The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 22 July - 4 August 2024
 Chipmunk love. Happy Birthday Marky |
July 22ndJoe Biden quits the Presidential race and throws support around Kamala Harris.This will shake Trump up, with Biden he certainly had a huge chance of winning, but Harris will throw a spanner into Chumps plans. I think it will be close and I hope she wins. I find Trump to be a vile grub. You'd have to have something seriously wrong with you to vote for an arsehole like him.Mark and myself try to work out the first time we saw Midnight Oil. It would have been at the Stagedoor Tavern in Sydney. (Cnr of Castlereagh & Campbell, streets in the heart of Sydney). A small skinny venue. We'd seen a few bands play at the Stagedoor- Midnight Oil, Cold Chisel, The Reels, Mental As Anything, Skyhooks of course. We think we saw Midnight Oil on June 1st 1979. My camera was on the blink but Mark took a photo or two. We both recall they were VERY LOUD. We are currently reading Peter Garretts "Big Blue Sky" memoir. I make homemade Apple Pie for dinner, using local Kalorama apples. July 23rdI spoke to Mum today and today is a good day for her. She still has her Pneumonia cough etc but slowly improving. Learning towalk again.Back at the charity today, I gave all my work areas an extra push this morning, tried to get loads done. I cleaned a large amount of vinyl and replaced inserts. I never even got them into the store before people grabbed them. They all bought within the hour. People love their vinyl I wish we'd get more donations of records. Back to nothing again. July 24thI drop into Butlers , birthday present shopping for Marky. I find this little metal arty caravan , which I think is made locally. Corrugated iron etc and you open the back door and pop some tea light candles inside. It's really funky. Plus Midnight buys him a cat design door mat for the back door. I see Wagon Wheels are on special so I buy numbers packs and a tattslotto ticket plus a groovy card. That should do it. I am going to attempt to make him birthday cake too. I take him for a slap up Indian Dinner tonight at Indian By Nature. Delicious.The Neil Finn debut album stage jacket and the Split Enz "I see Red" /"Murder" coats are installed at the Music Vault at the Vic. Arts Centre. It's free entry to the Music Vault. If you go in I think they have a comments area so say something nice about the stage jackets, hey maybe mention you love Split Enz "Murder" video and ask them to play it in their video area. I'd love for it to be played on rotation in that giant video cube space that they have. Marky's Youtube Wednesday today is indeed Split Enz. It's at the rehearsal for the Press Conference at Ormond Hall, Prahran. February 1st 2006. We are announcing the Split Enz reunion tour so this is prior to the press conference during set up. I'd taken a big pile of our archival Split Enz posters for back ground images in one of the side areas where we did the media interviews with the guys. A good day, a long day. My Jackaroo 4WD full of Split Enz musical gear for the lads. Anyway Marky filmed the Enz rehearsing. July 25thIt was hard to get out of my warm bed today. An insanely cold morning, must of been very close to snow as the sleet was coming down when I left at sunrise. The car window covered in ice.Carol and myself shivering when we went into the charity. Everyone had their heaters on and we fried the electrical system. The girls are fun today, a nice crew. We all work well together. We shiver in unison. The Music Vault opens today with the new costumes and lots of emails and texts arrive from happy fans. So glad we managed to save so many stage costumes. July 26thA rather famous popstar got in contact today which was nice. Said he really enjoyed my chat on The Dotted Line (via radio 3MDR) and he may well have some work for me down the track. Im bit thrilled by all the attention. Anyway I've been meaning to put the Dotted Line Interview link in the diary for some time. So you can have a listen here. (Just click the top left hand corner of the Enz puppet interview box).Happy Birthday to Mr Bongo Starr of Skyhooks fame. Those Skyhooks boys are getting on. He turned 72 today. I have a chat on the phone with him which was nice. He shares my Skyhooks FB post on his page so that's cool. July 27thHappy Birthday Marky. What can I say that hasn't been said so many times before. I love you, you are my best friend and the person I want to be with for eternity. Midnight gives him an early morning cat kiss as do I. He loves his presents and is blown away by all the Birthday greetings from all of you.In the afternoon I start on his cake. His favourite thing are my chocolate mousse, so I attempt a chocolate mousse birthday cake. No recipe just what's in my head so it will either be a hit or a total disaster. It seems to all go according to plan. The hardest part is yours truly being patient and letting layers set solid in the freezer. The only disaster is when I add too much Cointreau and it explodes into flames on the oven and almost takes out my eyebrows! By late afternoon its nearly finished. I grate some of Terrys dark orange chocolate and sprinkle it over the top. I add a birthday sign and black candles. Now the ultimate test, what does it taste like? We were going to go out for dinner but we decided to donate our dinner money to the Canadian Red Cross for the fire donations for Jasper. We loved that little Canadian town when we visited it 20 years ago via the Rocky Mountaineer during Winter. Saddens us deeply that most of town has been destroyed by fire in the last few days. Anyway I made a nice dinner and Red Cross got the donation. Marks blows out the candles and tastes the cake. "OMG that is amazing". (Quote). A birthday success. We wear our giant squirrel heads, for no reason except that we can and pose for a birthday photo being absolute dicks.. We have a fun night and Mark enjoyed his birthday , we love all our friends who called. That meant a lot to him. Also Midnight has been with us for exactly one year now, time flies by. She loves it here. July 28thAustralia is off to a great start in the Olympics. #1 by the end of the day on the medal board. Good to see. They won't stay at #1 , France and China will jump past them. But still good work Australia.I'm glad the Federal Government rejected an application by Energy Resources to extend an undeveloped uranium lease that surrounds Kakadu National Park. Instead it will be absorbed into Kakadu National Park. Good one Labor. LOVING the new Jack White solo album. A real return to form. I think this is probably the best album for 2024. Yes possibly bumping off Royel Otis with "Pratts & Pain". Anyway check out "No Name" by Jack White it is magnificent. The full album on YouTube too. Great sound. Olinda Fish & Chip shop for dinner tonight, I worked in the yard for big part of the day so couldn't be bothered cooking dinner. I've started readying Henry Miller again. I do need to find a copy of "Tropic of Cancer" which is a bit notorious for its candid sexuality. Imagine back in 1934 when it was first published, it would have freaked people out. I love that Miller quote " Do anything, but let it produce joy. Do anything, but let it yield ecstasy". So with the flavour of Henry Miller in my mouth (yes that does sound a tad rude) , we settle in to watch "Millers Girl". An erotic thriller starring Jenna Ortega and Martin Freeman, student and teacher who enter a complicated relationship after a creative writing assignment. Both fabulous actors and flashes of Henry Miller certainly sit not too far from the surface. Wednesday oops Jenna plays Cairo Sweet an 18 year old student…and yes her favourite author is indeed Henry Miller. Anyway great movie. Well worth watching. July 29thThis rain is endless, every day for 2 weeks now. The ground is getting so waterlogged I'm wondering how many more trees will come down in the national park.I'm walking about in the fog and wet cutting flowers for our friend Trudi. She is visiting this morning and we are all going out for brunch. A few flowers like this cold so I get nice bundle for her. We head to Olinda Cafe , they have their open fire burning and we have great food and the company even better. A really fun morning. Always joy to see one of our best friends. July 30thI call, into get some fuel and score a free coffee as well. It will warm me up a bit, so much fog blowing across the petrol station and down the main stretch of road. It's going to be a cold old day. I have on my nice chunky coat so warm.I sit in the car park at the charity watching the footage from Comic Com on the Fantastic Four movie- "First Steps" Love the idea of an alternative universe of 60's New York. Bring it on. I go through some of the comments on our Youtube page for "Time For A Change". A really nice one from Larry Dixon & one of my favourite writers Mercedes Lackey. That certainly made my morning. Some new books coming out from Mercedes. That excites me. It seems like a long day today , by the time I finally get home I feel rather worn out. 10 hour day. I crawl into Marks warm bed and crash. Just for a few hours, and delighted that he makes dinner. July 31stSitting the sun , yes Sun , outside the bakery with Jed and Ian. Jeds got some new funky tattoo. Charlie the dog is with us, he's a good pooch. They depart and another car pulls in and it's really nice to see Matthew again. He loves the Red Beast, he has bit of a family history around the Holden Rodeo's. Something about Matthew….Our Split Enz MURDER video hits 8800 views, a bit of a rush on emails around it, all of them wonderful. It's kind of become some sort of Cult video , people keep sharing the clip and telling their friends. We LOVE that. Our mates are awesome for supporting it. August 1stSuddenly it is August. 126 days till Christmas. We need to book our Christmas airfares home soon. Maddisons birthday in a few days time, they grow up fast, our niece turns 11 soon. That shocks me.The entire East Lawn is frozen solid, covered in ice. It sounds like glass breaking when we walk over it. Midnight hops along like Pepe' Le Pew the skunk trying not to touch the ice cold grass. So much like Banshee. Marky has put up the best live version of "Whispers & Moans" by Crowded House. I can't believe with 755 videos on our Youtube channel this is the only version of this song. It's from the Hammersmith Odeon, London. October 10th 1991. Anyway a magnificent version, I love it, we hope you do too. August 2ndThe Suns out but it's still cold. Heat wave last night, we hit 1 degree. I scurry around too find a few bits of fire wood as our main stock pile has been used up. Not too long to go, if need be we'll use our central heating.Nice to chat to Mad Dog today, she's back in Oz for a short time. We might even catch up. I'm trying to have a few weeks of "me time", or should I say "us time" just a recharge away from the world. Bongo Skyhook calls wanting some information around "Living In The Seventies" album for a radio interview. Always happy to help with such things, that way he knows his stuff during the interview. That Skyhooks debut album turns 50 soon. I work in the garden for some of the day and am considering doing the drive to the other side of the mountain and visit Enz man Nigel Griggs. I need to buy a few more bulbs for the yard so will try some of the nursery's over that way. Nigel will probably be asleep so I'll leave the parcel for him. It's just handy being near his neighbourhood. I call, into the Olinda chocolate shop and buy myself some dutch liquorice (yes I STILL love it after all of this time) and some chocolate marzipan for Nigel. The drive is nice, no traffic and the mountain so lush. The Nursery's though, no help whatsoever ever, no bulbs. Niels place is dark so ol' Dodge is asleep and I don't want to wake him. I see a wombat wandering around at then bottom of his yard so I watch that for a short time. It gives me a snort, keep away human. I head home, multiple stops along the way, a beautiful day outside. August 3rdI'm enjoying the Sun with Ian and Nova the greyhound. Ian's going to go to his plant meeting soon and says he'll try and get some bulbs for my garden from the other garden members, which is great. I'm trying to stay on top of our 2 acres, it's always a bit wild.I kept thinking about that idiot Trump. Give me a young smart professional woman over an old, vile, convicted felon any day of the week. I think there is a bit of momentum around Harris. She may well succeed and beat Chump. Fingers crossed. We call Maddison for her birthday, she turns 11 today. MIM's having a pedicure with one of her school friends, so we embarrass her as much as we can and sing. She laughs, she's a great niece. Nice chat with Fenella. Only a quickie as I'm outside with Marky lighting the burn pile and working in the sunshine. Midnight discovers the joys of our hammock and jumps in and makes it swing all by herself. Smart kitty cat that she is. She makes us laugh. Some grocery shopping at night and Pizza date night in the car park. We spend the night curled up watching "Secrets of the Ice" and other such shows, plus a great documentary on Walt Disney. August 4thI see that Jack White's "No Name" album is at #1 on the U.S. iTunes chart. It's my favourite album of the year, well worth a listen.Another sunny day in the national park and it's off to strange start. I've seen THREE different people, all with 3 legged greyhounds. I stare at the last and the owner says "haven't you seen a 3 legged Greyhound before". My response, "well actually I have, yours is the third this morning". I'm sure he didn't believe me. LOL. It's odd though isn't it, I mean come on, THREE! So another diary comes to an end. The year flying by, I feel like I am being left behind, it still feels like February. Take care all of you and love life, it's way to short. xPG |