The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 16 May - 29 May 2011
THANKS FOR SUPPORTING THIS SITE FOR 15 GLORIOUS YEARS!
May 16thI spotted a small piece on the Pajama Club in today's Melbourne Age newspaper. A fun quote from Liam Finn as well.I spend the day on boring stuff, envelope addressing and correcting peoples mailing addresses. It's hard to spend a day doing this, and you end up with an aching hand & slightly mad in the head. But it has to be done and with the third computer in the office just dying and taking the label machine with it, I'll trudge through this tedious stuff till it's all done. The next mail out will be July, as interview with Sharon & Neil isn't till June 15th. Pajama Club album out in August. We are not back home till August 10th so I'm hoping the release date is after this and not while we are away. May 17thExcited as our Suzi Quatro tickets arrive, the wild one is playing The Palais Theatre in October, it will be fun and this time we are not giving away tickets for anything- no weddings no funerals, nothing will stop us. I heard her audience was a bit 'scary' last time, but I think that's always fun, watching the crowd.I checked out the availability of our regular house on Magnetic Island for a week this Winter. I keep thinking it will be a cold one so a week in warmth, is tempting, plus I can take my computer and work while I am away for a few hours a day. The ocean near Townsville is just warm enough to swim, and the tourists are far and few that time of year so it is tranquil. I see another Facebook person has died from planking. What a mindless waste of time, well 'plankers' does rhyme with wankers.........! The Facebook "tea pot' photo thing is so incredibly sad- can someone just shoot these people! May 18thBook sales are out of control today, the highest day this year- lots of copies of TRIP sold and a few WINGS, we spend the afternoon numbering and signing them- took me by surprise. Funny too as today there were several articles on the demise of the paper book. I need to finish the Crowdies book so we can start on The Early years diary book.... the Crowded House one is taking a lot longer then I originally envisioned.I call the gas people around the hot water heater, it's under warranty so this small repair won't cost us. The pressure up here on the mountain is pretty full on so apparently hot water systems blow up regularly. One of those afternoons, nothing worse then middle age old women getting hysterical over nothing (and getting their facts wrong) - maybe it's just change of life kicking in. Dismiss it with a wave of an email. Life is too short to deal with someone else's drama's. May 19thHot water repair guy Kevin arrives, not too early, though I quickly get changed and pretend I've been awake for hours. Banshee is a great warning system, she jumps off the bed when she hears someone walking down the tracks.I drive down the mountain and leave the copy of Cave In The Snow by the door for our friend. Pick up several boxes of envelopes at Office Works, actually thousands of them- does my head in that these all have to be addressed. Arrive home in time for our 1.00 visit by Greg Skyhook. He gives me "The Great NZ Songbook", I'm trying to stay positive around it as they have obviously put a lot of effort into it, but there is something about it that just doesn't work. Maybe it's the annoying layout. I think Greg felt the same. Still nice that he gave me this and I'll treasure it. He also gave me a stained glass window that he had from the seventies and I REALLY love this, just needs a few repairs but it's divine and I'll have to add it to our house. I love stain glass especially older stain glass. May 20thFriday already, it's going to be 7 days of rain from this Saturday so I'm taking the afternoon off to work in the yard. My day starts with a quick drop in and mail some kits and books at the general store. Next we drive to Canterbury road for some brunch, some wages out of the ATM and then our weekly supermarket shopping at Woolworths. Mark tries to score some storage chips but they mis-prices them.... nice try Marky! Home again, pack groceries away and then head to the office. Answer about 120 emails, most around people wanting the Crowdies Ghost Cars book. I email Benny our monitor guy mate that all 6 Star Wars movies are out on Blu Ray in September."Daylight" is now my favourite track from the Pajama Club cd, I seriously lap the oval with that one playing, it replaces "Go Kart" as my fave tune. My tax return arrives, such a small return, oh well at least I didn't have to pay so that is something. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen tonight, some serious cooking going on- the New York Dolls are playing for my music to cook too. Oddly enough they are perfect for this. May 21stI'm turn my car into Viewpoint to park and I spot a bike rider narrowly miss getting splattered by a car that never seen him- it was so close, some areas up here are horrible for riders. It's not a bad day, so no fog or gloom, just the driver wasn't looking and almost killed someone because of this. The bike guy was very very lucky.I decide to try and mow the grass, somehow too much oil ended up in the mower and when I started it in the batcave , it filled up with smoke. Not a "I've burn't my toast" type smoke but "I'm at a Kiss concert" type smoke. It was crazy, Mark disappeared under a cloud of it. Some how we managed to get it done, with more rain on the way it's nice to have it looking good. I like having a good house, never want to become apathetic and let my home become a pig sty. I see that wacky christian cult is saying today is the start of the end, damnation will finally come on October 21st. Well of course nothing happened. I love it when christian cults actually say a date, when the date arrives and nothing happens it just shows how full of bullshit they really are. Of course when they are wrong they'll just use the time honoured excuse of "it's God testing me" instead of "I'm a dickhead and got it wrong and I'm a christian cult to score some bucks"!!! A friend calls and has some relationship hassles , so I drive off the mountain for a visit, with snacks and stuff. I try to be both sympathetic but at the same time I'm honest. When relationships split up sometimes people don't want honesty they just need a shoulder so I try to get the balance right. I arrive home by 11.00 and have a cuddle with the old man while we watch some tv- I count my blessings that I am lucky enough to be in the best relationship in the world! It really is.....!!! May 22ndBongo Skyhook calls and is on some guitar show soon and wanted to know about using Skyhook film clips etc.... he paid us a really nice compliment about the good stuff we do for that iconic band.... we had a bit of a chat about the good old days about living at his house on Osborne street Sth Yarra- how funny that we lived on Osborne street twice, once our landlord a Skyhook, the 2nd time our landlord the Finns. It was always a great location to live and a fun time had by all that lived in those houses, from Gina to Leanne. 68 Osborne and 11 Osborne two fun houses.Australian actor Bill Hunter died last night, he'd been fighting cancer. Such a classic actor and I love the quote that he had a massive 'bull shit detector built in" (how funny). Loved his many movies and especially the classic Muriels Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert. Mark and myself still quote his character from Muriels wedding (Bill Heslop)... "Deirdre Chambers what a coincidence " - it's nice when you have those one on one jokes where people go 'what the fuck are you two talking about". May 23rdThe Very Very Best Of Crowded House still hanging around the charts, it climbed 2 spots on the Australian artist chart this week t #15. It's still a way off gold (as is 'Intriguer' here) but it will hit gold eventually. Probably only in Australia. After Recurring Dream being so massive (13 platinum) I'm still unsure why we needed another Best Of but I guess it's a good one for new fans to have or those people who only buy Best Of's.. plus the bonus dvd probably tempts a few people.I hear from Sharon and the Pajama Club are rehearsing away as we speak. It will be an interesting experiment to see how people deal with them live, new songs from an unreleased album etc. It sucks that the marvelous United States Of Tara was axed today, so much crap on free to air tv-we really do need moire shows on food and overweight people (NOT) -thank the goddess for cable, HBO and DVD! Poor ratings will be blamed but really there are many MANY worse shows .... the public have no taste at times. I see the Climate Commission have released their report on climate change. Tony Abbott's response is to plant more trees and that's about it, while climate sceptic Nick Minchin (Liberal Senator) talk absolute shit and is so far removed from reality it is amazing. He really hates the idea that there is a LOT of truth in the report and efforts have to be made. This is the crucial decade to do something, I can't believe that people have their heads buried in the sand, especially those with kids- the future generation who will be stuck with this mess. Mark orders the new Rob Lowe book ( Stories I only tell my friends) Amazon UK have free postage to Australia at the moment, and with the high Aussie dollar it works out to be about $14.00 which is much better then the $45.00 it costs here in Australia! No wonder so many Aussie book stores are closing! Bummer we miss the Ed Vedder USA dates by a few weeks, the tour will centre around his Ukelele Songs album. Find the dates here: http://giventocast.blogspot.com/2011/03/big-news-eddie-vedder-solo-tour-dates.html I really like the cover art of his 'longing to belong' single. May 24thGreg Skyhook told me he has been visiting his chiro guy who lives on Osborne street at Sth Yarra. No not at our old Finn house but our original place that was owned by Bongo Skyhook. He shows us some photos so we see how it has changed, I pull out one of my photo albums and show him what it was like when we lived there about 30 years ago. It was such a fun period (well mostly), great memories of Gina and company, Mark in the bungalow and so band people dropping in, the odd party (I seem to recall a Christmas tree covered in bra's!!!!). Whatever happened to Gina Patterson- Gina email us you are missed!I've allowed the final 40 copies of the special TWO CD (Enz) Luton sessions to be sold on Frenz Com. I think all club members who want copies have them, so the final 40 can go to members of the public. So if you click on the MERCHANDISE button at the bottom of the diary, details are located in that area. The limited edition 2 cd LUTON is fantastic, that album lives in the office, played so often, the Enz at their best in 1978. It's my favourite Enz album, well I love Dizrythmia too. The Dalai Lama is back in Melbourne in June (10th) we got an invite to a lunch on the day so if we can that could be very cool. He just has a wonderful smile ! May 25thDolores Fuller died at age 88. She was the lover of film director Ed Wood, and starred in a few of his movies, our favourite Ed Wood. After she left Ed she also penned some songs for Elvis for several of his movies. She also started her own record company Dee Dee Records. I just want her fluffy jumper from the movie that her cross dressing husband wore.... and even as a D grade movie it has the marvelous narration from Bela Lugosi ("Pull the strings"). Love it! I wonder how many Johnny Depp fans have watched Ed Wood? Good on JD for doing that one.I notice they have some new metal goals at the oval, so I manage to do a massive 12 chin ups- on them, my arms ache a bit not sure what's going on there, end up pushing myself to do 10 laps. I find it depends on what songs I'm listening to that determines how many laps. The hill run home is the killer- pant pant pant ! Maybe I'm too old for this health shit...gotta make some effort. May 26thAussie actors Bill Hunters memorial service was on today. It was packed (Princess Theatre) and handled so well. Great speeches and fun memories. Nice that Paul Kelly played 'leaps and bounds' as the coffin was carried on it's way. Despite it raining outside people all gathered down the length of the street and gave him one final curtain call- everyone clapping, even cars stopped and people clapped. Nice ending for a classy old bloke.A parcel of Jans wonderful hand made cards arrive, what a great gift, I always run out of cards ad so few places to buy them in a national park. Very cool. We watch the "Lost Room" mini series again- this was one of my favourite shows ever. Shown in 2006, it's about a motel room (Room 10 Sunshine Motel) that exists outside of time and space on the old Route 66. An 'event' happens in the room in 1961 and the various items in the room take on special properties... 'the key' is one of the main objects, there are cultish collectors, and many more extreme characters.... there are cabals- formed to find objects, some to worship some to try and destroy.....and of course there is the "occupant" of the room itself.... I have heard that Red 5 Comics will be publishing a sequel sometime this year... which is cool though I'd love a continuation of the mini series. I have a box of "objects"..... all freaky..I might tell the diary about them one day. May 27thHappy Birthday Neil Finn.It's also the birthday for Niklas the 1 year old son of our friends Pete and Fran. It's easier finding a 53 year old card for Neil then a 1 year old card for Nik. The Finns celebrate it with a surprise performance of the Pajama Club at Roundhead on the night. Not long now till those Aussie Pajama dates! I think we will announce the few Uk dates on June 7th. May 28thToday I just needed to sleep- no idea why. I spent the whole day in my Pajamas , had huge urges for 'green juice'- mixture of spirulina, wheat grass, green tea and passion flower. Mark looked after the animals all day. I tried to stay warm, felt very cold. I wasn't the only one. Miss Banshee climbed inside Marks peruvian blanket. I did read some more of 'Cave in the snow'. No idea why I was so tired?Watch Dr Who and sadly the show isn't as strong, we'll keep watching it but something isn't working and it seems like it's the story lines. We stay on the ABC and watch the first episode of "Outcasts' which wasn't too bad. A belated birthday card arrives from Bruce in Canada, and several packets of Canadian stamps- such very cool stamps "sunflower series" I wish that some of our Australian stamps were this magnificent! Thanks Bruce. The extra stamps that people send us honestly keep us going and we can do what we do! So it is appreciated. Thank you guys. I see that Melbourne has had it's coldest May in 41 years. No surprise there, I can't remember it snowing on my birthday before. May 29thWell the diary is 15 years old today- fifteen years!!!!! Good grief that's a lot of writing! After all this time it still gets a few thousand readers per month. When it first started I was happy to have a dozen people bother to check it out.For the diary to cross over into book form was both bizarre and wonderful. The 5th diary book "Early Years" is being penned now. I'm always asked what diary books exist- Hussy , Bang and Glamour have all sold out. There are about 10% of TRIP remaining which can be bought via the merchandise link at the bottom of this main diary page. Yes people can pre-order The Early Years. There hasn't been a day gone by when someone somewhere hasn't emailed about the diary, usually to do with a comment that Mr Bigmouth (me!) has made... *GRIN*. A massive thank you must go to Debbie Levitt who has always made time for this 'project' - if it wasn't for her efforts I doubt it would exist. So thanks Deb and a huge thank you to the readers. [editor's note: You're VERY welcome! I'm honoured that we pioneered blogging before it was blogging! :)] keep passing the open windows Peter |