A christmas kiss...

...but not the kind I'd like.



Merry Christmas, all.

Only in England...

Half way to Hell?

End of the Road

Bye-bye, Seoul. You're a great terminal, with even better unsecured wireless networks.



Chris and I should never be on a plane together....ever...



(That's a toothbrush, by the way)









(We gave that rose to one of the hostesses...she was very impressed)



(fart jokes are apparently not that funny in economy class...)

And unfortunately, that's where we leave Chris. He's off to get a real job. Can't say I blame him, really. Like everyone, I get second thoughts about doing this job every so often.

Anyway, Chris is an especially close friend to me now, and it brought a tear to my eye that this was his last show.

But now, we're home again, for now.

Seoul Airport

Ever feel like you're lost in a sea of people?

The long road home...

Well, I picked up my courage, told everyone I was going home, and did it.

Not that it really matters, I had work to get back to, and England (as awesome as it is seeing all my rellies) is just depressing.

Anyway, I happened to be on the same flight back as my good mate, Chris. (Also, I'm doing this post in pictures, because I'm tired and sitting in an airport.)



We rocked up at the gate a little early, though:



So out came the laptops, and much internet leeching was had.



But wait, here's our bird to freedom.



...and the other bird, this one to idiocy.





...and after dinner (and a beer),



It was time for bed,


...just in time to wake up to the afternoon in Incheon airport, where I'm filling in my three-hour stopover.



Until the next time, I'll leave you with Chris doing a handstand on a travelator in Heathrow.

Till then,

Jamie.

oh the weather outside is Frightful....

...frightfully cold.

Holiday, Day 1

England is quite rainy, apparently.

We travelled down (or up) to Cirencester, were my Grandma lives. I’m boarding on the couch…which is about half as tall as I am. Ah well, I said I’d stay over here.



Jamie.

Lost somewhere in London

Aaaargh!

I’ve broken my promise to myself.

I made a promise to keep blogging, possibly daily, while I was overseas I failed miserably. We even had internet, streaming wirelessly (Thanks to my new Airport Extreme), and yet I still couldn’t be arsed to upload a few photos and say a few words.

Ah well, I’m sorry, and I’ll do better next time.

Holland went really well. Den Haag is a beautiful place, with a great, friendly populous. The theatre we were in had a great crew, and they made our life a breeze. As ou can see in the photos, we decorated our FOH area, with a few little friendly touches.



We also retrofitted the theatre with EONA ADRaudio speakers. The show was loud, really loud, but sounded great. What we do is more of the bastard son of rock’n’roll and theatre, so it’s loud but still pleasing. I think everyone enjoyed it.



Anyway, after we all said our goodbye’s and headed our separate ways at Heathrow, I met my parents, who happened to be here on holiday over here, and we went to a hotel in London.

London is, for my money, the asshole of the universe. It’s large, crowded and expensive. Pretty much, it has NOTHING that I want in a place to live. Never-the-less, we went around to see the sights, and vote.

In typical London Style, it rained.



And at night, we went to see Avenue Q, the musical. I’d heard a few songs, but god it was funny. The actors were brilliant, the set and production was realy well designed, and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time.



If ther was something I could fault them on, it was that the speech was a little unintelligible…but other than that, nothing. Extra props to the actress who did Kate Monster, because she was easily the most talented, and happened to be absolutely gorgeous as well.

Tomorrow we drive to my Grandma’s home in Glousctershire, to see my nieces I haven’t even met yet, and to hang around in sleepy Cirencester. Maybe my strong Australian accent will bring the girls out of hiding.

Love,

Jamie

P.s. I forgot to mention, the room I was staying in in London was tiny. I’m talking ‘It could only fit one person at a time, bed against the corner, toilet in a cupboard tiny. Here, see for yourself.

Holland Day 1

Tired. Really bloody tired. I did the correct sleeping pattern to minimise it, but I stil need to reset my body clock...and that happens tonight.

On the upside, the theatre has an internet connection...which will definitely make the next two days (production rehersals and dress rehersals) easier. I promise to take pictures of the 'creation zone' tomorrow...

I'm singing in the....

Hail. Apparently.

In the last (almost) month since I've posted, we've had a nice big storm, captured here with the rain going right onto my car:



I've also been doing a few low-level gigs, in preperation for Holland...including the end of Ramadan festival:





(Yes, that's a lot of Muslims)

and I did a gig with my own PA for the guide dogs, at the new Riparian Plaza (Don't trust the security guys, they do have a loading dock, and it does have a lift).



At the moment I'm packing my bag, and trying to remember all the things I might 'forget'. I've had to take one of my briefcase roadcases to fit everything in. This is in addition to my bag, and my backpack. Ah well, It's all for the show....

The 'going to blog heaps overseas',

Jamie.

We Can't Stop Here...

Ah.

Ratt and Roll

Winton, Day 3

Another workshop, another show.

I was going to leave it at that, until, after retiring to my room after a night in the pub, three of the boys crashed into it at 11am, announcing that they’d found an English film crew who wanted them to dance in one of the local pub to do a scene. Only my group of dancers, and only in Winton. It’s time like this where you go “I could be sitting in an office, close to my friends, being a lawyer, and probably making a lot of money”, or, I could be a vagabond, travelling with some of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet, having to work very hard ot maintain any sembelance of friendships with those back home, and never knowing what life will throw at you.



I don’t know about you, but I know my choice, and I love every second of it.

This town ain't big enough...

Winton, Day 2

Hotel breakfasts are great. I don’t particularly eat a lot of breakfast when I’m at home, but when other people are nice enough to pay for breakfast, I feel it’s my duty to at least give it my beast shot at eating it. Usually, when we’re on theatre time, My sleeping pattern is usually 3am-1pm (approx), which is great, except hotel breakfast is usually 6am-10am. So I was taught the roadie breakfast, which involves getting up around 9, having breakfast, then going straight back to bed again.

Anyway, breakfast this morning was a choice of ham and eggs, steak and eggs, and preserved fruit. I went the steak and eggs, which went great with the steak and chips I had for dinner last night. Oh well, beggars can’t be choosers.

The boys took some local kids for a workshop today, I tagged along to see how it would end up. After learning how to do a breakdancing ‘freeze’, I’m sufficiently proud of my ability to dance, or not.



Did I mention how the total lack of mobile coverage is totally annoying? It is. It was totally evident today when old mate got asked to come out and talk to the police outside our motel. It wasn’t because he’d ran buck naked through the town, although we’d considered it, it was actually because his house had burned down. Was in the news and everything, not that we’d know. Made for a delightful evening performance.





The pub fixes all, including allowing me to use the internet. 80 emails, 25 of which are actual emails, 55 of which are telling me how to improve my penis size. I don’t know about anyone reading this, but my penis size is large enough to carry me through. And a bigger one wouldn’t improve my life. What would improve my life is that we get onto doing more work in places that have a decent internet connection. Ah well, soon I’ll be chilling, literally, in an air-conditioned theatre. Speaking of which, I’m doing the spec for that at the moment, and it should sound sweet, given that I’m getting an M7CL, and some great M1225 Wedges from EONA ADRaudio.

It don't mean a thing...

Winton, Day 1

Planes shouldn’t fly in the morning. Moreover, planes shouldn’t fly in the morning when we don’t need to be at our destination until the next day. Welcome to regional touring. Our first flight took us from Brisbane to Townsville, and the connecting flight took us from there to our final destination.



There’s only one flight to Winton, and it leaves at 11.30am, wether you’re there or not. They might wait a little bit though, as this particular plane seats only 19, and about one bag per person. You know you’re in for trouble when the copilot starts the safety brieding, and has to pause three times to remember not only what rows the exits are in, but the names of certain parts of the plane. I bit my lip, tried to put thoughts of Buddy Holly out of my mind, and we soldiered on to Winton, via Longreach, because of certain weight restrictions at Winton.

When we arrived at the Sulphur farm (as I’m taking to calling it), we were greeted by the locals, flies that is. Also, there was a bus and ute to get our gear and deliver us to the motel. Greeting the arrival of an air conditioned room, we rested, watching the local TV station.

Of particular interest was Oprah, who must have been having a ‘shit I’m glad this didn’t happen to me’ episode. This basically involved interviewing women who’d been stabbed in the heart, and gone skydiving without a parachute…accidentally of course. One woman was literally crying on stage because she hadn’t heard the recorded 911 call of herself screaming about her stabbed heart. Great entertainment, that Oprah, although I doubt the housewives at home were impressed by the smile of the woman who went into the pavement at 50mph, sans parachute. Her toothless, bloodied face was certainly offputting.

Speaking of toothless, I love outback towns. The people are friendly, the food is great, and the beer is cold. The downsides, of course, are the stupid amount of flies, the distinct lack of internet, or in Wintons case, even mobile phone coverage, and so far this trip, the lack of any lady that is both on the better side of attractive, and that doesn’t think ‘city boys with long hair’ are better than their rugged outback cousins.

Ah well, it’s not like we’re back in Melbourne, and I’m getting lapdances from underage movie stars and her friends.

Anyway, the local pub is having a barbeque, and there’s nothing like sinking a couple of pints at an Aussie pub, seriously, to the yanks that read this, try it sometime. Not those pubs in the city, but your true outback Aussie pub, with $1 pool, and Cold Chisel on the jukebox.

Just don’t wear the band shirt of a death metal band you know…

The Good, The Bad, and the...

Another in-between blog

Life is tops.

I've been doing heaps of small gigs, leading up to the epic hugeness (thanks Monty Python) that will be next year.

One of the more recent ones was Courtney Act @ the local Family Nightclub. The production manager is a good friend of mine, and his lighting design is, well, fantastic.



More Soon,

Jamie.

I know, I know; I'm lazy and have shocking timing

Yes, before I say it to myself again, I've gone another month without updating anything.

There are, of course, mitigating circumstances. Some of my problems have come up trumps, and business is booming. Now all I need to do is finance a truck, and I'm sorted!

Anyway, gig-wise I've been doing a few with Raw Metal here and there, and a few other one-off corporates. i haven't taken photos, because my camera, like other, small electronic devices, had gone AWOL. I've now recovered it though, so I shall take a few more happy snaps in due time.

One thing that's Been bothering me is my wallet. they're rather useful devices, useful for putting in thin slips of paper, which can then be swapped for useful goods or services. It's also useful for:

- Sitting on to make myself unvomfortable
- Keeping petrol receipts in
- throwing at A2's
- forgetting
- keeping my credit card (read: bad temptation to spend money)
- keeping my wonderful 'proof that I'm qualified to drop things on peoples heads' cards (rigging qualifications)

Anyway, it's broken, which means I have to go and spend my hard-earned money on getting a new one. Here it is in it's current state of disrepair:



Ah well, off to David Jones. Perhaps if I splash out mor ethan $30, I'll get a decent one that lasts a tad longer.

I've got a few gigs coming up, so I'll keep you informed! Someone said something about Cairns...oh dear.

Until then,

Jamie.

The circle turns, continually...

A while ago, I posted on a sound engineering forum that I frequent about our microphone set up, as it's very distinctive. A few weeks later, after visiting Singapore, a person replied to that thread, saying that they saw us in Singapore, and recognised that it was me because of the set up.

When I was younger (and still), I always read other peoples thoughts and blogs (Dave Rat, Dave Natale, JD Brill etc. etc.) to find out more about better ways of doing things. It appears now that people are liking my ways of doing things, and recognising me for it. I'm no where near a good engineer yet, but it makes me glad to see these little signs of progress. It's humbling and rewarding at the same time.

And here, to keep up with the current trend, is a picture of me, as a Simpson:

An in-between blog, ponderings included

I've been spending the last month at home, preparing some big announcements (which will be uploaded here at some point, when they've sufficiently matured.)

In the meantime, it's good to be at home, and be able to see all the friends. One of my friends had an 'awesome 80's' party, which I couldn't resist getting dressed up for:



Guitar hero was the game of the night...Here's me and my mate geoff rocking out:



Ponderings:

Why, in an already small industry, where everyone knows who you are, where if you stuff people around everyone knows about it, do you then try to rip not only on person off, but most of the business in that industry in one city?

I cannot understand it, as someone who had a good business, who seemed to be succeeding recently ruined his name and reuptation, irreplably. I've now heard people say 'if he ever comes around here again, he'll regreat it'. From what he's done, it's not an unneccisary statement either.

Ah well, like usual, the law is powerless to stop this kind of thing, and the rest of us have to pick up the pieces.

Ah well.

the tired,

Jamie.

Raw Metal, Day 4/5, Singapore

My sincerest apologies to anyone who reads this.

I didn't blog yesterday because of my little trip to the tourist island Sentosa...so here's a

SENTOSA MEGA SPECIAL (corny, I know)

First off, we got on the cable-car to get to the island.



My first port of Call was Fort Siloso



Which was built to protect the port of Singapore, which had become a vital link in the British Empire by 1880. It has heaps of tunnels you can go down...Here's Chris in the ammunition store.



They really love the fort, and it shows, to the point that they even like to recreate the smell of the fort when it was active.



They also have the surrender chambers, where they have a recreation of when the Brits first surrendered to the Japanese, and where the Japanese surrendered to the Brits two years later. I thought I should point out where they had a spelling error.



We then headed down to the beach, which was tame by Australian standards...but had some nice palm trees.



We then headed up from the beach to the Merlion, past some nice fountains





And This was supposed to be a picture of just me and the sky, but a giant half-lion, half-fish came rumbling past...



END SENTOSA SPECIAL

There, wasn't that fun!

We also went and saw the buddhist temple, where they have a tooth from Buddha, and his statue is solid 24 carat gold!



Another highlight of the day was the band, Chris and Me getting rickshaw rides to the gig. The thrill of five rickshaws driving down to the venue in convoy was hilarious, and I highly reccomend it as a form of gig transport for touring bands.

Here's Kosta in front.



And Gene behind.



And Chris and I, obviously enjoying ourselves.



Ah well, one last show to go, then its homeward bound for me!

The 'had one too many post-show drinks'

Jamie.