wayne

20august2014
those couple of usual spy eyes, who read the bit about my cousin in the other blog. i decided to write a bit of a blog about him. i tend to let the dead bury the dead, but with this i'll make some kind of  exception. i think it has an underlining piece of  importance of understanding life and death. his was the last funeral i've attended. it was a strange affair, in that there was no coffin. the service was held at a small chapel at the hospital. things had changed.

23august2014
i'm in a few minds about writing this. probably wayne was the closest  thing i had to a brother, by blood. i had closer friends, even cousins that were more like brothers, but not by blood, blood is thicker than water, like they say. as you may or may not have read it the other blog, i only knew him about 70 times, as if. things like christmas at my grandmothers place, that's about it really. most of my cousins around here are mostly younger than me. i think wayne was born in 1970 , so he was 10 or so years younger than me, 10 years was a long time then, time seemed different.

24august2014
just trying to think when i first meet them. although his old boy, my uncle, was wayward, they were pretty much brought up clean cut, as i remember. i would have seen them on occasional weekends, when i lived at my grandmothers. they were just little kids. i would have gone over to the bush, or gone up the pinny shop. when i moved from there i would have seen them less. i remember one christmas they turned up for christmas lunch dinner thingy tradition at the grandmothers, they would come every year. they used to say jokes and things and make the oldies laugh. the story that year, was wayne had a pet lizard, he took it to school . the teacher confiscated it. he told the teacher , give me back my lizard you bastard. that got a laugh around the dinner table. they still had that clean cut barber shop hairdo though. probably 1977 something like that. i thought how the fuck are these guys gonna fit in. wayne had 2 brothers

25august2014
i never seen them until years later, their old boy got good money in the mines. i think he joined the masons or something, and pretty much turned his back on the family. my old boy had to teach him maths and shit, so he could get a deputy ticket in the mines. it only took him 86 goes at trying, i remember that, among other things. them times i was on the street  , out riding or working or just out. so i didn't know much of home. actually i used to get a lift home with him in 1975 , we worked in the same mine. eventually he got over the mason thing and was back to christmas dinner in the 80's. that's when i seen wayne and his brothers had grown. they sort of made me feel a bit low. here they were talking about jobs this and that, money la la. poor old rob just slogging it out on the railways. and per usual i didn't fit in. i done things though. when i look back , they were fitting in and i was struggling. but if i really look back i chucked it in years before. so who gave a fuck, i never thought about that shit much . i'm just a happy bloke, really. i think them mine guys lost the plot years ago, long before arthur scargill.

 26august2014
i never really had much to do with them. some time around 1989, i think, their mother died of cancer. at the funeral wake thing, the youngest  didn't even know who i was. i hadn't see them in years , and he was young then. after leaving my grandmothers place, in the early seventies , i only went there a few times, other than christmas. i was probably out there somewhere, sleep in the day , roam til 12 o'clock train , so i didn't see them much. i remember i seen wayne over at the uni around 1992, i was friggin around with them little macintosh box things in computer lab, making a book about nintendo codes. he was walking to the pool there to do some laps. he said hi and that, he said he was doing okay. i never thought i'd see him over there. that's all really. i never really seen him much. the nineties seem hazy. compared to post 2000, i smoked pot a bit then. it's hard to say whether i smoked more in the 70's 80's or 90's. i can say i drunk more in the 80's, but pot ??. i thought wayne was straight clean cut, that's the way i seen it.

28august2014
after his mother died, his old man was on the loose, chasing birds, as if he ever stopped. he ended up buying a brothel in the Philippines, or something. i remember he won some money in the lottery , lottery again. third prize or a large prize, not first. that was in the sixties , when money was something. he went to japan, and was gonna bring back one of those geisha girls, but my grandmother wouldn't have it. he stayed at my grandmothers til he was about 32. so in the nineties he was back and forth to philippines . then, one day he brought back a wife and her five kids. everybody said what the fuck, he's off his rocker. i used to go to my olds for sunday lunch, he turned up with his wife, who was a year or so older than me. he wanted my mother to teach her english. i remember going to my grandmothers for Christmas or some do, around 1993 , and seeing all these asian kids running around the backyard. i seen wayne , and said what's this, he said yeah i know.

31august2014
the events after that point are a bit sketchy , at best. it must have been sometime before august 97. i was up town , i seen some bloke walking down the street, spaced out. then a couple of days i seen him again. then i got close , it was wayne. after talking for a bit, i gave him my address. he came round a few days later. he told me he didn't get along with his step mother, it was either him or her. he lived somewhere i can't remember. he and a mate went to england and amsterdam . he done a bit of travelling. he reckoned his mate flipped out on the drugs and killed his mother , then tried to kill him. i sort of remembered that on the news, but i wasn't really into the local news. he had a flat in some suburb, the guy killed his mother then  came round to the flat to kill him , but he couldn't get in and left. he said he was into the doors, he said his old boy, told him that music goes right through me. the doors seemed to be popular for that generation. on me, he said he remembered my 21st birthday party and a girl i had. i got the photo album out and showed him my party and the girl , and in the photo was wayne, must of been 8 or 9.

1sept2014
 with the before august 97 bit, thats when my grandmother died, so he had to have told me about the doors before then. cause i remember calling him the lizard king then. in reference to his lizard story and jimbo. he came to my place a few times, he was living at the illawarra pub. his brother was stabbed by a stranger there. apparently he was staying there , answered the door and some bloke stabbed him. in one of me and waynes conversations , he said there was some trouble at  nannas. i can't remember exactly, but my grandmother told them not to open the back door, cause the dogs will get out. waynes brother open the door and let the dogs out. she blamed wayne and that's the last time they were there. not long after my grandmothers death is when he got stabbed.

4sept2014
here's the photo of wayne on the back left at my 21st, i been working 2 days in the hot sun and my face is sunburned . the other photo is me late 75 it should go in the 1975 blog, i was only 7 and a half stone, street boy song.

6sept2014
them photos tend to put me off track a bit. they reckon a picture tells a thousand stories. but i think the thousand stories are the time that's in between those photos. wayne? ,if it wasn't for wayne these photos would not be there. so, getting back to 1997, wayne turned up from time to time. people on the gear have this strange attitude to those who aren't. i'd put it this way, they're fucking liars. we talked more about this and that,  he reckoned he was living at the illawarra pub and had a job doing some electrical work out port kembla. on the news was a story about a transformer blowing up, he was working 20 feet away . i'm not to sure about the time. around this time i was bumping into him regularly. i thought this blokes got no life skills. i asked him, didn't his mother tell him any thing. he said she'd tell him when he got older. i didn't see him for some time after that. at a sunday lunch at the olds , i learned his old boy was in hospital, getting some cancers removed. i visited him , after a bit i asked , what's with wayne, he just looked at me. i felt this time was like some kind of karma. the whole time was like some kind of build up. i really felt that .

9sept2014
again i'm not to sure of the time, it was either before or after . he turned up to my place all soaking wet  from the rain . i had the heater on , he just put his wet shoes still on his feet next to the heater. i told him to take his shoes off and let them dry out. i told him he'll get sick if he leaves them on. for some reason he took offense, and took off. i never seen him for quite a while after that. it must of been after 2000. when i did see him , i had been through  my own thing. he'd been to Thailand, he reckon he had a kid over there. he had a tiger tattoo, and was wearing some Buddhist thing on a necklace . a little square clear plastic thing with a picture inside. i told him he was fucked in the head, you've got your own spirit stuff. getting into eastern philosophies would only upset the balance. he just went , yeah yeah.

11sept2014
he ended up having a girl friend, according to a friend,she wasn't that stable, and with a  substance problem, the writing was , not on the the wall but somewhere. they lasted a fair while, long enough to have a kid. a bit sad really. how many like that? i seen them around town over them few years. i think that whole generation has been pretty much decimated by very harsh drugs and poison . i think lots of generations have their tragedies , whether it be war, drugs , drink , disease or whatever. then, one day my mother said wayne was dead. i can't remember now, how i felt at that time. i know i thought , what most teenagers think, they wont live long. i thought if it had been me , they would have had some kind of understanding, but wayne. i think it upset my mother greatly. the guy had the world at his feet, had a trade, traveled the world. and chose the noose. i sort of think he ,just couldn't cope, i don't know.

19sept2014
the funeral was a low key affair, like i said before. the chapel at the hospital . no coffin or body, this puzzled a few people there. it wasn't until some years later, that i found out. if you  suicide then you lose control of your body. so who knows what happened to waynes. as for the spirit, that's a different story. there was this constant wind at a particular spot outside the hospital. my mother said she thought of wayne every time she walked past that windy spot. since i started writing this blog , i walked past the hospital a few times, and noticed that the wind had died down in that spot. maybe this blog has finally buried wayne, R.I.P.

oxford hotel

22june2014
sort of hard trying not to think about the 1990s, and think of other things. i thought i write something about the oxford hotel. i'd been going there, probably since about 76, 77, around then. they're just about to pull it down, that's been on the cards for about 6 or 7 years now. around here their pretty good at pulling things down and jack hammering all fucking night. they've nearly pulled down the whole fucking town. then forever to build a shithouse, with rents that are so unrealistic, that makes things bullshit. they build these arcade things with the same shops as anywhere, people go there for a week that's it. they've been doing that shit for years in the name of progress, it just kills everything.

6july2014
i was going to put a photo up, but i may have left it to late, the scaffold is up. my earliest memories was just a dive of a pub in 1975. i used to walk past it when walking the street, as you did back then. i remember looking in there, the ladies lounge was just that old outdoor wooden furniture. like most old pubs, not really old, there just not the same anymore. back then most pubs had a public bar, a saloon bar and a ladies lounge. in the early days women weren't allowed in the public or saloon bar. the saloon bar the beer was a penny dearer  than the public bar to keep the riff raff out, mainly business people drank in the saloon.

19july2014
it's sort of hard figuring the year of the first time i went there. this is mainly because a lot of things happen in such a short space of time. i can remember the day and how, but year is difficult. the day would have been a saturday. me and a mate had been riding down a place called oilies , a name given to parts of the beach, south beach. surfies have nick names for such parts of beaches. other names along the beach are shitpipe, where they used to just pump the sewer in the sea. oilies was an industrial part, where they pumped sand in and built on it, and there was a large flat and small tracks to ride bikes. it was my first time there. i bought my first bike off a bloke i worked with for $260, a dt 175 yamaha trail bike. i was pretty hopeless at riding. i remember the day i bought it. after learning and crashing a few times, i got around here and there. an old friend said we should ride to tracks down near the beach. looking back now it's strange how certain people pop into your life from the past. he was another kindergarten friend from way back. i had been an urchin, and now i had a bike, and so did others, he took me down to the oilies track. down there was this big group of old friends with their bikes, doing really good riding things. there was a couple of toffs with good bikes, bragging. i went there a week or two later, and one of the guys said we should ride up town to the oxford, apparently they just done it up. we rode up along the beach and i nearly rode into the shitpipe channel, luckily i hit the skids and the front wheel just went in a bit, i remember that.

22july2014
i remember riding up to the pub and parking the bikes out the back car park. i'd never really been there before that. my local was unanderra pub or morwarra as it used to be called. i didn't mention before, that there was also beer gardens, just an outdoor drinking area really. it was late in the arvy, when we got there . we just checked it out , at that time they where still doing refurbishments . we were pretty grubby from riding , i think we just had a beer , a cig and something from the snack bar. oh yeah , pubs used to have good snack bars them days. we decided to go there later that night and check it out. that's when i started hanging with some old friends and/or enemies from high school. certain nights were certain places with that crowd. nothing was on that night so it was the oxford.

1august2014
 with the refurbishments came the new trading hours. i'm not to sure, but i'm pretty much sure, trading hours used to be 12 hours a bar. so some pubs had bars opened at different hours. in the early days , some early openers were 6am to 6pm, some were 7.30am to 7.30pm. most pubs up to that time opened 10am to 10pm. as a child , i dreaded 10.30pm , you'd hear the old boy coming home pissed as a nit. the oxford was the first around here to open at 11am to 11pm, with a small corner public bar that opened and closed early for the old pisspots. you could just move into the new part after it closed. us young crowd mainly turned up thursday night was the main, friday and saturday nights. saturday could be a dead night if something else was on. they decked it out okay, mainly to sell more grog. there was no bands at that time . mainly just drinking and conversation , there may have been a jukebox, there was one later . the wollongong hotel was where the jukebox was then. most pubs had jukeboxes and pool tables and maybe a pinball , although they came later.

3august2014
me writing about a pub, you'd think i like them. i never really liked pubs to tell you the truth, although they did have an air about them. some say the oxford had a ghost. ghost ain't uncommon to such places. you could rent out rooms and live there , as we all know. one lived there in the 90's , and died there upstairs. they closed the top part  up for that reason apparently.  but even before that there was trouble. in the fifties some hungarians stab the bar manger to death, a woman. i didn't know that until the 2000s and somethings. before that incident ,there was some kind of harmony between the races. that changed after that, as well as the hungarian bloke who kidnapped a lottery winners kid and held him for ransom, and eventually killing him.although not related to the oxford, here is the lottery story. the oxford was a dive after that. that end of town always had a bad vibe.

4august2014
so did the top end called piccadilly , but that's another story. hey , i could easily go on type this oxford hotel crap and any other blog nonsense. at this point in time , i could n't give two fucks either way. two fucks, two minds who gives a shit. at this point in time , i feel it's not really going anywhere. i've said a few things. i feel like just not doing it anymore, let things pass. maybe if i'm still around i'll come back to it, the truth about the oxford hotel is it was a fucking dive , just like any of them places. if they were any good people wouldn't let them go.

nineteen ninties part one

24may2014
before i go on with this, it's happy birthday to b.d. it's also the birthday of an old kindy classmate, one of the pot thieves, reds mate. we used to celebrate cracker night on 24th of may (org. empire day), the guy was an orphan, and/or adapted, and he loved that his birthday was on cracker night, that's all he had. then they moved it to june for the queens birthday weekend, which isn't her birthday anyway. then they banned crackers in favour of fireworks. now they let off fireworks every other day, except queens birthday weekend, they might remember some years for a political purpose. that pretty much sums up the 1990's.

26may2014
i'm not surprised no one as yet has viewed this blog, excepting for the usual spy eyes, all 3 of them. what a fucked decade that was, maybe it was just my age at that time. i would not have liked to be born, or have grown up, or done anything i had done before in that decade. thinking about the year 1990. firstly my lifestyle had changed dramatically.  i was now living in a car, well a van actually, more than less in a state of depression. i still had a few possessions scattered about the place. it was drive here, crash out there, shower where. gypsy? not relating to many people. there's one incident that stands out, among a few, that year. i had driven halfway round australia, 3 states and a territory, the year before. the van was playing up. every time you'd get to a certain speed or a hill, it would die in the arse. i took it to one bloke, he reckoned i needed a tune up, so i paid $128 to get a tune up, ripped off. the fucking van was sitting there for 2 days , he changed the spark plugs, i could have done that. the problem was still there. next, i went to this other bloke. he put all this testing equipment on things, he reckoned the carby was sucking air or some bullshit, so i went and got a carby kit , gaskets and such, $30 something. i remember trying to get up this steep hill and the van clagged out halfway. i put the hand brake on and changed the carby  gaskets there. the motor was under the front seat. i got up the hill okay, but the problem still returned. after talking to a no hoper, he reckoned i should change the fuel filter, a $6 part. that fixed the problem . since then i've known a least 4 people who have had that same problem. i've told them the fuel filter , most think what's he know, one guy said yes that fixed it.

27may2014
living like that was taking a toll. i had a cb radio in the van, which i used and made some new friends, that was okay. the so called girlfriend's father, suggested i put some of this coolant in my radiator, very good he said, being greek. i said no worries. driving round over the next couple of weeks, i noticed the temperature was  high on the dash  gauge. i went to one bloke at a garage, he said, you've blown a head gasket. i said how much, he said $1600, i thought, wtf. i decided to fix it myself. i worked it out at around $160. the gasket kit $90 and a head shave $70. i had the tools necessary. it took me two days to fix. parked outside the girlfriends parents house. after fixing it, the problem was still there. when i changed the gasket, i thought the old one wasn't that bad. i had to take out the radiator, water pump , hoses , tapids rockers a lot of shit. i got it going again , but the temperature problem was still there. a no hoper suggested thermostat. the thermostat is used for heating, when at a certain temperature it opens , the water is at a temperature and can be used to heat the interior, keep you warm like. i took it out and the high temperature problem was fixed. so what happened, the coolant had stopped the thermostat from opening, stopping the circulation of water. i thought fuck it. i never put the thermostat back, come winter not much of a heater. while i was fixing the head gasket i walked into town one night, a few miles, i was noticing change then.

28may2014
i could go on about life in a car, stuff like paying for petrol, then the cops trying to track me down for not paying, cause the jerk at the garage didn't like the look of me. or driving to canberra to see public image, or other ditties. i had had enough. i knew some people who had a small farm, they said i could stay there and help fix up the place. there was trouble there , they were on a methadone program. the trouble there is one day their okay, then when they got their done fix, their personality changed to up themselves. i had to get away. i think i stay there a few weeks or months. i was pushed into selling my motor bike and trailer to get bond for a flat in wollongong. i eventually did just that. things still weren't right though. it was like a game of how low can you go.

7june2014
 once in the flat, i had to get rid of the van. i sold it for $300, i bought it for $3200. i was just glad to be done with that life in the van stuff. the van would have been handy for some moving things type of stuff. i was glad to let it go.the shithouse girl friend moved in also, i don't know if that was a good idea. i had friends all over at that time, but time at being down, didn't help me none. this is where fate had came in, very much so at this time. i got into playing the lotto, i had played before, but now i was putting all energies into these same numbers which i thought would pop up. i also had an nintendo addiction at this time, just playing and wasting time, i thought someone should have a song called no time for nintendo. actually, some of the money from the van sale went on nintendo games. i had a friend in sydney, who had a screen printing business. he was moving shop, i was asked if i could give a hand. i said i would. on the train up i meet an old unanderra friend, i had a couple of cans of beer for the journey, i said do you want one? he said he'd given up and was sober. i told him i was trying to win the lotto, and i was doing it tough.

8june2014
it was a strange time, this being between late 1990 and 1992. i've mention parts in former blogs, jester. with the fuckwit girlfriend, things were drifting. she was going out to these fucked out discoie type places, i was never into that shit. i liked live bands. i could go on about her, these short paras are too much for that speck. a nut from the start, no more said. so, i helped out with the moving the screen printing gear. i had a strange relationship with them artie type people. they helped me in life, but their politics was somewhat different. i think art has a connection between the top and the bottom. it's a ladder. the trouble is there's a lot of fakers. while sorting through some old bits of clothes, we came across the clash t shirt. so that's how i got it. i helped out a few weeks, staying over some nights, others times catching the early trains up. i was  getting better with myself. then i felt i was being taken for granted, not used, cause i was happy helping out. we had a fall out  over trivia, silly really. i was in a fragile state, sometimes you'd catch the early train up, and hang around til 10 or 11 from someone to turn up. i ended up parting from that with a few dollars. i bought nintendo games. not long after that, the witch fucked off. with the key, things went missing. it was hard to trust people at that time.

9june2014
been thinking about that time lately, things you forget about. when i was fixing the head gasket, i thought about asking the girls mother if she'd like from me to put her lotto on. i didn't  worry about it, i thought mind my own business. a couple of days later, she was spewing. she didn't put her ticket in with the same numbers. she would have won a million, no one won it that week. when i think about it now , i'm sort of lucky in a way, i didn't ask her. when the fuckwit left the flat she took most of the blankets and stuff. i tossed all the crappy bed in the van out. all i had was a woolen blanket i stole years ago, out of a car. it was freezing the middle of winter. i often see them type of blankets on tv shows, maybe it was karma. i thought that, i was just happy she was gone. it was hard, paying rent and living without work. i was slowly getting better. i was visiting a bloke, simon, and jester lived not far. simon reckoned she was fucking with my spirit. maybe there is some truth in that. her old man was having some medical problem, test after test they couldn't find nothing wrong. he even forked out a large sum of money to a greek witch doctor, he had to throw some things in the ocean. he took some pictures to the witch doctor, and they said there was trouble with that one, the girl friend. years later i was watching this tv program about the golden fleece, jason and the argonauts. they landed on this island, lemnos. there was no men on the island, apparently the men wouldn't have nothing to do with the women cause they had smelly feet. the fuckwit was from that island and she had smelly feet. around this time there was phonecards just coming out. i liked the pictures on them and started collecting them.

10june 2014
tonight i switched on the telly, and there was the blanket, big bang theory, on the lounge. i don't watch that show at all, it was just on when i switched it on. i've seen them type of blankets on other shows, i can't explain them, it's like all coloured squares joined together. maybe i should throw it away and then i'll win lotto, probably had that blanket for about 35 years or more. i thought about the golden fleece and that blanket, there's no real connection excepting it's wool. anyways, getting back to this, when i said about fate at that time, it was like things were coming to a head, or some shit. maybe i should split this blog into parts, it might end up being long, compared to the earlier decades there was a lot more stay home. the phonecard thing caught on, all over the place. i started collecting the cards cause i liked the pictures. they were in phone boxes in like a little card disposable bin, you put your hand behind and grab the cards if there was any there. i didn't know it was happening at lots of places and they were worth money, i just wanted to have a small collection of the things for later on. at first i only kept the ones i didn't have. you know you'd go to the pub and check out the band and on the way home check for cards. them first ones were starting to be worth a bit of money. i thought i should have kept some of them first ones. then i found a shop that actually gave you 10% of the face value, so that helped support my tobacco habit. for a time it was getting crazy the prices of the things went up and up. people were actually keeping used phonecards in safe deposit boxes.

11june2014
i am sort of all over the place with this blog. with this, it's just a thought and build on it, it's not a boast. you can't really mention 1990 without the iraq build up, and eventual wars, talk about never ending story. still going on isn't it some 24 years later. we had an end of peace party back in 1991 just before the big secret invasion. it was a strange time, all glued to the t.v., seems like that 's all people do. gulf war til you're long sick of it, o.j til you're long sick of it... etc, etc. new world order. i tried to think where to go from here. i had a bit of time to do stuff i couldn't really do before when working the railway job. i started buying cds, that became cheaper. things i never really listen to before, chuck berry for instance. i never really heard much of his stuff til i bought this cheap cd. i knew things like johnny be goode, but the promise land, i thought was dave edmonds and rock and roll music was the beatles, and roll over beethoven. el cheapo cds had a lot of good songs, original studio. although you had to be careful of chuck and the different versions. another was leonard cohen. i had these unanderra friends around 1975, they said i should hear leonard cohen. i remember we went to town and the record shops and no leonard cohen. so i never really heard him. i bought the songs of leonard cohen on a el cheapo cd, just to hear it, from back then. i played that a bit around 1992. i even started playing songs on guitar, i just wanted to play one song. a neighbour had a song book with leonard cohen song, suzanne. i played that song. it made me happy i could sort of play one song.

14june2014
 with the guitar, maybe other instruments or anything really, it becomes work. and with that work comes uniformity. and once uniformity is achieved, what happens then? boredom. i couldn't just keep playing suzanne. i had a few song books with songs i liked as well as easy chord changes, that kept me occupied . it's not like i just picked up the guitar, i never really persisted with it. i had a few guys around me and they helped me a bit. with transposing and shit like that, sometimes it made it harder than the book. with the nintendo, i meet this art student through another art student i knew. he said he had 100 games on one cartridge, i didn't believe him . he showed me and lent me the thing, just early games. around this time, probably 92, seemed like a lot was happening. maybe 93, 94 as well. i found out bozo won the lotto. bozo, the guy on the train. apparently around the time of seeing him on the train, he played lotto and won a million. i thought the cunts stole me luck. my grandmother won a lottery in the 50's, 3000 pounds. my old man won the lottery in the early 60's. i thought i was destined to won the fucker. i caught up with boz . he was back on the piss, he drive me to his posh house in mt posho. he had a $7000 rolex watch, he threw it against the wall, indestructible he'd say. he told me he won not long after seeing me on the train. they had a big party everyone was getting pissed except him. then he busted and got back on the piss. he used to come and visit me around that time a lot, even just crash on my lounge. i used to think, here i am trying to win the fucking thing. a mate won it and was happy just crash on the paupers crappy old lounge. i thought about that.

15june2014
i got bitten by the lotto bug, around 88. i'd played before when it first started, but soon didn't bother after a while. so, i had this little note book , i had it for a couple of years. i decided to play the lotto and keep the results in the book. i'm looking at the book now. i drew up a nice chart, with boxes for the results , money in, money out. i had selected certain numbers, as i remember it was more of a coupon type of thing, with carbon paper sort of thing you kept that bit, not like todays type of ticket. it cost me $5.20 a week. i never won diddly squat until week 19. i won $8.50, but money in was $98.80. by week 25 i'd had a couple of more drops, up to that point, in $129.80 out $36.30. then week 26 i got 5 numbers, $862.60. i had to wait 2 weeks for the check, then a week for the check to clear, in which time i had to think about what to spend it on. i ended up buying the first nintendo games machine. at week 52, in  $271.20, out $950.60, so i made a profit, but take the 5 numbers win away and it's a different story. in 1991 i picked 6 numbers, thinking they would all come out. i've played them same numbers for 23 years and i'm still waiting, had a few drops. nothing to write about. with the nintendo i'm pretty much over, it's just a waste of time, as you get older time gets shorter, no time for nintendo

18june2014
i thought it should end there. i decided to have a part two. there wont be nintendo or lotto. if you wandering what happened to bozo, last i seen him, was about 3 years ago , he was living in a caravan park behind figgy pub. you know them things ain't cheap to live in anymore, i think they call them trailer trash in america. you know australia is a big country with not that large population and rents and property is bullshit. even if you own it's bullshit. during the nineties i seen  a bit of an x file episode about this bloke , he saw peoples death but couldn't figure the lottery. i never watched that show much, i never liked that grizzly shit or fucking ads. the twilight zone was much better, in that it made you think. the x files and them type of tv shows had a bit of that, but the grizzly shit seemed to overtake it and stick.

28aug2024

i noticed i've had a few views lately, surprised. i read through this, and fixed missing words and a few spaces. makes it a little bit more decipherable. after reading this some years later, i get the feeling nothing much has changed.  

 

 

 

 

ironworkers club

14may2014
in my life i haven't been a member of many clubs, i think most are louse. i was a member of the ironworkers club, now defunct. i use to take photos in the mid 80's this blog will be some of them photos from then at the ironworkers club.

not sure if this upstairs or down. they moved it down. maybe they renovated after, they did. this band is a concoction of guys from other working type bands, mainly covers, doing clubs and things, this band was called president gas, after the psychedelic furs song. i knew the guitarist  from other earlier bands. i don't remember much of this band.

an early version of the unheard band, i'm surprised this band lasted as long as it has.

every now again you get surprises coming from somewhere. that's rednicks hand on the chair and tobacco, don't know that other joker. i think he's never been amongst weirdos before, that's about 1986 or  later. i hadn't seen red for some years before, he'd just pop in 

  

that's my leather jacket that fucking shit is wearing, the thing on the front right. i was really tempted to blank the face, but it proves looks are deceiving. what a trouble maker

me and this geezer go back to high school and after, we probably hate each other

not a good look on my behalf, that's a wink by the way. i love the expression on that sheilas face, that's the reason i put this one up, i can see the scar in my eyebrow from the bike crash, otherwise i healed okay.

proton energy pills band

sydney dregs had a so called punk night , i say this was the end of anything. i'd say this was the grunge, when the night was over they broken 17 trays of glasses, just shitheads, whatever gains had come of anything soon went

more sydney dregs, the only band i remember was mass appeal, which i found uninteresting. as you can see this lot ain't really into their bands, couple of wollongong goths back yonder to the left sitting down

i'm sort of embarrassed  by that winking look i did there. this is taken in the upstairs bar. these guys were from up north , thirroul way. you could say to them the ruts, exploited. they didn't know what you're on about. they were into american skate punk at that time they made me feel old, probably right i was getting there.. 

17may2014

i took an mount of photos from about 84 to 89, these are just some that made it, either by negative transfer or whatever. personally i couldn't give a rats arse about these or that time or place or more than half the people.

18may2014

these photos might mean something to someone sometime , but they don't mean much to me . i would rather move on. i'd been meaning to put these on the blog for quite a while. the photos that would have been more interesting to me are around 1980 81. these are just the end of that really, last grasp 

19may2014

just when i thought, that's it, time to think about the next, there's more. like most things when i walk away they tend to finish. i was getting bored with the not saying anything around me all the time. i think i stopped going to the club or it closed. i headed away for a time. when i came back,  the club had been turned into a sort of under 18's venue. i went there once, there was some bands , like members of some detroit bands there. can't remember much.that was a one off type of thing, a kickstart. basically, it was a venue for the youth centre bands to play, no alcohol, it was called tsunami . it never heard that before, someone said it was japanese for tidal wave. i just thought whatever. i didn't think it would last, but it stayed open for some time. i thought it was okay for them youth. it was a hard time 90, 91 92 or so, a lot of shops closed and still. the trouble with all them young bands, they were all uniformed and under control. what i mean is they all learnt the same. so, it was all the same racket with nothing much to say lyrics. i shouldn't really say much about it, they probably enjoyed it, but nothing came out of it, so that's where it failed. with these blogs of mine there tends to be a quirk, spun out , x filey thingy . there's a strange one here as well. when i heard ironworkers built the  trade towers i thought of the club how it was wrecked by them cunts. then 4 years later they had that big tsunami happen, i thought thats weird , even when they were reporting it not many people could say it, let alone know what one was, i knew from that venue. probably nothing anyway just weird.

branch ave

12april2014
in your life there's a street or a place that pops up for strange reasons. i've been thinking lately, where's this blog thing going to next. when you get into that situation , it's sometimes better to have a spell or do other things. get your mind off the last thing, which i could have kept going on , but it was getting long. then out of some place way back yonder came branch ave.

16april2014
branch ave, figtree, new south wales to be precise. a street at which before 10th of october 1971, i had never been on or had ever heard of, to my knowledge at that time. that was all about to change, even the date, became a curse. as i try and remember that day, i was 12 years old , 13 in a few days, i always wanted to be a teenager. in the 50's and 60's, teenagers were the in crowd, all the fun stuff , like rock 'n rock, fads and all that type of shit, was centred all at teenagers, so 13 was a very big time for young people. if you've read about some early life stuff in other blogs, i might even have mentioned the episode earlier, i don't look back much, even if i am now. the story of branch  ave is not one i reflect on much. a bit like feet on seat.

20april2014
the difference here is it's more deeper and painful than the seat on feet thing. for me to go back there it's pretty heavy. remembering stuff , you know, just want to move on, but it's all part of what makes one. as i remember , my home life had been pretty much shit to say the least , it had been for a long time, since about 1966. when i say home life, i mean a safe home. i don't really wanna get into the home stuff all so much, but that day i wasn't in no hurry to get home or so called. it was a sunday , i was at some new friends place. new meaning a new school , not the primary school but 1st form . 10 months into it. you know them days were somewhat different, i know it's cliche. anyways, a few classmates meet at one place as we said we would, something came up , and the guy had to go out with his parents somewhere, swimming or something. he said i should visit this other guy who lived in branch ave.

21april2014
he said i should ride his bike up , i thought that was a good idea. i never had my own bike, i used to ride my sisters girls bike everywhere and get hassled, she never rode it. he had one of those mustang type bikes, which i always wanted. the bike was in neglected condition, no brakes and loose handle bars that went forwards and were hard to pull back . i used my thong on the wheel as a brake, thong being a japanese safety boot, you know flipperty flop, flip flop. you know they call them jandles in new zealand. it worked okay if you going not that fast. my sisters bike had the back pedal brake. from where the guy whose bike it was, it was flat down figtree way, to the other guys  place was figtree heights, pretty hilly. i didn't know up there that well. i made it to the guys place, i went the long way round. it all seems a bit silly, now. i don't know what made young guys think like they do, i still see it nowadays. it's all a bit corny, lonely, sad really. then i think does it change or you, just something. i think them computer type games fuck their heads, i know guys now 30 somethings, just played games all through their 20s, fuck that. anyways, he had a rumpus room and a mini golf setup in the back yard, a couple of baked bean tins in the ground for holes. we just played a few games and things as i remember.

this bike is similar to his bike

24april2014
you know that bike is really similar, take away the brakes , loosen the handle bars, leave in the weather for 3 months and you're close. i suppose you figured out, i crashed the bike. on the 11th of october , i woke up stuck to the bed sheets, wanting to have a piss. i laid there thinking where was i. i remembered nothing, when i say nothing i really mean nothing. now , bits come back. a nurse came and said, your awake, she had to put drops in my eyes. she helped me get loose from the sheets, my wounds had wept and dried and stuck to the sheets. it's amazing how i remember that shit after all them years. i can remember going for a leak, and seeing some poor dude in the mirror. then realizing it was me. half my face was gravel rash, you couldn't see my eye. after that i just went back to bed and crashed out.

27april2014
a couple of nurses came in ,told me how i ended up there, they said i might be in the news, thank fuck it wasn't. i'm a private person even then. they done the sheet change, eye ball drops and whatever else. i couldn't remember jack shit, but i learnt a skill of remembering out of that. that's how i can remember it now. i was in intensive care with all these very sick and or dying people around me, it was a modern hospital, low tech though, it seemed to be more caring than these days. i just crashed out. they said the head nurse and doctor would visit and determine  my situation.

28april2014
i can't say how long i was in intensive care . but i was moved to the children's part or ward whatever. as i remember there was 4 beds and 3 pountces , one i remember had tonsillitis removal, can't remember the others. they had nothing on me, i think they just looked at me. even then i was from a different place. the thing that hurts me most, was waking up on my birthday, a couple of nurses came and gave birthday kisses and things, that was ok. but i was now thirteen , the teenager. i looked for some presents, beside the bed was some kmart el cheapo slippers, that was it. i never wore slippers for a long time, i never even wore pajamas . but there was no one. when i look back now at that time, that was low, maybe better dead. i think i was pretty brave then.

29april2014
this is turning into more of me than branch ave. it's all relative.  them other guys had visits from family and friends, they'd pull the curtain across , poor old rob, that's me by the way. just when i was feeling real down, a familiar head pops in and looks around. it was grandad, then he turned and walked away. i jumped out of bed and shouted out, grandad. he turned around and walked back, he didn't know it was me. he just thought, look at that poor bastard. i read recently about keith richards saying something about grand fathers beening important, i would agree with that. after that i got a few visits from classmates and a few rellys, no parents though, they reckon i didn't want to see them, maybe yes and no, that was always what they say. lying in bed was boring. i found a new activity, tying knots in the pyjama chord. i must of tyed twenty or so knots. the nurses had been giving me these pills, all sorts  ,even these red things. all of a sudden i had to go. i went to the toilet , bloody kiddies things all over the place, tiles and such. there was a nurse giving a kid a bath next to the loo, i had to go, then the bloody knots became an obstacle,  trying to undo. i was swearing , saying things like fucking shit, the nurse got offended . i didn't manage to untie the knots.

30april2014
your right , i'd rather  fuck some bird then write this shit. but , i'd forget the fuck and want another. this shit is planted firmly in thy dna and is the source of dust. i've had a few wines tonight , even so, this shit don't go away. i'm glad some fuckers interested in my shit. i know who you are. germany and usa, but like everything that changes there there's an error of judgement . at least i've got some kind of audience.

"30july 2016"
i think i was pissed on wine there, i half know what i was  on about. i know i was pretty upset going through remembering that time. even now it still upsets me. i was gonna delete or fix it , but i don't know what to fix. the usa and germany bit is about people always reading my blog and that's it, just snoops, suppose it's part of it. i think what i meant there, was from dust we are made and from dust we return. as for fuck it is not, but then maybe it is.

4may2014
as days went on i became rowdy . i'd been there for a bit , they called for the old boy to pick me up, that was it for the hospital. now i had to deal  with all the other shit. stuff like people in general , my face was still half a scab, my eye was getting better. i forgot to say it was very blood shot in there. i found out later i had concussion, a fractured skull and stitches in my eyebrow, not to mention gravel rash on the arms. i had good mending skin , so i got better fairly quick. i had to see the doctor to take the stitches out of my eyebrow. he said he thought there was 4 but could only see 3. he was right there was 4 , i got the other one out some weeks later. so i was on the mend , but what happened.

5may2014
time is a great healer, like they say. after months of trying to figure out what happened, things start coming back. before i go on with this, while i was away ,motor bikes were the in thing. the guy who owned the push bike i crashed got a motor bike, something like a honda 100cc, sort of trail bike thing. there was a track near the school. so it was decided to go there. this other guy, a bit older than us would double me there. i was not long back to normality . the prick rode like a fuckwit down this hill, dirt track, about 120kmph . i just freaked out with a flashback, i handled it, though. if something would of happened i would have been fucked. after that i wasn't real interested in that shit, i'd just hang and watch. i think i just got sick of them ,ie, i got this ,ie, i can  do this fucking shit. on remembering what happened. after awhile the guy who lived in branch ave, his family were all going out, so i had to go. they suggested i go the other way , it was quicker. i remember when i rode down their driveway , i nearly got bowled by a car.

6may2014
there's a small hill and sort of bend, i can't remember riding up there. after the  bend it's all downhill. i can remember trying to slow down with the thong and flying past this dead end street, which i should of just crashed there. the thong wasn't happening , the handle bars went forward , couldn't pull them back. i just thought , i'd been in hairier situations. this wasn't to be . doing about 50mph head first onto the rough blue metal road near the bottom. i can just remember getting up and walking to the side of the road and collapsing. not long after, i was drifting in and out. i remember peoples feet and voices talking shit, like ambulance and, is he type stuff, that's about it. the branch ave guy's family weren't long on the scene apparently, he said he thought i was dead. the ambulance arrived . his mother traveled in the ambulance with me. i remember this, for some reason maybe pain or delirium, i grabbed her hair and wouldn't let go. the ambulance bloke just punched me out, i can't remember anything after that.

8may2014
on reflecting and thinking about that last bit. i think i just gave up and cried. and can sort of remember being on some kind of xray machine table , and people going he's a mess. that's about it for that episode. this whole thing wouldn't have even been written about, if not for, in 1993 , i got this job , getting bands for this newly opened club. in order to get the bands , i had to get a phone. i don't think the mobile thing was that happening then. anyways, every now and again i'd get these calls , saying james, james gauge. i 'd just go wrong number.

9may2014
this used to happen every once and a while. i must have got his old number. i don't know if this sort of thing means anything. when i first got a phone in 1983, i got this woman's old number, this familiar voice asks is la la there. i thought i know that voice . i knew the womans daughter. the bloke was rooting her mother. bazaar. getting back to this james gauge thing. it went on for years , right up until i got the phone disconnected . different people would ring asking for james. then one day someone said james , james gauge , 6 branch ave figtree. at first i didn't think nothing, just this bloody james gauge fellow should tell his friends his new phone number. then i thought branch ave, that's where i had that crash that time. if it happened once for a short period of time, i 'd put it off as coincidence , but these calls went on for years. i was nearly tempted to ask who was this james. it was always the same just james nothing else, i'd say sorry wrong number. it wasn't every day. i reckon i had that phone number for 12 or so years , and i'd get them calls right up till the end. one day i decided to walk to branch ave, and see where this number 6 was. it was right where i hit the road. i just thought that's sort of weird. as for the people involved in 1971, i seen the guy whose bike it was about a year or so, he had a hip replacement at 54, that blew me out. he was the surfie sking type, very ,not sporty but, outdoory . the guys whose mother was in the ambulance with me, she died about a year ago, R.i.P. he was also a surfy and good at sport, he got trapped in the heroin thing in the 80s, thats the last i saw of him. i thought he might of died, but it didn't say deceased in the paper for his mothers obituary thingy, so he must still be alive somewhere, probably all fucked up.  

feet on seat

10march2014
in the eighties , it was a regular occurrence to travel to sydney to check out the nighttime wildlife. the other day i was telling this old codger, about the feet on seat story. so rather than get into the heavy stuff , i decided to tell you the story of feet on seat. the time was pre '83. i would have usually driven to sydney, but on this particular occasion i caught the train up . i had some friends from the wollongong scene, i thought it would be a good idea to show them , some sydney dives. when i say pre '83 it could of been even earlier than that, but the month was defiantly july.

10march2014
saying july , it was the coldest recorded night of that year. as i remember, probably from even the 70's , even longer , lots of wollongong people had weekend nights out in sydney, and still to this day, but not as much. and visa versa . there seemed to be more night life years ago, night life meaning going out and doing things or nothing, probably getting old. so, i'd been going up there probably since the mid 70's. places like luna park, central train station ,kings cross. that would have been mainly the 70's. probably from 79 on, in the city george street , newtown, surry hills around that area, sylvania pub was ok for bands and a few other places. places like the rock garden in william street , the civic on sundays , and frenchs in darlinghurst had mainly been happening 77, 78, 79. frenchs was going longer than that, but the music scenes were all over the place by 1980.

11march2014
yes july, is winter here. that was just a little reference to the sydney scene at that times, sure there were other places happening, it's a sort of big city. the scene from around 80 to 84, say, was mainly  surry hills area. a few pubs around close proximity to central station , trade union centre and journos club a bit later. so you got a half decent scheme of things. i'd been going up there on weekends for a fair few times and knew my way around that area.

12march2014
i had a couple of friends a bit younger than me , who played in bands and things around , they were quite good actually, for boring old wollongong. we decided to go to sydney and i'd show them a few pubs close to central station. one was the southern cross hotel called at that time. it was originally called the strawberry hills hotel, and has since been changed back to that name. their forever changing things, sydney is a mess, now, shithole. maybe anywhere that meant something, besides money.  i'd been to the southern cross a few times, it was small and had a band room, i'd seen guys walk in off street plugin and play a set , then just mingle with the crowd. that type of vibe , i thought that was great and healthy. other times i'd turn up and there be like a hard rock band there an no one else so it was pot luck.

here's some links i found might fill

you in a bit

 hoi polloi band

hoi polloi were mainly a support band,

15march2014
so you've had the run down on the times and so .... we caught the train up. we were lucky that night as far as the bands and crowd go. i'd seen better ,but they were okay. the only band i can remember now was hoi polloi or something, meaning just common, i think. i can not remember the others there were 3 anyway. after the pub we had to catch the last train home . 12.30 am . central station was pretty much shut , excepting for the big ticket office. we got tickets. it was strange that my ticket was blank. in them days they were still using them green bits of card board usually printed destination on them and date. the guy said it was okay. i thought that would be a good souvenir, but was somewhat worried about the ticket inspector, but there wasn't any that late. it had that strange feeling that something aren't right, about it. as i remember we walked up to the platform to were the train was. i'm not sure if i spilled some chips on the platform but i remember the chips. also, on the way to the platform, i seen this old grate that had this stinking hot air coming up. it brought back a memory of when i was about 16 and on the street, me and a couple of friends stood on the grate to keep warm, just moving off to get a breath of fresh air. it was either freeze to death or breath stinky air. i told them about it. there was some kind of ruckus happening on an adjacent  platform . we didn't worry to much about it, just got on the train and talked about shit. i was a bit pissed and tired, so i had my feet on the seat and sort of a bit sleepy.

16 march2014
the ruckus elsewhere brought the slime to investigate. they were walking through our carriage, looking for something that didn't even happen there. as the prick walked through our carriage, he said put your feet down. i just thought fuck off, i was nearly asleep. he, said are you deaf, i said ,are you daft . with that he pull out the baton and whacks my head, i get up and push the cunt. he calls for reinforcements, so comes dim and his mate , to help the fat prick. they drag me off the train and the others passengers say, it wasn't him. the train pulls out and everybody looking. i knew only people care about themselves, so the others just caught the train home. the pricks just had me on the ground with a foot on my head . from that point or just before  i went into a state of not saying much, i think i could have done them slimey pricks but i just didn't.

18march2014
after a few hits they drag me off to the transit police cells at central station. on the way we passed the old grate, i thought bloody  grate alright. so, then they throw me into cell. then one of the meatheads tries to edge me on to fight, i wasn't that silly, giving him a freebie on beating me up. i didn't say much, there was some young guy in the cell with his arm in plaster , whinging about something i can't remember. i just sat there for a bit, then the real cops turn up and took me to central cells in between george and pitt streets, where i was formally charged and fingerprinted. i didn't realize i hadn't been charged by the slimey transit filth. i just didn't say much, not enough anyways. i should have counter charged them, i never thought. bad move.

19march2014
the cops at central police station seemed indifferent to my situation. after being fingerprinted they took all my possessions for my pockets, i can sort of remember the cop looking at my ticket, i said that's my train ticket, he said there's nothing on it , strange. i told him the bloke at the station said it was okay. after that they took me to the cells. they were quite large actually . i'd never been in before. these were just police station cells, the central one was just a big lock up. a few dunnys in a row, had the shit smear on the wall, i thought bobby sands had been here too. and these p.e. mats stacked up for sleeping on . i was just  about to crash on one when the cop come down and said you paper works been done you can go, that i'd have to appear in court at a certain day. you know i'd worked the day before going to sydney in the rail gang and hadn't had much shut eye. the time was now 3.30 am

20march2014
so there i was in the centre of sydney, and if ever there was a time in my life that you'd call the twilight zone , this was one of them. sydney at the time of hour and in them days, was a few stragglers creeping round the streets and work people going about their business. i just stopped and thought what to do. 50 odd miles, 80 kms from home , fuck all sleep. i might have checked out the charge sheet. offensive behavior - feet on seat, resisting arrest, malicious injury- broke his watch hitting me. if you think i dwell on this shit ,you are mistaken, i am reminded of it when i catch trains.

23march2014
like i said before, it was the coldest night of the year, i was starting to feel it. i remember just zipping up the jacket and walking. as i walked,  i'd hitch as well, not many cars though. as i got closer to central station, i thought the grate wasn't an option, been there , and besides i didn't want to see them dead shit transit reject coppers. i thought i'd walk to a station and crash for a bit, maybe newton or somewhere. not long after walking past central and up the road a bit i got a lift. i hard to remember now, exactly where, i think near the landsdown pub. the guy said he was going to rocky point road. i never heard of it before, but i still remember it and see it occasionally, when i'd drive to sydney. so i was out of the city and walking again. being out and close to the water you felt the cold, just had to keep walking.

24march2014
i checked out rocky point rd on the map after typing that last bit. there was a train station not far from there, didn't how to get there from there. i must have been pass there many a time , it's different when you zoom pass and when your actually there. rocky point roads at ramsgate, i'd heard of that place never knew where it was though. getting back to my predicament , i walked and it was getting very cold.  i remember the kogarah sign and i knew that stretch of road, i though i was just getting no closer to a station . not that long after that , probably about half a mile or so, i got a lift. this guy said he was going to stanwell park. that was good , i was getting somewhere. didn't get to walk over tom uglys bridge drove instead. it was just down the road apiece.

28march2014
so, i was at stanwell park and it was even colder there as i remember. i either went to the railway station there  or just walked to coalcliff . either way i checked out the time table to see what time the next rain was. there was a 6.10am from scarborough . i decided rather than freeze just walk to scarborough. i got to coal cliff station , sat and had a smoke and thought. there was a tunnel on the rail line, and a cliff road. i hadn't been on foot up that way before. which way?

 which way

29march2014
i thought the road way was dodgy and long, i chose the tunnel. maybe i should of chose the cliff. on walking down the track i was thinking have i made the right choice . as i got closer to the tunnel, should i turn back, it was getting too late to turn back with every step. i had never been here before on foot. at the tunnel entrance,  i could  see what i thought was a light on the other side of the tunnel. as  i  walked into the tunnel the darkness came upon me, dark as dark could be, freaky. to make things worse there was water puddles as well. i can't really  remember a lot now, but you could feel a presence. i think i tried to use the wall , that's were the water was mostly. i think  i just tried to stay in the middle and focus on the light. the light wasn't at the end , but in the middle. there was some guys working there , i don't know what they were doing. as i walked past them one guy looked at me as if he'd seen a ghost, that look, just look. i kept walking like i was on a mission. lucky them guys were there, that tunnel is curved if that would have made a difference. as i walked on closer to the end , i could start to see the end. it got lighter and lighter, by the time i got to the end it was dawn. i felt like i'd being through some kinda thing, maybe i had.

30march2014
it wasn't far from the end of the tunnel to scarborough station. i made it. i think i had a smoke while waiting for the train to pull in, it was the early workers train, the old rattlers with windows and smoke to your lungs gave in. them guys may have been working on the electrification through the tunnel. at that time there was no electric  past waterfall(southern sydney suburb). i was quite pleased , i never really been that far with no real support. it wasn't like you could just catch a bus or something. thinking about the court and them dickheads was a drag , but i just wanted to crash really, 24 hours up, a day in the life. i reckon that classes as a significant day of all for me in the 80's , one of many really. i cant really remember much of the train to wollongong, i've caught so many, it would be confusing to remember that one. the others had a flat in bank street, i think thats where my  car was. i'm not sure about the car. i think i chose to catch the train , so i could drink. they were just in bed , i got there about 7 something. i told them about bits of the adventure, they just say it was bad and agreed to be my witness , so that was okay. i think i just drove home and crashed out.

31march2014
with the court thing, i had to travel to sydney. not to sure about the legal representation. either i went there before or there was legal aid at the court just before the hearing. i was pleading not guilty so it would be adjourned  to a later date. can't remember much. it was at liverpool st , court in the city. it was adjourned the legal aid told me to came early and bring witnesses. looking back now it seems such a hassle , i never think about it. when we're thrust in the deep end ,i think we just deal with it. i was more worried about the witnesses. they said they'd do it, but saying and doing is two different things. i just told them to tell the truth, if you tell the truth exact as is happens you've got a case. the hearing was at castlereagh st. i slept at their flat, from which was a different flat from their last, so it was some time since the event. we caught the early train up, it's all a bit sketchy. i remember we meet the legal aid bloke, he asked about the event and told them to say it exactly as it happened. i remember  the judge asking about did i have a ticket, that brought back memories. i don't know what happened to that ticket. he also questioned the witnesses how i was sitting. we had to listen the slimes side of the story. i ended up with a 12 month good behavior bond on the offensive behavior. with the resisting arrest ,i sort of won that, apparently they had no power of arrest. it might of changed since, laws change like the times. the malicious injury i had to pay 20 dollars compo on the watch. i wasn't happy about that, i didn't like the lousy cunt. fuck him and his watch. i paid the dough plus court costs . that was it . what we done after that , i don't know. i remember the legal aid saying something like we could have won it, probably all say that. i think if i had charged them with assault it would have been a different outcome. i don't think about it to much.

1april2014
yesterday  i bumped into one of the witnesses, i asked him about it. he said it was bad, he said the dick hit me with  a torch sort of baton combination. he reckons there was inconsistent answers from us, i think it came down to how i was sitting, as if we could remember how i was sitting. i was half asleep. he said his girlfriend (the other witness) was quite upset by it, i never knew that. she's gone now, R.I.P. i asked him , i think it all fell apart after that, meaning the whole little scene that had been created, he said yes. after that it was different again. meaning new people came and it changed. no savvy though. besides that, i've been thinking of the judgement . i can sort of understand where his thinking is. you can't beat the law, and if you do they don't forget it. i somehow think this went a bit further. how this blog all came about. i've long forgotten  the whole thing. but if not for a little sign on the trains, saying feet on seat is an offense. this came not long after the court appearance. long before no smoking, you could actually  smoke just no feet on seat. so, every time i see that sign i'm reminded of it. i see dickheads all time with there feet on the seat, all sorts. i use to wonder what they thought about the feet on seat is offense sign, and if they had them on other trains in other places. was it that night that made feet on seat an offense. 

little green apples

4march2014
there's a song about little green apples, that God didn't make. part of my dreaming is the little green apples, not so much little. this is a very old story and will probably be prolonged, just like another. it has been on my mind for quite awhile, so it's better to start it off and think of how to explain it. as a symbol the apple has a very good significance .

20nov2018
this story over the years, has not change from the initial thought of how to write it down. in actual fact there is even more that has come to light, light being to see. the significance of the apple isn't the pickle, but rather a symbol of which we know, and don't know and a fruit food. the symbol of  the apple is the roots of which we know and don't know. as time passes the more of the apple of which we find out , have become insignificant to when it was not revealed.

5april2023

it's now been 5 years since i added to this blog and near 10 since i started it. through out them years, on occasions i've checked the progress of people checking out my blog. at this point in time it's grown very quiet on the hit scene, which makes it a rather good time to add here some more. initially, i didn't know how to talk about hear say, or mainly stuff close to you,  that are somewhat in the background. things you know now that you didn't then, not so much hindsight. more close personal stuff. stuff written in stone that you never knew, but in way had an  some sort of connection  too, in a distant vagueness. no matter who we be there's always some story of connection we don't know about. since i start this blog, i've learned stuff i didn't know about, and times throughout even before i didn't know about.

 

 

  

reggae music

26jan2014
probably my first introduction to the reggae was through calypso and/or ska, either way it doesn't matter. like most about my age, we knew harry belafonte, and the my boy lollipop song. even dylans first record was harmonica on belafontes midnight special . i'll side track here for a bit, when i think about midnight special, a leadbelly song , done by others. such as  , lonnie doneghan and creedence clearwater revival ,etc. the thing that blows me out. is  one day i was looking through a sheet music book with different songs in it. it had the midnight special credited to j. fogerty. i thought leadbelly wrote it, i talked to a friend about it he reckons no one had the copy right for it , at that time. anyway, i probably heard desmond dekker, Israelites next , i think i actually owned one of them el cheapo, not the real artists versions, top of the pops things with it on it, when i was young. the first real reggae type record i owned , wasn't too distant from them, it was 20 electrifying hits, i got for christmas 1970. it had bobby bloom singing montego bay. the keys to the mg. i liked that song

27jan2014
okay , i done the google research, bobby bloom wasn't jamacian  after all and lead belly didn't write midnight special, though he did write/do the version most know of. all them years of thinking bobby bloom was jamacian. you never really knew what people looked like in them days. although jimmy cliff was on 20 electrifying hits, he was more calypso really. wonderful world beautiful people isn't really dread. another one a bit after was johnny nash, i can see clearly now. the real big one was double barrel by dave & ansil collins. that was really the start of the chart, ska dub, reggae thing. here, after that was mainly led zepplin d'yer mak'er and eric clapton doing bob marley.  bob marley had albums out, but people were more into things like santana and osibisa. me personally couldn't afford such records , even if i had been exposed to them.

29jan2014

never mind the cover, it's the record reviews inside that matter. in particular  the peter tosh legalize it album. i'm not to sure whether i had the album or not before, buying this mag. i would have bought, the mag, some weeks or months after the initial publication . but the review was there. anyways, this album would have been my only reggae album, at that time. i would compare the title song to london calling. it's like you like the title song , but the rest is a bit iffy at first. then the rest seem to over take the title. i particularly like why must i cry, it would be a song i like hearing every once and a while. a couple of iffy ones there, but as a whole i like about 4 or 5 songs, i like the album more than the bush doctor one.

30jan2014
you know most of these blogs are just my memory recollection, so i could be out a bit. i checked when legalise it was released, apr 76. a year and a bit before the mag, maybe it was released later in the u.s., i had it on cbs label, virgin released it in the uk.i know there was also a richard pryor album in the mag as well, first time i'd heard of him, too. anyway, now comes bob marley  with the kaya album, it was a big hit here. i never brought it , at that time i wasn't buying records much , if you've been reading these blogs, you'd know why. mainly cash and had enough. i never really got into marley for some reason, his name was robert, that's about the only connection. he seemed mainstream. then the peter tosh ,mick jagger thing . alot of people bought that. an okay song , but i never really brought that either, and when i did i seemed disappointed .

1feb2014
now comes the punky reggae party with the clash, the slits, stiff little fingers, ruts, among others. many of these bands done okay versions of reggae tunes, a bit like led zepplin and the blues and other 60's bands. what the punk bands did was expose reggae music to the wider audiences, although people like john peel, played reggae on his shows but not everyone was listening and even john lennon tried to push it.  being the punk clobber cobber you got to meet friend and foe in equal proportions. you tended to meet the likes you would otherwise wouldn't. i meet such a friend who had a very good record collection, so around 1981, he puts on big youth dreadlocks dread on the turntable record player. i really liked this album, not so much the message. but more the music. it was different in that it combined, reggae and harmonica . the two seemed to blend well together. there was probably others who did this, but this was the first time i heard it.

2feb2014
most music has it's place and time, i try not to be prejudiced, but i know what i like. life is short now , with so much. anyway, i was allowed to make a tape of big youth, good. i never knew others like it ,too. most people around me didn't like reggae much, or would say bob marley, that annoyed me. or there's better than big youth. again around this time or maybe before, i heard eddy grant ,do you feel my love. it was the music that hit a nerve, i liked this song. i got the single b/w symphony for michael ,opus 2 . again not really jamacian, but this was the first single of reggae i brought. i don't remember that michael song at all now, strange the guy  who had the big youth record was named michael, i thought i'd throw that in. again ,not long after that he had hits with i don't wanna dance and electric avenue, they were okay, but a bit mainstream for my taste. why i say such is mainly because i'm seen as an outsider or fringe by what i call mainstream, so the feelings mutual. i bought new age steppers first album , the one with elvis on the cover, also around this time on the missing link label, and creation rebel album. so, now i had a couple of dub reggae things.

new age steppers cd cover, missing link lp had blue instead of red

creation rebel lp psychotic jonkanoo  statik lp4

4feb2014
i thought i didn't miss something, but it doesn't matter what you think there always something missing, even now i probably still forgot something. i forgot all about ub40 . the album signing off, i bought as soon as it came out. at that time i was listening to mainly fastish punk stuff and buying albums ,1980. ub40 was different again, i thought i could have got into it a few years earlier , when i was listening to laidback stuff. i remember taking it and a few other albums to this girls house. the people there then didn't like it much, they said they liked bob marley but that was it. i played that album a few times, it was seen by me as not quite muzak but in that field, relaxing stuff to wind out to. i never got into their later stuff, i have a few singles with okay b sides. the reason i thought about ub40, was their sight and sound appearance. probably 1983 here, i taped it , i remember riding this bike to a friends place some 50km away. i set the player and watched it later when i got home. i'm glad i did . not so much ub40, but the guest appearance of mikey dread doing roots and culture, great. it didn't click that i had him on sandinista doing a few , or his involvement with clash. that's pretty much it for ub40, although the video clip, i got mine ,was  filmed in part not far from here , bombo beach. i also used to play a song of theirs on a greatest hits cd ,on jukeboxes around pubs and that, mainly because of the length, don't let it pass you by. i'm not sure if it was an extended version, by it worked well in the pub, playing pool. i think they turned into a covers band .

here's some ub40 trading cards from dandy 80s , 

rock 'n bubble other artists also, i hear astros run out of dough, i preferred his vocal

6feb2014
did i mention ,i was buying records again. in that case i might buy a bob marley, which one? i gave catch a fire a try. i found it short, a couple of ok numbers, i thought things have moved on since 1973, and preferred tosh. then i got to see them on some old grey whistle test clips, concrete jungle and stir it up. i think shows like that and peel done fringe music or not so pop a boost. i got the album out and gave it another listen, not as good as ogwt. i got a few singles like buffalo soldier , could you be loved, one love,, waiting in vain. thats about it with the marley as far as vinyl records are concerned.

9feb2014
probably around 1982 , i was in a now defunct record bar, they had a small blues, jazz , reggae etc section. flicking through the same old, suprise, a big youth record, amazing. must of got shipped by mistake, most of the others were , you know. some great big youth, came out in 81 on heartbeat, some okay songs there , a few standards, i like 'get on up' a good song still to this day, when i used to play that song some people didn't like it, i don't know why. i used to have 60 minute tapes for the car at that time, and missed out on a couple of end songs. songs like we can work it out , great cover of the beatles song, missed out.  i learned much later on that everyone like the clash raved on about screaming target, i never heard the album til a few years back. i bought the cd after many years of wondering, i can understand the screaming target thing, but i think it's a bit over rated, it's probably ok, but then again i prefer keith hudson, flesh of my skin, for that time period.

this is the cd cover from amazon, similar to the lp

11feb2014
with having a video was good to really check out clips and things, i got to know and like people like gregory issacs - night nurse, and a few others. probably around 1984/5 i got to see a reggae sunsplash on telly. here i learned of yellowman and eek a mouse, as well as some more big youth. so i was learning a bit. the 80's was a good time for learning, but you never really stop. it just becomes too much

12feb2014
if you're wondering why i left out the two tone, and madness and the beat, i haven't really thought about them much. i think the beats first album was closer to reggae than the others, a great album. anyways, probably after the sun splash show, i didn't think there would be much more. then came mikey dread at the controls with deep roots music, i missed the first one , but caught the rest. a good doco. here's where i learned of lee scratch perry and the mighty diamonds and a couple of others.

15feb2014
been thinking about that sunsplash show, in particular, yellowmans performance. at that time i don't think many could match his toast/rap. i think it came down to his colour, like he had to really show them. i used to watch that performance over and over. you couldn't get any of his stuff round here. i was once in melbourne at a record bar , 1985. they had a few reggae things down there, even a sunsplash album, i never bought it. i thought nothing could top yellowman , til i saw lee scratch perry on deep roots music, black ark. again i could not get none of his around here, so i thought. someone was once complaining about him, more or less giving away bob marley tapes and things, el budgeto. if he didn't do that , they'd be moulding in some shack somewhere. what he did was a good thing , getting the thing out there. there was a lot of that el budgeto bob marley stuff around , i bought one album probably 81 something it had a soul rebel version on it which i liked.

17feb2014
with the onset of the cd,i think i was somewhat pissed off with the whole music thing ,in particular the cost. i didn't buy much from about 1987 on woulds, i had enough and was happy with my music. why should i sell all my records for a pittance and by cds , the titles i was interested in weren't on cds or you couldn't get them. i never really bought a cd until about 1990, even then they were very expensive.

20feb2014
that's about it, for this blog. i started buying a good selection of reggae music through the 90s on cd. they became reasonable in price, etc etc etc...

24feb2014
etc indeed, you know i try to make these things end with the beginning. in 1992 i saw dread zepplin, i think that covers it.

9nov2024

finally got to read that high times magazine pictured (number 26, oct 77). peter tosh legalize it review wasn't it in that one, it was in number 14, oct 76. although i did have no.26 , no.14 fits more into the time. i had high times mags early on, now and then, when it became more popular, i didn't go for it that much. it was hard remembering to back then, when i read it this time i remembered parts of it. i have the one with the clash in it shopping, all the others have gone long ago.