The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 18 September - 3 October 2010
September 18thI slept ok last night, I did wake up at 5.45 in the morning but curled back up till 8.00. I don't feel too bad despite the flying and time zones and the short time away. In fact I feel refreshed-I think it was getting that dose of sunshine. Mark though looks like he has been on a 48 hour flight- he dreams way too much- no REM sleep for him.I even bake fresh bread in the morning and go and have a coffee at Viewpoint. I work in the office in the afternoon, clear about 300 emails and some media requests. It's nice to be home, I feel like I have been away for months. Jennifer New York emails me the Mozza and PG snap so I have a chuckle at that- blurry is good especially at 2.30 in the morning. September 19thI order in our tickets for "Ziggy the songs of David Bowie" which is on at the wonderful Palais Theatre in November. Tickets are pretty damn expensive so I wonder if it will sell out. We are 3 rows from the front, Bec is coming along too so all three of us can have their Bowie fix. I wonder if DB will ever be healthy enough to do shows again?We head to Bunnings and I have a handful of gift cards so we buy a sit down lawn mower. It's black and a work of art. Some kids are climbing all over OUR mower so we ask them to scram, their mother gives us a dirty look - and as the sign says 'This is not a toy'.... some parents can't control their brats- our 'eye of death' look seems to work really well. I discover that Bunnings also stocks Jo Sonja's paints. These are my all time favourite acrylic paints- so many to choose from- I just love them all. They are such great paints- just the quality. So if my friends want to buy me a christmas present I can (for once) tell them Jo Sonja art paints from Bunnings! (Yey). We drive to Eastlands and catch up with Wendy at JB HI FI, well briefly, she's flat out. She spoils us by getting her manager to give us some huge discount- so kind, and honestly did not expect this... love it. She's such a sweetie for pushing this through. We watch 'Taking Woodstock" on cable- Liev Schreiber is truly brilliant as Vilma the transvestite veteran security guard- a really good movie- enjoyed it. September 20thI box Mum's present and some Hollywood glitter Tee's for Sis. Mum gets her Oscar for 'Best Mum"-wonderfully cheesey, she'll chuckle over that.We make a donation to the cancer foundation for their 'relay for life' , it's a good one to support. A really sweet neighbour of ours is the leader of one of the groups so we donate as a sponsor via them. Their group are THE PINK RIBBONS and are just trying to raise a few thousand dollars- so any and all donations accepted. Any diary readers wishing to donate can do so via this link : http://victoria.relayforlife.org.au/home.html Plus Aussies can claim their donation against their tax. Quite a few friends have had cancer so pretty much every cancer charity we try to donate to. September 21stWe work in the office all day boxing up discs and other stuff, the emails have really started, trying to give myself breaks as I don't want carpal tunnel returning...I really loved the tv screen in the 'little room' at Largo with the guilt golden picture frame around it, I'm thinking of doing a similar thing to the tv screens in the office for the security cameras. It looked fantastic! I do a little bit more work on the F/16 diary box sets. We only have 6 sets left and that's it they have all gone forever. The silkscreen that I need for the box art is delayed, the people who make them are behind in their screens so delay delay.... frustrating but I should of known it wouldn't all flow easy. September 22ndI spend some time going through the photo archives to grab the original photos so they can be reloaded back into the camera chip and printed out for the limited edition Diary Box set. I found every one so I was happy about that. The one thing about yours truly and huge piles of photos is that I surrender at the drop of a hat and let them drag me back through history. I love it, I'm willing and float down memory lane. I found a close up and myself and Billy idol backstage at one of the music awards. I'm starring straight into the lens, I think Billy is signing a cover probably not my back, that was later that night after way way too much Jack Daniels by all concerned! Yieks. A cute shot of Lester and myself at the Woodface apartment, he looks more like the fibreglass statue used in Weather with You video. He has such a lovely pelt! Next shot, at Kings Cross breakfast bar, myself and mate Benny, the first day we met. How many people have a photo from the first day they met one of their best mates! Cool. A photo of Neil and myself, I'm wearing my Los Angeles Angels baseball cap, from the Anaheim game.... Neil looks so young in the shot, it's really not that old. I think I'm wearing one of his green shirts- no idea why- did we all swap clothes on tour? The next shot, I'm on the floor at Vedder & Finns feet surrounded by Liam, Sebastian S, the Radiohead guys and Johnny Marr- what a snap...I'm wearing my very tight Anarchy punk woven top... and next shot a picture of lovely Jen Foxcroft with Wednesday the cat, after Paul died and they adopted her in Qld... it's at our Greville street home. Cute photo, will have to send them that one. The final 2 shots were Mum and Dad on the very top of Mount Kosciuszko ... a very young PG starring up at his dad in one shot, Mum holding me in the other... have to get those 2 framed. How fantastic are photos.... I drift, I really do. I sometimes wonder what holds me in place in 2010. I wonder when I'm just dust what people will think of these... will they know the stories, will they guess and get it wrong. I'll have to put a few more up on the diary site 'image' area further dow the track.September 23rdExcellent our 'Ziggy' tickets arrive. Lock them in the safe with the U2 tickets.We drive to Lillydale to check out the plans for the house next door and lodge our complaint. Hopefully other neighbours have done the same. Trudi has visited and does her voice over work on the Kenya footage, I give her the memory box art work- she really likes it... cool. There is a good chance I'll have a piece of art at Linden Gallery's 20th annual 'postcards' show- I miss heading to the Linden Gallery, it's the one thing being up here, I keep forgetting to drop in or don't have enough time. It's kind of exciting, I'm just working on ideas -will let you guys know what I submit. The art show starts in February so still awhile off...but it gives me a bit of a buzz. I think the three(?) I may be working on are "Edie at Studio 54", "ICON-BEX" and either "Mark" or "Seymour".... at least I have time and being smaller art works it's a bit easier. I hear that Michael Hutchence's mother died today- Patricia Glassop- so much shit went down after Michael's death, the final decade probably wasn't a very nice one. September 24thI call Ishka as they are holding this black beaded chandelier, it was such a bargain price, just not sure if it will go with the decor at Ailsa Craig. It's brilliant but sometimes too much black just doesn't work.Mark checks some discs via the stacker and we find a fault on 14 of them. Annoying, but at least it was picked up before they were mailed off. Elroy Finn turns 21 years old in a few weeks, time has flown by. I'm hoping Sharon will find space in her suitcase for a small present from us. Twenty One, guess I'm no longer the Finns kids baby sitter! (Nor you Laura). September 25thI spend an hour obsessing over Isabella Blow... fascinating character. She ended her life by drinking the weed killer Paraquat at a house party in 2007. She just couldn't 'find a home in the world she influenced". I guess we all feel like that sometime. Blow was the fashion director for Tatler magazine for awhile and worked with some excellent photographers... I'm sure Lady Ga Ga and Madonna have pinched a few looks from Isabella!The sun comes out and I decide to cut the grass around the exterior of Ailsa Craig. Just using the regular lawn mower. 4 big segments. While I have the energy I work on the side garden beds and plant some pondichery and bangkok dahlias for summer. I do love those dahlias. When I eventually go from an overdose of weed poison I expect wall to wall dahlias at my funeral, ok! The Grand Final is on, I tune in to watch INXs and they were fucking awful. Sounded terrible, looked so cliche'd and fat old men with someone's grandson on lead. It was crap. The Grand Final, first half boring, 2nd half pretty cool. A draw..the third time ever. Usually I don't give a fig about the AFl but grand finals have a vibe like no other... get sucked into it. When the final siren went the crowed just froze. So they play it again next week. September 26thDrive to Eastlands and pick up the chandelier , I also find a pair of cheap Ray Ban copies, I'm always mangling mine so these will do fine. They look ok, too.I have a coffee and read Camille Paglias article on Lady Ga Ga and I agree, she was far more attractive as Stefani Germanotta before she went all ga-ga on us. I'm starting to think that the scripted public appearances have lost their power. She should do something really really cool and just appear as Stefani G. in a good frock. Just once- but you know you can't go back can you? We watch The Fox & The Child on cable, director Luc Jacquet.... we were a bit worried about the poor fox locked in the kids room, it looked like it was really freaked out. A bit too real in parts. September 27thI spent the morning signing and numbering copies of TRIP. A mere 3 more to go before we break even on the 4th diary book. A huge thank you to the 10 or so people who grabbed the 1/2 price copies, the final 3 are half price as well. bargain basement shopping at the Famous for 16 Minutes site *GRIN*. Email (peter@frenz.com) if after a copy of TRIP.We spent a huge part of the day working, mailing, boxing, phone calls, emails, all go go go. The day zoomed by though, still feel like I haven't caught up on 'stuff'. I had a laugh as we heard that monkeys are running wild through the athletes village in India for the commonwealth games. So they are bringing in BIGGER monkeys to scare away the smaller ones, and snake charmers too to get rid of the cobra's. A snake charmer gets paid 1000 Rupi per snake. But what will get rid of the BIG monkeys and the snake charmers? The question has to be asked. September 28thI sit down and write a letter to Isabelle in France, she's been very quiet of late, unlike her. Maybe she's climbed back into her cave. Felt strange writing, 99.9% of my correspondence is Email.It looks like I escaped the hot LA weather, it was 45o today, California is a cookin! I email Nicky about our christmas cards, think yours truly has that silly notion to hand sign all of them again. We'll see, that novelty will surely run out fast. But it's nice getting a card where someone has made the effort to write on it....just have to make time to send these out. September 29thSo while California is frying, Kalorama is freezing. It was 1 degree at 9.30 in the morning- it actually snowed a km down the road from us. What is wrong with the weather, it will never be the same ever again will it?Mark scans the rest of the snaps for the F/16 Box set, the final few get printed out in a few days-so slowly coming together. The Rolling Stones monopoly set arrives from J&P Collectibles in the States. Kerena and her Sis are up for a game, and I think Greg Skyhook and others. It does look pretty cool. September 30thIt's that time of year (again) where we start chopping up the wild jungle at Ailsa Craig, all this rainfall and now sunshine..... good to have it cut back in time for bush fire season. Funny how that used to be called Summer.I've been noticing on tv shows and movies that when there is a globe of the world sitting on a desk for some reason most of the time the side with Australia on it is facing the camera. We noticed it on the Breakfast Club, The West Wing and True Blood. maybe it's the weird shape of our country, it probably works well in front of the camera. We were talking about world maps the other day and how things like 'Peters Projection' (no not me another Peter) actually has the real size of the countries . The traditional maps you see exaggerate the actual sizes of countries . The countries nearer to the poles are exaggerated (lines of latitude are incorrectly placed equal distances apart from converting from globe to 2D map). Check on line the world will look different I promise. October 1stMost of today ends up being wasted. I have to get my car to Holden for it's 10 year service which costs and arm and a leg (or both) and new brake pads have to be added, windscreen wipers etc..... and then get home. They decide they need my car for 3 days so its a $30 taxi ride. The whole day just trickles through my fingers.I order in Michael Chugg and Iain Shedden's book 'Hey you in the black T-shirt', it's via Pan MacMillan -could be a fun read. I spotted a segment in the paper from it, Fleetwood Macs Tour of Australia and the masses of cocaine they did on that. No wonder her nose decayed!!! Michael Chugg is a manager and a major Aussie promoter. October 2ndWake up to the perfect Spring day, finally. The grand final replay is on again, I watched about 10 minutes and it was really boring.Decided to take the ride on mower for it's first spin. Mark is working in the office so I throw caution to the wind and do this myself. It was like riding some wild colt. Insane. I'm attempting to cut some lawn and the tyres are spinning and this shiny black monster just wants to take off. Damn scary at first. After an hour I have it under control, it is surprisingly fast. I zoom down the walk tracks of Ailsa Craig and head to the back landing where I run into Mark. (well not run into him..I spot him eating lunch! I find a shiny gold and silver skull so take the seat apart and attach it to the back, it says Gang$ta! Just good to add something to it. Mark watched as I take off and cut the grass down the full side slope, I'm wearing my cowboy had which is fitting as it does feel like I've signed on for some rodeo action. I sit Mark in the drivers seat and he is off and racing..... what s psychotic beasty! (This time I am talking about Mark). October 3rdI'm in the art room and complete the first small painting for the art show. It's ok, 7/10 .....weird to be working on smaller size canvas. At least I have one finished.I drive the mower back to the garage up the tracks, the garage door opens like it's getting ready for the batmobile to arrive instead a wild lawn mower. 2 hikers applaud my speedy arrival. We work in the garden all day, black tulips have sprung up- amazing. The Sydney grand final is on, so I watch it- my hometown team is playing. My mum has her colours out on the window so I hope they win for her. Good to see Tim Rogers and some other musicians playing some Stones songs in front of that passionate crowd of 85,000. St George Illawarra win so my little old Mum is stoked. It's a warm night, finally Spring has sprung! Yey PG |