The Life and Times of Peter Green
Archive: 26 February - 10 March 2024
 "Well it's up, our mighty Split Enz "Murder" video- we hope you love it." |
February 26thA beautiful cool day, a chance for us all to recover before Wednesdays super hot day where there is talk of it hitting 40!Some "new" locals sit near me and chat this morning over coffee. It's good to have some fresh faces in the community, it keeps it interesting up here. I sip my coffee slowly this morning as I'm waiting for the post office to open and straight in and pay our rates. I hate paying rates but it's done for another year. Hurrah, so I'll ignore how much. It gives you that estimate of your property too so that is always fascinating. I keep suggesting we sell up, and live in a Tepee but as Mark says what about the archives. Maybe 20 more Tepee's for the various bands archives? I work in the office with Marky on "Project X" which i can now (FINALLY) say is indeed Split Enz. Well it's our arty project for the year and today we finished it. The Enz are scattered to the 4 corners of the Earth so some crazy person had the idea of completing a puppet course and creating Split Enz as puppets. You start with oranges, true. So our orange tree that rarely has usable oranges finally had a use. 6 oranges, Nigel was the smallest orange as he has the smallest head! According to my notes we started in July 2023! F**K! really? The song was always going to be "Murder" rarely ever played and what we are using is a live version that we have. We both love the song. It's from a Sydney show in 1979 and if you listen closely in the audience a very young teenage Peter and Mark were in attendance cheering Split Enz on. We loved the band in 1979 and I dare say some of their best shows were during that year. We bare witness to that. So it's kind of cool that the audience has a tiny bit of noise that is US! Trainspotters will have a love hate with the clip. Yes it is from 1979, no they didn't wear Crombies "The Greys" costumes (1978) , no Neil didn't have his Denis the Menace hair spike and fake glasses, but this is an alternative universe Split Enz- they look like they are from a different Universe. Noel does have his hair 'wings', Tim a widows peak. The costumes look fantastic, and trainspotters can notice Nigel's does have the white button while all the others are black as per the real cozzies. Neil has that awesome Yamaha guitar and Nigels red Spector bass. Malcolm's drums are totally invented & the logo from 1977. There is a 'secret' inside Mals drum. If ever these are displayed at an exhibit it might pay to sneak a peak inside. Loads more, loads.. but I'll save the fun bits for down the track. So by the time this latest diary is up, I dare say Split Enz "Murder" (2024) will be on our youtube page. We hope you all love this as much as we do , Marky has been truly amazing around it. Plus help from my wonderful Salvo girls Joan and Deb. The mighty puppeteers- Trudi, Laura, Wendy who survived the catwalk of death with me (and I also suffered the worst hayfever attack I've ever had on the day of filming). But it is Marks editing that pulls this together, despite our spotlights exploding, puppets tangling every minute and even a Puppeteer close to collapsing. He took the pieces and made my arty project a reality. So please enjoy it, leave a comment on the Youtube page and by all means share this with your friends. We hope it makes you smile, dance along and believe that we captured some of that Split Enz magic. A special shout out to Split Enz- we hope they crack a smile from this and know our intentions are arty and noble. You can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2EearrOWc February 27thThe charity boss is away for a few weeks holiday, but it is such a good team here, everyone plays their part. We wave goodbye to "The Others" who are off to Vietnam, for a few weeks holiday, safe travels.I make some chocolate mousse for Marky, he has been so incredible around the video project, a lifetime supply of Mousse for him. It was hot today and the night it seemed to increase. The Arctic Breeze machine in my room churns out some cold air. Midnight sits up on the window sill and watched the night animals. She loves living here, still a tiny bit kitten, she runs around the kitchen like an absolute nut job. Putting us both to the test. February 28thToday a total fire ban day, and by late afternoon the concern of bushfires. We get our Fire Plan ready, just in case. Midnight stays inside in case we have to depart suddenly. I head down to Olinda for an early coffee and take my work book as today is important for another reason. Our "Making of Murder" Split Enz 2024 goes up.I am a bit nervous, not just because I wonder how the band will react, good grief it's just a little arty project, in the scheme of things a tiny blip on the radar for Split Enz. More so nervous if the music loving public have enough arty vision to see how cool this is. I kind of make a mental pack if people don't get it, so be it, for those that love it, embrace it , understand all the cool things about it- this really is for you. I hear from Enzman Eddie and he is intrigued and offers some help around the music which was really nice of him. We release THE MAKING OF MURDER on my Youtube page, and people are surprised and the best response. By 12.00 six hundred views and emails, text, and the number keeps growing. Enjoy it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7THjnZ5Kgo8 February 29thSitting in the kitchen at the charity and all the girls are watching "The Making Of Murder" on their phones, having a chuckle -yes the slippery orange scene is the popular part. (rolls eyes) . The girls are really sweet, they come up and say they are "proud" of me, almost a bit teary around their kindness. Amazing support too-they helped in so many ways around this-they have good hearts. Hair, arms, feet , costumes, Barbie spoons so much help.I hear from Andy (White) he is home after a really good tour and we will catch up tomorrow. It will be good to see him. March 1stAutumn has arrived, Summer is over. It really isn't. The seasons need to be changed, March should now be Summer, some very hot days coming up, all past 100.My neighbours text me they loved "The Making Of", so funny when your neighbours are on the subs for your Youtube page. Nice they support my craziness. I head to the bakery early and Andy gets "lost" well kind of, so I pack up and head for Olinda and take him to lunch. I should call it "Upper" Olinda as its the other part. We chat, ok three hours, more than a chat. HA. He's great, gives us the new cd. Nice. He is fascinated by the Split Enz "Murder" video , we should make an Andy White puppet to gate crash the gig and stage invade the puppets. No, No, No just joking Marky. The clip is done, nothing more will be added but Marky is fine turning it (as he does). I contact Ren about saying "Yes" to a radio interview. Happy to do it for community radio. I usually say no to interviews but community radio I pretty much always say "Yes". I kind of want to do interviews in odd areas like "The Senior" newspaper. Mark stares at me horrified and he suddenly gets it and laughs. It's no laughing matter, Split Enz are pretty much seniors so maybe it's our new demographic? Taylor Swift can have the ten year olds and we will grab the over 65s! March 2ndIt's weird, i felt itchy last night. I am starting to think I might be getting some allergy to mango's. Maybe it was just a warm night and some light heat rash. Just annoying, no biggie, but not much sleep.We start the "10 Secrets of the Split Enz" puppets. Every day I'll put up a 'secret' really some fan /trainspotter fun. Most people just film something and throw it out to the masses but not us. I hope music fans like that though. They will be sick & tired of the pre-video stuff , it might work against us. LOL. I call Giles and Fen and we have a really nice chat and some laughs with Mr Giles! They are good people, we are lucky to have them as our friends. A double tonight for us on the ABC. The Dunkley By-Election in Victoria and of course Mardi Gras from Sydney. The By Election starts first, an important one, the media tend to push it as an Albanese V's Dutton, well Sky news certainly do. You can see how friggin biased Murdochs Sky is, almost frothing at the gills of a Labor loss. I think they totally underestimate the fine people of Victoria. It's off to a bad start for Labor , well for the first 15 minutes, after that it all course corrects and the Liberal voters ( the whole 3 of them) go from cheering and dancing into some endless pit of denial, nastiness and sad old faces. A few hours later Labor have won, the swing I expected of 4% ends up being less. Adding to the fact that One Nation and United Australia didn't run any candidates so the conservatives who would normally vote for them voted Liberal. Next election both those parties will be represented (Yes UA will be back) so they will desert the Liberals and the Lib vote will flat line. The Labor candidate is Jodie Belyea and she is hard working for her area. The Liberal is a dickhead called Nathan Conrow -he has this problem, if you dare question him or say how much his party sucks he bans you from his Facebook page. Yes I was banned by loser Conroy, i wear that like a badge of pride. The next test will be the Tasmania election and if all goes well the Liberals will be booted out of office in Tassie and the final nail in Dutton the Duds political coffin. Tonight was a good night. We also jumped across to the Sydney Mardi Gra where a passionate crowd of 100,000 danced and cheered the community on. It felt a bit lacklustre this year, Courtney Act wasn't used to her potential I felt. Still 100,000 people saying your gay etc community is wonderful does feel good. A sadness lingered over Mardi Gra though with the death of Jesse Baird & Luke Davies. The parade started with a welcome to country by Aboriginal drag performer Nana Miss Koori , "I'd like to offer my condolences to the families of two brothers who were taken tragically from us" she said at the end of her speech. March 3rdNice and cool again outside. Enjoying it as the hot weather returns soon.I hear from Eddie, I think he is loving the idea of Split Enz puppets. We share some chuckles and gossip and he also passes on a Dance Mix that he did of Split Enz "Poor Boy". I normally hate dance mixes and "Poor Boy" is a favourite so don't fuck with that. BUT i can see this in a movie , i joke to Mark that Eddie wants us to do a video clip for it...Mark pulls a face. Nooooo I am fibbing (again). Not sure where Eddie's dance mixes will end up. I am sure we will all find out at some stage. All of this Enz activity. More to come... Evening & a Supermarket run for us. I shout us Pizza and drinks for "date night" and we sit in the car and pig out. Marky says something so sweet and I smile, that knowing smile that I love this guy so much. Isn't love grand? Sis and MIM and family go to Mums with an early birthday cake. Maddison leaves for camp tomorrow so she'll miss her Nana's birthday. They give Mum the early birthday present that I sent up. She's 86 on Wednesday. March 4thI try to sleep in but fail. My brain is ticking over with my list of "To Do's". I need a coffee so down to Olinda. The locals say hello and sweet Taylor is actually early for work, now is that a first LOL. She will kill me for that comment.A local comes up and says she watched my "Making of Murder" on Youtube as her friend Jane shared the clip. She loved it, very sweet and as always I never know what to say during those moments. So vibey, I smile. This is nice. I head home and order some flowers for Mums birthday tomorrow, just that little extra present. She loves her flowers, now you know where I get it from. I make sure they give her blooms that smell nice and with her diminishing eyesight smell is more important. I make Coleslaw, Tzatziki dip, my Dark Heart cold pressed juice and homemade ice cream with shaved Belgiam chocolate in it. The rest of the afternoon I am going to spend in the office. Vegetarian burgers for dinner. Our "The Making Of Murder" clip has now had over 1200 views, so thanks everyone. Wonderful. This is great. Wow. it clicked over 1000 at 7.05 PM. We both cheered. I'm sure it will continue to have "views" but always nice when people give you the thumbs up when you work on a little itsy bitsy project like ours. March 5thHappy Birthday to my dear ol' Mum, age 86 now and still fighting the good fight. She still manages to make me laugh.More secrets of the Split Enz Puppets today. #4 Noel Crombie puppet has no ears. Well he is God, all seeing, so he doesn't need ears or maybe I simply somehow stuffed up and forgot. I think I was sidetracked getting Noels hair "wings" correct, nothing else mattered. If you want to read about all the Enz Puppets secrets friend request me on my Facebook page. Some fatigue hits me today, so I spiral a bit. Maybe trying to do too much again. I do squash some stupid amount of stuff into my day. March 6thToday our 20 second promo for "Murder" goes out. More tease I know but Mark did a great job. Spread the word. I notice people in the music business are asking about it, uncertain as to what it is. It doesn't really fit into their safe musical book ends. Is it a release, is it a lead up to something is it madness? Maybe the third. Enjoy the Promo here.March 7thMidnight was very restless last night, which basically means I got very little sleep. I am up early and down at Canterbury Road at Kilsyth checking out a huge Billboard. Which may well read "Split Enz Murder March 13th". Cool! Let the world see what we have created I say.The boss at charity is still away so we all step up again today, everyone is working extra hard and it's such a mighty team on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Fun girls, i really enjoy being part of this still. I helped a man who recently lost his wife. Just let him talk most of the time but it was so sad, he obviously adored her. So I just helped that little bit more, he thanked me for my kindness later which was nice. He said i was now on his Christmas Card list now. LOL. Funny bugger. I decide to put the "Carnival Geek at Bus Stop with Split Enz Puppets" image on my Facebook page and Twitter. It's an instant hit. We filmed it at the Kalorama bus stop and we certainly stopped traffic. My geek wig so perfect, little bow tie and Enz jacket. The Tim puppet standing up all by himself on the bus seat while the huge Split Enz sprayed suitcase near by. The back story of course is the Geek needs to get public transport to go to the people in the rural areas to put on his Split Enz puppet shows. The cars along the tourist road slow and people beep and cheer, I look behind me pretending I don't know what they are cheering at. All part of the act. I am the geek. A bogan in some car bellows out something so I pull my wig off and wave it at him, freaked him, he was out of dodge fast! HA! The geek seems to have a following, 100 "likes in 30 minutes and a hit on Twitter. All part of our promotion...or maybe it IS the real me. Deep inside I want to be a Carnival Geek....or not. A really nice surprise from Paul and the people at Noise 11 - the main music website in Australia. They ran a cool advance article on the Enz Puppets & "Murder". Lots of excellent comments from people, so many music lovers sending me emails. Noise 11 also have a Facebook page and the post on the Enz Puppets on FB was the most "liked" post this year! WOO! We managed to bump Taylor Swift off, she had the post with the most "likes". So that is kind of impressive I guess. It made me chuckle. Anyway thanks Noise 11. March 8thI worked in the office till very late last night, after that watched some TV with Marky and the cat. Even though I was really tired I had a restless sleep. My PR brain ticking over around the clip & what is coming up. Once we throw "Murder" out to the world, I'll do 2 more weeks and that is it , it has to have a life of it's own. An art project but it seems to be a much loved art project already.So I am up at 6.00 am and drive through the fog & Erin makes me a splendid coffee. I watch this woman staring into the fog. She was standing among the plants at the Organic shop. She was as motionless as plants. Her name is Carol & she kind of leans in an epinastic curve like she is waiting for a sign from God. The unexpected fog will do that to us all up here on the mountain. I sit at my outside table and work on some press bits and pieces. Chaz walks by and says "Hello", I look up and the fog has gone, replaced by glorious sunshine. I continue to do a few things on line. I put up "The Secrets Of The Split Enz Puppets #6" Todays, the Neil Finn puppets glasses are from a knock off Harry Potter doll. Think Neil Finn Split Enz era 1977. His hair tuff and fake glasses. I love that look, not glamorous, not a rock star , just a younger Finn finding his feet in older brothers whacky Split Enz. I hate the word whacky, why the FK did I write whacky. I spot some chocolate hearts wrapped in red foil at the Organic shop so romantically buy one for Marky. OK one for me too. I see our old Wollongong neighbour, Steve Kilbey from The Church is playing at Birds Basement on March 30th. So that is tempting. He is so funny onstage around his solo shows. Birds basements looks like avery cool venue, Melbournites should check it out. I like the monthly newsletter from Youtube that comes in around our page. Last month 58 new subscribers, 43.5 K more views and 128.9K minutes watched by people. Sometimes I do love technology. I work in the garden for a couple of hours this afternoon, just to escape puppets, emails and the clip. It helps. I also make some Mango Lassi plus a really nice lasagne for dinner. Some sort of normality. March 9thI got to sleep in today, not a lot but a tiny bit so that feels great. We have three really hot days coming up where the temperature is past 100, so I doubt anyone will get much sleep during those days. I'm lying in bed thinking how amazing humans can be. We get a little idea in our heads and somehow turn it into a reality, the joys of art and creation. Why can't we have more of this instead of killing people.Today we pop the Split Enz Murder billboard image up from Canterbury Road, it looks rather cool. Just on Facebook & Twitter. Four sleeps to go, and the emails and comments are growing. Plus a few more interview requests. I'm allowing 2 weeks to do such things. I've just finished having a coffee at the bakery when someone comes up and says "I liked your Puppet post today". I smiled, thinking wow social media doing its thing again. A stinky day, stinking hot, muggy. We keep an eye on the winds and I get the external fire sprinklers ready. Nice late afternoon chat with our friend Alison, she has this gorgeous cat called Mia. Never a cat woman before but she is now, it's nice to see what joy a tiny furball brings her. Insane hot weather brings some trees down on the mountain taking out power lines, so (again) no power for three hours. Just relieved I had the Air Con going in the lounge room before it happened as the house was nice and cool. When it finally came back on I headed to the office & put up some images of the Split Enz "Murder" Puppeteers. People seem to be enjoying our little fly on the wall moments from the shoot. When we do a project we commit 100%. March 10thAnother stinky hot day, the power stays on so everyone is relieved. I wash the car and it dries in ten seconds flat.We watch "The Trouble With Jessica" which we love. I keep saying this movie would make a good theatrical production. Unless that has already happened. It becomes "Weekend at Bernies" about 3/4 of the way through. HA. Too hot for dinner so i drive off mountain and this hot weather has kept everyone at home, the roads are void of traffic. Sad to see the last episode of "For All Mankind" for this season, but excited that they are filming another season, one of the best TV shows we've seen in years. Thank you Marky, i love my Bluray. Well that is it for another diary. I sit in the office wondering how our Split Enz "Murder" video will be received, and who will step up and support it. If you only share one video a year or make one comment on a Youtube page please consider ours. Sometimes just sharing it gets the clip to people who would never normally see such wonderful things outside of the predictable goal posts of the predictable media. Well some mainstream media. We hope you love it, so check it out here. Split Enz "Murder" (2024). Thanks to all who have supported this and your comments, so passionate & wonderful. A huge shout out to Deb too, who rushed up this latest version of the diary. It's really appreciated. xxx All the best Love Peter |