do the U.K./Europe tour I can head to Positano for a few days after the last dates in Europe. That would be cool.
Better go do some more work. Thankyou everyone for the support with Book 1. I think the project will do well, it's one of those funny little books that you'll pick up years later and have a chuckle over...if not for the writing but for the photos.
Deb will have an order link on the site, and YES FANS CAN USE CREDIT CARDS. Just click here.
Take care
Peter ("I am not an author") Green.
P.s Jen says check this out: http://hussy.fameis.com/