Feeling too fat? Thin? Pimply? Odd looking?
Fear not.

Everyone is.

Check this out.

Photoshop is changing the way we look at ourselves.
xx aa

(Thanks to MoCap man for the link.)

We’re not far away from doing a show on the steps of the legendary Sydney Opera House steps.
I wonder if we can top this 1979 gem.

So amazingly good I can barely contain my glee.

(Yes it was a hit before Jamo and Cester and Kram did it).

xx aa

Thanks be to you Lord Buddah.

For This.

My life is complete again.

xx aa

A few people have asked.
So here it is again.
The fart-free TGYH bit.
I shat my pants, but backstage, Glenn Robbins is Depak Chopra.
He takes you aside and talks you through the techniques to success, he calms you and makes you feel like you can do anything.
Working with those guys is like standing on stage with the Stones.
You watch them all your life, getting inspired by them, wishing you could be on a show like them, and then bAM! You’re there.
Tom and Santo, The D-Generation, late show LORDs.
Glenn, I bow down at your feet, you are amazing.
And you surf!

TRIVIA BIT: The Kid is played by Tom Gleisner’s son.

xx aa

When I was leafing through the ‘Tiser (Adelaide’s Paper) this morning over my cup of green tea, I was interested to read this …

“NETWORK 10′s Celebrity Joker Poker is a “one-hour commercial for casinos” exposing a new generation to gambling, No Pokies MLC Nick Xenophon says.

He and several anti-gambling campaigners yesterday called for tougher rules for poker shows.
“It is really disturbing that Australian Idol host Andrew G, a role model for young people around the country, featured to effectively glamorise, sanitise and endorse gambling,” Mr Xenophon said.”

Mr. Xenophon,
I did not mean to disturb you.

Though I was playing a game of cards, with fake money, for charity,
I do see your valid point.

I congratulate you on your work in S.A. with probelm gamblers,
and I do agree with you, poker machines are sucking the life out of our country.
They are a scourge on the national music scene and destroy communities one “blippy bleep de boop” at a time.

Also, I do love a game of cards.
I’m sure you’d agree that loving a game of cards, like loving a drink with friends, is about knowing your limits.
Go too far and you’ve made a fool of yourself. Do it too often, you lose your friends/house/spouse/job etc.
If you can’t find that limit – it’s best to stay away.
Sometimes, we need someone to let us know that we may need to find that limit, and I guess that’s where you and your colleagues come in.

xx aa

So,
North Korea tested Nuclear weapons.

What does that mean?

It means that today, more than ever, is a day to get around to whatever you were going to do.

There’s no time to waste.

Best get busy.

xx aa

Only know about Kim Jong Il from “Team America”?
Enjoy this then – it’s propaganda-tastic!!

Last night I was blessed to witness one of the most special shows I’ve seen in many, many years.

I went to see the Foo Fighters play an acoustic show in the Concert Hall at the Sydney Opera House.

They were, as always, so very brilliant.

An eight piece band, with violin/mandolin, percussion, and a super eccentric keyboard player with the glass of red in one hand and a tilted hat on his head, who swooned when he moved to piano accordion and smiled when he pushed his Leslie speaker to it’s limits. That was a treat.

Oh yeah and Pat motherfuckin’ Smear on guitar. Unreal!

It was a night of great music, tears when they played “Times like these” (it was my breakup song) and joy when we all leapt from our seats and sang “My Hero”.

The other really great part about the night was in between songs, Dave would explain songs, tell stories and basically give us the inside story on these songs that we’ve all made mean so much to us over the years. By far the best story of the night came before a song called “Friend of a Friend”. Dave told the entire story of how he came from being part of an East Coast hardcore band, to being stuck in LA, and calling up Buzz Melvin who hooked him up with Krist and Kurt, and how he came to be living with Kurt in Seattle. He talked at detail about their apartment, about what life was like, and what his new friends and new band were like. It was a very special moment, because you must understand, Dave doesn’t talk about Nirvana when he’s with the Foo Fighters.

When interviewing the Foo Fighters, you avoid the subject, as one band isn’t anything to do with the other, and I must applaud they way that they’ve become massive in their own right, way out from the shadow of what Nirvana was.

The point I’m trying to make, is that I’ve never heard that story he told before. Dave went on for ages, speaking in kind and fond tones of his two new friends from Seattle, and how his path travelled on the way to where he is today.
Not only have I never heard that story before, but in all the research I’ve done, and all the reading I’ve done in preparation for the many times I’ve interviewed them over the years, I’ve never seen it before either.

It was truly a magnificent and special story, told to a room of three thousand as if each of us were being told it personally.
It was just about perfect.

Except for one thing.

It was almost perfect except for the five or ten numbnut fucktards around the room who kept yelling out all the way through every quiet moment in the story (and the whole night in fact), “Play Everlong! Everlong!”

Dave Grolh is NOT your personal fucking jukebox.

Sit in your fuckin’ seat and enjoy the show.

It’s the BIGGEST song they have, OF COURSE they will play it, in fact, they’ll do the whole “walk off while you cheer for ages and then come back once or twice and then pull out the big hit to send you home smiling” routine that every band does.

So put your fuckin’ mobile down, stop taking photos with your phone and texting your mates who aren’t there and relax.
The band always get to the big song, and making you wait for it is all a part of the show.

Spoiling the night by yelling out for the band to play your favourite songs is not only selfish, it’s just plain rude.
Take a deep breath, or your ADHD meds, and just enjoy a song you may not know so well, because your favourite song is coming.

And in case you can’t remember what it was like when it did finally come (because you were on the phone to your mate the whole time telling them how good it is, you fuckin’ loser, can’t you just enjoy a moment alone?) here is a bootlegged version of Dave singing that song in LA earlier this year.

It was a very, very special night at the Opera house last night, and I’m blessed to have shared it with some great friends.
Thanks Dave, thanks Gus, thanks BB and thanks Wiley for another amazing experience.

xx