I spent the weekend in Byron, and as often happens in Byron one comes upon wisdom amongst the $4 coffee and BMW X5s all over the street…

It’s a simple case of but, and, and so.

“I wanted to meet you, but..” is a sentence that goes into a place that makes one or the other wrong for something, a messy world of excuses, reasons and blame.

Try this..

Replace the word ‘But’ with the word ‘And’.

Shazam! Instant responsibility and realness in a conversation.

“I wanted to meet you, AND I was late.”

Straight up honesty and a clean slate.

Using AND also lends the speaker to close or resolve the situation by using the word SO as a follow up..

“I wanted to meet you and I was late, SO let me make it up to you by buying lunch/not being late again etc”

Even more powerful to use it when describing your wildest dream that you’ve not accomplished yet…

“When I grew up I wanted to be an X but I never did it.” Depressing and failed huh?

Try this

“When I grew up I wanted to be an X and I never did it.” See? Responsibilty for the action. How very grown up of you.

Now the final shot…

“When I grew up I wanted to be an X and I never did it, so I’m taking classes in X so I can do it now.” Yippee!!!

Thanks to Byron Bay for this one, and thanks for the waves, the sunset at The Pass and the dolphins in the morning.

Guess who bought some new prayer flags?

xx aa

Well, after a spamm 0 riffic couple of years, and a now obselete joke name, my old email is being retired..

Send me any bebo, myspace, flickr, smsac!, chain mails about kids dying in Idaho, anything that says SEND TO TEN PEOPLE, or shit about hotmail/myspace/yahoo being deleted, anything with FW: RE: FW in the subject line.

Please also do be sure to write to me in TXT spk omG! My m8 is such a sl|-|7!!

And if you’re a west african emmisary, send me the expressions of interest about your recent money issues.

Send them all my way and I’ll delete the friggin lot of them, as it’s people like you that destroy the interweb for the rest of us.

Extra kudos for those who percieve the subtle reference in my new email addy..

it’s

justring3624360 at yahoo dot com

xx aag

I bow down and pray at the feet of the coolest man on earth right now….

Prince is your King..

Ok, so I went to the Korean bath house here in Brio for a massage.
At home, I like to go to one masseuse only, so on the road, don’t quite know how to pick the good ones.

I didn’t pick well yesterday.

It’s a traditional bath house, so there’s saunas and spa pools and that kind of gear to use before you get the masseuse to get stuck into your knots.

On the girl side of the place (it’s divided) there’s people scrubbing themselves, streaming it up and having a great time.

On the guy side?

Well let’s just say nude old blokes with shaved balls looking me up and down mincing “I know you” at me doesn’t make me feel very comfortable.

Communal nudeness is ok, if you’re blokey about it.

Communal nudeness when there’s a creepy gay vibe going on is not my cup of tea.

All I wanted was to sit in the sauna and relax a bit.

A spa bath full of creepy blokes eyeing me up and down and waiting for me to disrobe and steam it up didn’t contribute to that relaxation one bit.

The signs everywhere about ‘inappropriate behaviour in recent weeks’ did not make me feel any more comfortable either.

I’m sure that this place is normally quite ok and not odd at all, but my perception of it didn’t sit well with me.

So next time I need a massage, I’m going straight (ha ha) to the sports massage place, where a blokey student who’s all elbows can sort my messy back out while we talk football..

xx

Ok, so after four weeks on the road, listening to lively young Autralians butcher some of our favourite songs, Jimmy “the sandstorm” Mathison in his infinite wisdom organised a karaoke night beyond all expectation, so that we may be able to do some butchering of our own.. You’d be surprised what you can achieve when hopped up on a mix of warm sake and vodka. It was all-time. We went to the Shanghai club in Lt Bourke St in Melbourne, a perfect Karaoke bar with a superb mix of little suss booths and crooning couples, quiet Chinese ballads drifting out from under the doors of small rooms, and fifteen of us in the back room dancing on the tables screaming along to Jim’s blistering rendition of “Livin’ La Vida Loca’.

I came upon a few conclusions as far as the guidelines for Karaoke last night, if you need any further clarification, there’s of course the definitive Vice magazine article on the subject published a while back (best magazine ever!).

1: When singing Karaoke, song selection is key. Watching one person whack off for three minutes dissapearing up their own arse of vocal ability is boring, so always, ALWAYS, choose duets or songs with plenty of background vocals that everyone can sing along to. Karaoke is always more fun when it’s a team effort.

2: At all times, pretend you’re in the music video. That applies to dance moves, air guitar and air drums.

3: Karaoke isn’t about your voice, it’s about your voice trying to sound like the voice of the artist you’re singing. You should do your best Whitney when doing ‘greatest love’, you should do your best Prince when doing ‘Kiss’ (never Tom Jones’ version), and you need to do your best Jovi when ‘Dead or Alive’ comes out.

4: Not that I recommend it ever, and certainly not if you’re underage, and certainly not if you’re predisposed to addiction and certainly not if there’s a history of alcoholism in your family, and certainly not if you’re a person who gets abusive when they’re boozy, but getting hammered helps a lot. In the words of Frank Zappa, “A couple ‘o quarts o’ beer would fix it so the intonation would not offend your ear”. Not only will you feel more confident, others’ pitch errors won’t be so much of a problem. I don’t know if sober Karaoke should exist.

5: Ban all video cameras, phones and other recording devices. Still photos are fine.
What happens in the Karaoke booth, stays in the Karaoke booth.

6: Don’t be a pussy. Grab the mic, give it stacks, do the moves, work the room, serenade people, and put some show into the showbiz. People get bored waiting for their turn to sing, so entertain them. You’ve got to work extra hard in the last few verses so that they don’t drift off and start looking through the song book again. Hold their attention!

7: The coolest Karaoke places are always run by our Asian brothers and sisters. They love it, they decorate it and get right into it. There will be lots of writing you don’t understand, there will be lots of people with a secondary grasp of English trying to help you get your room started and drinks happening. There will be lots of songs coming from other rooms in languages you can’t decipher. Don’t be a racist cock, no matter how drunk you get.

8: Know when it’s time to go, and pick a great song that everyone can sing along to/dance to as a grand finale. You’re going to want to leave on a high.

Have fun now!

xx aa (Who sang Winds of Change, Dead or Alive complete with genius whistling guitar solo from GolfGolf, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, and a stellar duet with Jim on More than Words)

Yeah I know.
But this book was incredible.
Jabba got me to read it..
Now they’re making a movie of it..

That this will be the last vegan-based post for a while…
xx aa

The three levels of truth..

1: Ridicule

3: Acceptance

Think about that when you watch this.
It’s 1hr 35mins of google video, a beautiful, powerful and life changing film called
Earthlings.

This is without doubt one of the most important things I will ever post here.

xx aa

In the ealry 80′s, as this country started aligning itself with American culture instead of the British culture our nation was founded on, while the majority of the population just sort of settled into a comfortable apathy that soon lifts would be elevators and spelling it M O m was ok and there was nothing that could be done about it, as more and more of our television viewing hours became consumed with American programming, as Australia’s foreign trade deals and foreign policies began to align more and more with America and everyone kind of shrugged their shoulders and went ‘meh?’, one band stood up and said no, wrote great songs in the process and got people really mad at the same time as making them dance. .

I’m talking about Midnight Oil.

A bunch of guys from the northern beaches of Sydney who wrote great songs about our country and what was happening to it, were politically active and made people think.
They were pissed off and not afraid to show it, and they rocked super hard.
They were surfers, at a time when surfers were known for their environmental activism and soul searching wave-finding missions instead of their Aussie Pride tattoos and racist thuggery.

In the middle of their rising international fame, they went on an outback pilgrimage and came back having written one of the greatest albums ever.
They had top ten hits with songs about indigenous rights, and played outside the international headquarters of Exxon after that company commited an unspeakable act of environmental vandalism.

They were not afraid.

There needs to be more bands like Midnight Oil.
There need to be more people in the public like Midnight Oil were.
Thinking, outspoken, sweaty, rocking, passionate and fearless people.

Whatever you do, don’t walk, run to your record store and buy their greatest hits record, ’20000 WATTS RSL’.
Listen to the songs, look up to these guys and be inspired.

Oh yeah, and get yourself out to ULURU.
That place is this country’s equivalent of the Western Wall.
It’s an holy, powerful, spiritual place.
Get out there. It will change everything for you.

Get outback. It’s 95% of this country, your country, so go and be a part of it.
Get that red dust in your eyes and feel what it’s like to have your personal space extend to the horizon in each direction.
It’s powerful stuff.

x aa

Leading subscription television channel and program production company, XYZnetworks today announced that after seven highly successful years Andrew G will be leaving the Network to pursue other creative opportunities.

During his time with Channel [V] Andrew has presented a range of music shows including, Andrew G’s Excellent Adventure, whatUwant, Australian Idol Extra, the popular touring live bus shows and BIG DAY OUT live broadcasts.

Bruce Mann, Chief Executive Officer of XYZnetworks says, “Andrew has had a wonderful run with us, having been with Channel [V] for seven years. He is a great talent and we wish him all the best with his endeavours.”

Andrew G said, “Channel [V] taught me so much – from live television, to dealing with the world’s most famous musicians, to entertaining 5000 people at a bus show in Dubbo. They’re a fabulous crew of people to work with and I was blessed to be a part of making fun, inspirational and groundbreaking television with them.”

On another note, James Mathison remains under contract with Channel [V] and will continue to present the channel’s popular whatUwant request show and live music events.