The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 26 September - 9 October 2005
September 26th
Adrian the electrician turns up and removes the giant mirror ball from my bedroom and replaces it with the original deco lights. He gets pissed off while stuck in the roof, and we pretty much end up screaming at each other.We both let it fly by and things are ok, just if he died and was electrocuted in the roof I was considering just wrapping him in plastic ("wrapped in plastic") and selling the house with his carcass in the roof!!! Hey it would take a little time to smell, it is nice and cool up their. Nah I wouldn't do that...would I?
It's weird having real lights in my room again, and Greville street will no longer have a mirror ball light show shining out through the tree's... the Greville Street Discorama is officially CLOSED! (Sad days for many).
Queer As Folk starts again on SBS, first episode is really well written, could be a good season. Ted is getting more freaky as the seasons continue, there is a bit of Ted in all of us!!!
This week I have to book our flights home for Christmas, might let it ride till next week and hope that they have some Red-deals left.
September 27th
A very suspicious white van is cruising Greville street, grab it's number, they have 'we are breaking in' written all over them. Bad arses.The council give me an exemption for an extra days parking out front, minding the spot for our carpet cleaners, with their endless hoses and they guarantee no toxic chemicals. Prahran council have always been good to me around the exemption thing.
So I see Lynndie Engas gets 3 years and a dishonourable discharge...she should get the same treatment she gave her Iraq POWS at Abu Ghraib. Stupid cow that she is.
We start adding some plants to the back garden, Mark, gardening, scary thought. Will have to give him some big flower patterned garden gloves. With Ailsa Craig he will be gardening every week!!! he just doesn't know it yet.
September 28th
Sadly because of the house stuff, we miss The Stones /Pearl Jam shows in Pittsburgh. Let our 2 tickets go to some other people. Takes a lot for us to miss this one but gotta do what's right. Almost...almost jumped on a flight but it started getting impossible and rather expensive.Dino from the ARIA awards call regarding the Paul Hester tribute, Deb has some of my 'early Paul' scans and thankfully went through and tracked them down- thanks Gal!!! So Paul in The Cheks .... such a baby face. Neil is flying in, with guitar in hand and playing a tribute song. Should be good.
Michael the carpet cleaner arrives today and the carpets look great, but have to dry naturally for 24 hours. So trying to avoid heading upstairs. Funny how we make our houses so perfect just when we are about to leave them.
September 29th
Qantas share dividends arrive, a massive $172.10, I guess it keeps ticking over, really reverts to more Qantas shares, which is ok. The market still seems fairly strong around Qantas, they are pretty competitive.Emails start coming in about the Enz POSSIBLY reforming for some shows in 2006. Some of the fans are onto it, but nothing confirmed at this stage. Guess we'll have to mention the possibility of this happening soon though as word is slipping out. I've kept quiet (till now!!!) and basically just telling the truth- no dates have been confirmed. Was hoping for some more concrete information in the upcoming Newsletter...we'll see. But the odds are pretty good I'd say. So as far as all the Emails, can't confirm this yet.
Our photographer turns up to do a 'at dusk' photo session of the house, looks good all lit up.
September 30th
Wow Friday already, the weeks are very long, with both work and endless cleaning, painting, and getting it all ready. By midnight I'm falling asleep, could be because I am still waking up at 7.00 each day. So no rock and roll hours for the Gryphon...up with the sun.Mark and myself are amazed at Elle Macpherson's total ignorance wearing fur for that US fashion magazine. The only reason she has tried to get out of the deal was fear of the PETA activists, not because it's WRONG but because she is running scared. This is the same woman who said 'I'd rather go naked then wear fur'. I used to think Elle was incredible, now she just joins the long list of 'beautiful on the outside, ugly on the inside' people. Time to boycott everything she does, a really horrible decision guided by greed. Shame Elle shame, I'm sure the karma beast will bite ya!
October 1st
In the good ol' days of the seventies, Mark and myself used to look forward to the month of October. Radio station 2SM were famous for their Rocktober concerts. They were nearly always big free events and at places like Sydney showgrounds. We've get the train to Sydney (nice and early) and just hang out with fellow music lovers (really close to the stage). It was a bit like the Big Day Out, but all Australian and FREE.These days (R)October is marked by some lain , gotta pay show at places like the casino. Cr@p. Bring back the real thing.
The Finn sessions are on MAX (cable) today, watched some of it, but all of the sudden got incredibly sad when I saw Hessie and started to sob. I thought I'd moved to a more stable place around this but obviously still a lot of emotions buried deep. It just did me in, and came out of the blue. Always thought it was totally fine, in fact good to have a howl, but was more shocked by it just sneaking up on me.
I did speak to Caroline (Paul's sis) today and the headstone for the grave at Blackwood is happening, it just takes awhile as I thought it would. So it is being looked after.
October 2nd
Cathy from the St Kilda council is in contact and they look like naming the walking path by the new canal area after Paul. It's quite nice and we used to go for walks along that area, I think Mardi and Hessie and the girls used to ride their bikes along that part too, so it's a fine choice. They lock it all in, late October.Miss July is in town, for keeps (!) so she has left America for the golden shores of Oz, will be fun having her in town. We are finding ways to remove her American accent! (:
Charts are in and 'She Will Have Her Way (The songs of Tim & Neil Finn) debuts at #3 and instantly Gold status. This is pretty good, in fact really good, such albums rarely make the Top 20. If fans are quick they can score a bonus cd (of the original artists versions) with the CD.
My mum has a hankering for the South Pacific Movie/Musical...she admits to seeing it several times and leaving the cinema with 'racoon eyes' as they didn't have non-running mascara in those days. For some reason I can't find it in Oz, will have to try elsewhere, gotta look after ya Mum!!! eh?!
Great special on the Stones guitarist Ron Wood, mostly about his artwork , which we love, nice interviews too, even shows him throwing a wobbly at his artwork opening..
Amazing Grace calls me and tells me to come to her back gate (oh la la! She likes younger men *grin*). Seriously though, I commented how incredible her orchards were in the backyard and she chopped a huge bouquet of them for us. We will miss Gracie when we got to the new place- she does rock!
October 3rd
Tony calls by and does the floor plan for the city place, all electronic gismo's for measuring..it's complete in 20 minutes.Lock my painters in, to finish the job... will be glad when all this is over.
Time for the faves list:
Person of the Month- Barry Humphries
Creep of the Month- Elle 'Ugly on the Inside' Macpherson
Fave Clip- 'Radio'- Robbie Williams
Single- Morning After Girls EP. (thanks Edrei & Bill)
Snow Queen Award- Boy George (beating Cocaine Kate by a nose *sniff*)
Fave Colour- Magenta
Fave Book- A Portrait of Lost Tibet (Rosemary Jones Tung)
Fave DVD- Enterprise Box Set and U-Turn Movie.
Fave Food- chocolate, malt & honey milk (low fat).
* * *
October 4th
At the Market cafe this morning there was a lady laughing like a chook, I expected her to drop an egg any second and said that to Mark, I must of said it quite loud as a lot of people started chuckling...they obviously thought the same thing.Lovely sunny day outside, really incredible.
Clean up the few leaves out back, the backyard is looking good- hell I'd buy this house! Hey I did.
Pay things like the electricity bill. It is a cheap $99.00. Not bad, and mostly due to the solar panels. Have worked out they save us about a third of our electricity bill. Depending on money am thinking of adding three times as many to Ailsa Craig, hell at this rate we'll soon become a green power station!!!
Have a chat to Neil today asked his help around some ARIA stuff, he's a wise man my boss, and always tend to listen to his advice. Plus it's just good to have a chat to those Finns, NZ is still so far away.
October 5th
Jim and his painters are here nice and early (snore) but hey I was up again at 7.00 so I welcome them into the house for the last little bit of painting. It's looking good.Walk past HMV at Prahran and it's closing, guess they couldn't compete against JB HIFI. We half expected it, juts the amount of Split Enz ExtravagENZa cds I bought from that store should of paid their rent.
The feeling towards a shakey US economy caused a few jitters on the Australian stock market. It caused the biggest collapse in 4 years, stripping $21 billion from the main index (a lot for Oz).
October 6th
Come home with handfuls of 'Bird of Paradise' for the vases, if you want them to open at different times, a simple trick is keeping a small elastic band around the flower bit- it just keeps them closed.Speak to Phil Judd around his Novelty Act CD, and it will be released via us. Am still hoping for a major release but I'm sure that any helping hand I can give him is appreciated ...I tell him as long as he doesn't bite my hand (chuckle).
Speak to show travel about possibly flying to NZ for the BIC shows, they are getting back to me.
October 7th
Was about to call the estate agents and suddenly the huge sign arrives in front of our house, one moment it wasn't out front, the next it's up. Quite a few cars have stopped and checked it out.Cute Kelly arrives for our house evaluation, gotta have this around the budging temporary loan, and she likes our place and says it should all be ok. Hope so....I hate bank stuff.
Start work on the envelopes for the next mail out, and also get a few more Enz CDS off. People are going to have to be patient with us over the next 2 months, only so many hours in the day, and we are working some long hours.
October 8th
Oh hell first inspection today, and where are the agents, they arrive with 30 seconds to go, and a dozen or so people are waiting. Banshee has a freak out and digs her claws deep into my neck. Shit that hurt!We get her in the cat box, Cosmo calmly hops into his rabbit mobile home, we walk out the door carrying our wildlife while total strangers come inside. Mark shows off Cosmo, much to the delight of some teenage girl, we say the cat could come with the property..and after the claws in my neck that is a distinct possibility.
So off we drive, we sit in the 4 WD by the Park. I let Banshee out and she climbs all around the car, into the car and just thinks we are nuts. We have to do this three days a week. I call it our 45 minute animal break.....
Arrive home and Tom one of our agents tells me we had 20 people through, the paper list is nearly full- a very healthy start. Next weeks advertising will hopefully reach out to many others. If the agent is happy, we are happy.
Finally book our flights home for Christmas, a quick visit, but at least we will make it home this year, so our families will be happy. My Mum was pretty cool around the Christmas thing... which was great. But nah Ma I am coming home... am looking forward to it.
We spend most of the day laughing at how silly Boy George was with his cocaine bust...or was he being incredibly smart....seeing how much publicity Cocaine Kate got....you never know.
October 9th
Had little sleep last night, thoughts ticking around in my head and my left shoulder/ arm have been really sore lately. It's like my arm muscle is only at half strength. Ouch.Speak to Benny around the Peter Wells benefit, but I don't have the energy or focus to attend (but thanks Yeti)...
Have a very quick breakfast, and the waitress asks us the usual question, have you moved into your new house yet. We always tell her 7 weeks, 6 weeks etc but she still asks us every week- she must live in a different time dimension to us?
A new guys is looking after inspection today, a quick 30 minute one, but still some people turn up...and we are back at the park with the animals- 8 visits to go!!! Banshee just climbs around the inside of the car and Cosmo stares at her, like he wants to shout in wabbit language 'Cwazy kat'!
So had around 2 dozen people turn up for the first 2 inspections, pretty good.
In the afternoon dance around the kitchen with Banshee to the sounds of Nirvana Unplugged. Banshee turns and attacks me whilst Kurt is singing 'Jesus doesn't want me for a sunbeam'. I later find Banshee asleep in her cardboard travelling box, she wants to go for another spin to the park.
Aria charts come in and 'She will have her way' (The songs of Tim & Neil Finn) is still in the Top 5 (#4) and Gold status... so it's doing really well.
So on that positive note I'm outta here...
love life!
Gryph