The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 15 May - 28 May 2006
May 15th
By the time you read this we should have one week before the Split Enz Tour starts in Australia. Suddenly it is upon us, I think we are ready. Are we ready crew? Are we ready band? All major nods...Noel is still working on the stage set.It does feel good, a bit of excitement, and kinda cool that we are on the road for a short time, hell we don't even leave the country! The emails we are getting, so much excitement out there, far more then when we had the Millennium shows.
I've gone out of my way to avoid Noels drawings, meetings and the like on stage and costumes(?) the fan in me wants to be surprised. Bring it on.
May 16th
Give Banshee her flea drops, I try to check her for ticks but it's like looking for a grain of sand in a shag pile carpet. Miss Banshee is her Royal Hairiness! Would have to be a determined tick to get through all that hair.It's an amazing day up here in the mountains, sunshine streaming down casting away the fog and mist. Even a few of the flowers in our garden are conned by this fake Summerish day. Hell I'm wearing a short sleeved shirt, I'm convinced.
Started reading books again, just a bit of this one and a lot of that one. Decided books are better then Porn (NO I hear some of you say..now Cmon!) Need to visit a few book shops on tour- Mark will be horrified reading this as he finally has the Library all up and running and we have zero room left for any new editions....but Books and Touring go hand in hand. So I'll leave room in my case.
May 17th
The Verandah sold another batch of Chocolate Mousse, next week will be the final lot till after the tour. Good to have a break. Joy tells me that some people were asking for it the other day and they had sold out.Start buying stamps from our Kalorama General Store, for our huge mail out. Douggie is really onto it, they are incredibly efficient and would put a lot of major Post Offices to shame- it's one of the perks living up here. No long lines and they go the extra yard to help. I think all Post Offices in Australia should be forced to do work experience at the Kalorama General Store for a few weeks every year to learn how it's done. Nelly would whip them into shape *grin*. Go Girl!
So been here for nearly 6 Months and it has gone fast. We haven't really looked back or missed the city, at all. It's odd I thought there would be heaps of things we would pine for, but nothing, apart from some friends, and Con's coffee.
May 18th
Heard from Paulo's sister Caroline today, we just missed her in Monbulk by a few minutes. She'll be at the Enz shows, hope she likes the bit on Paul in the Tour Programme.The Enz make it to the #1 thing on the HIT magazine Top 10 'things'...'An Era that never Enz' basically it's a rave about the Enz re issue digipaks. "..the sexy new Enz albums hit stores this Saturday'! SEXY! Cool the Enz have never been called sexy! *GRIN*. Always a first for everything... A must for every collection..check them out as JB have a 10% sale on.
May 19th
Work on huge files for the Tour Programme, make corrections and change a few things, looking good and hopefully all this will be done on time.Ask our merchandise people to get the posters to us early, so the Tour Posters at the shows will be autographed. Every show people ask for autographed stuff. Now I just have to get the guys to sign them all. I'm not doing Merch on this one, loads of other behind the scenes stuff I think. Horrified what evil nickname Eddie R has given me....
Have had quite a few offers for work lately but the Enz stuff has really taken over, hate saying no as it is work = money = food = porn (opps books I meant books) = an over flowing Library!
Was windy today, the circular drive way was a wash with gold and red leaves, all twirling and dancing.... tried to take some pictures but it just didn't work, couldn't capture the magic so aborted the idea.
May 20th
Saturday, sleep in but am woken at 6.00 with the sniffles. It has been happening a lot lately....6.00 on the dot my nose starts to sniffle. I wish it would become a full blown cold but it doesn't just sniff sniff sniff.Nat and Nick call in they are over from America and it is so good to see them. Such sweethearts we like them a lot and they are always welcome. We are spoilt with presents...hey Mark gets flowers. So that's pretty good.
Meet them at the Verandah first and Joy chats with them.... of course both have been shopping and fitting themselves out in some new threads! Rather spiffy guys!
We head next door to the Hippy shop and I spot a really nice dark suede coat, oh another tour coat a voice in my head says- try it on- cute in a Brokeback Mountain sorta way...so it's put aside for me. Love it.
Take The N&N's back to Ailsa Craig for a cuppa and a chat, I try very hard to convince them to move back to Australia, like now....but it's still a few years away. C'mon guys you KNOW you want to. Anyway a lovely day and good to see them.
May 21st
Happy Birthday Sharon Finn.To celebrate Sharon the chooka lays TWO eggs...she gets an extra scratch.
Enz on 60 Minutes, mostly a Finn Fest but Nige was away in the UK and Noel did his mysterious bit snipping some material and faking a show of 'new' costumes (cough). This 60 Minutes has the 2 miners that survived as well so it will rate really really well (it ends up being the #1 show of the week).
I finish my Erchen Wan tablets, they have done absolutely nothing....I guess Chineese medicine is like that, sometimes it just doesn't work...this was one of those times.
May 22nd
Loads of zooming around today, even back to the city. felt a bit weird. The Amex lady orders in me some Nepalese money, I have about $900,000 what-evers and it works out to be around $1500 Australian. Wow 900,000 almost a millionaire in Nepal! It's probably enough to cover myself and my sister for the whole time we are in Kathmandu.End up at the Market cafe, Christina has the day off but her folks look after us, still the best coffee in the world. Call into Rosemaree's as she has been doing so much work for me, thanks girl! We spring her singing in the kitchen to Mindy the cat.
Home again and start on the massive mail out.... we are going for a record and try to get it all done within a few days. It's huge, back aches, endless paper cuts, you could well bleed to death doing this mail out.
May 23rd
Surprise lovely Nelly at Kalorama Post Office with about 5000 envelopes, she doesn't even blink, just gets into it. Really good people up here, they do spoil us a bit. next day it's another 5000 and then another.....If anyone is up this way during June, check out the HOT Mikado- A Jazz musical comedy with an oriental twist (!!!)...it's on at the Monbulk College Theatre. Ph (03) 59682844. Some of the talented locals are in this, will be a fun night out. Dougie will be signing autographs at the stage door.
Call Benny and we will call in and give them a hand packing stuff tomorrow, they helped us a lot the least we can do. Moving is such a huge pain in the bum, and interstate (wow!).
May 24th
So our Bardot bombshell Sophie Monk is canoodling with Jude Law at the Chateau Marmont Bar in LA. You can tell it's one of those 'media stories' that probably exaggerates everything about the bar encounter. Jude is cool though.... good luck to her I say.Call into the Yeti's and loads of good news, happy for you guys. Pack the Art, how many Mark Ryden's can one Yeti own! I'm sure Jen would kill me for getting him onto this artist. At least he has an eye for which of the right Rydens to buy.
Have to buy a few books for the Enz tour, avoiding the Rock and Roll animal lifestyle and will not get messy.... I will sneak away and read. Ok maybe a fraction messy but gotta stay focused.... and all that bad big city air... I don't know my lungs may not make it! (: Will be nice seeing so many people again, but the usual thing, I'm working so it's those brief hello moments, probably irk a few people off but on the road it can be a 24hr job I'm afraid. On the long tours I feel like little pieces of me get broken off and grabbed at every stop....no wonder I lose weight on the road, it's people pecking at my outer shell.
May 25th
Xmen #3 starts to day and I do love it.... The Beast and Kitty are great. The Beasts 'fur' is the same colour and 'shag' as the furry porn tv from our Austin Powers in Space Party....we think there is a bit of Banshee in the Beast...her underbelly is just as shaggy. Hale is actually good in #3, she has redeemed herself from the horrible Catwoman and yep she can act when the script is ok. It's a 7 outta 10, for the third one in the series it works fine....now I just wanna see the Silver Surfer turn up in Fantastic Four #2. Such a comic geek I am..and you know it will happen.....after all the S.S. will have his own movie next year.Visit Nige returns slides and stuff, he is signing Enz photos, staying warm and watching Voodoo walk by the window. Voodoo is such a cool cat...those eyes. Try for dinner at kelly's but we are 30 minutes too early. Hate that.
Tonight's DVD at Ailsa Craig is 'Brokeback Mountain' totally superb, Heath is great once you get over that oddball accent....it really did deserve the Oscar instead of Crash. Hey hot sexy cowboys gotta love it... great script..sad ending... over the next few days we are watching 'Munich', ' Capote', Breakfast on Pluto' and 'Mr & Mrs Smith'...so covers all areas...
Call my Sis and she has Enz tickets for Sydney, hope to see them somehow in the middle of all of the craziness.
May 26th
Happy Birthday Robin Mac... how young?Take some time off from the office and do several hours of gardening. Find these 3 ceramic pipes, and decide to turn them upright, bury them partially in the ground and add some strawberry bushes to them... finally bury the 100+ bulbs and even start work on stripping back the vegie patch for the Winter break. Not sure if it is the higher altitude but I am totally stuffed....lose my breath a bit. We are only 2000 ft higher here........
May 27th
Happy Birthday Neil Finn... 2 more years to go to the big one. Neil Finn at 50, has to be a magazine article titled that.A parcel arrives from Augie and family in the States, have to grab it on Monday- thanks guys- a housewarming present I think?
Finally go through all the paperwork for ADSL, had to wait because of the Telstra phone lines up here, paperwork and complicated... but it is being processed...so will take a few days or 5 weeks!
May 28th
Chookas are happy, finally getting some sun, after many grey days. Rewarded with several eggs today, so up to 3 dozen now. They still follow me about. Have started to get Mark to put them in at night so they are use to him. They lineup for him, military style and march in for the night.I am being very healthy, having my Jalna Bio Dynamic- Bush Honey Yoghurt. It contains the ABC- A-Acidophilus, B-Bifidus, C-Casei, all friendly Bacteria.
Neil calls from NZ, chat a few times during the day, and he continually just gives me more and more reason why I truly love Neil and Sharon. I see such patience in him and goodwill, truly pisses me when people are unfair to him, he deserves better. Like the rest of the Enz he is looking forward to the tour, really fired up to have a play with the guys and make it extra special. Even I am vibed and it must be good to make me leave Kalorama for a time. Guess my phone bill will be mammoth calling Mark every day, but good.
So that's it, in a weeks time the special Frenz show....rehearsal. Will be a nice way to start the tour.
See you on the road maybe.
Gryph.
P.S. remember to wear those small Frenz of the Enz badges, I'm thinking of wandering around with a prize or two for people I spot.