Confusion

How often do you really feel confused by something?

We go through life with a fair comprehension of stuff around us on a daily basis.
We know when trains run, how to make coffee, we can add, subtract, multiply and divide.
Computers are confusing, but you can learn how to use them quickly, how about the iPhone? Remember when you first got one of them and it didn't come with instructions, you just worked with it till your figured it out.

Superficial and inanimate problems we can overcome. What confuses us, I think, are other people.

What makes perfect sense to one person, is completely foreign to another and that can really fuck with you.

As much as you try to open your mind and understand what someone is trying to say, what they feel you will never understand.

fuck it sucks.

could this actually be happening?

Remember when you were young and someone would say 'oh you're just like your father'? Well not if you're a girl, I mean, sure you could take on some of his traits but you're never really going to be like you dad unless you go in for some extensive surgery, but you know what I mean, we've all heard it, right? You're just like your parents. 

As a kid, you'd laugh that shit off, smile, and say 'nah, no way, I don't wanna be like them!' as if it were a bad thing. 

But lets face it, we all look up to our parents, we all secretly wanted to be like them, although to this day if you asked me that I would vehemently deny it, especially if my old man was within ear shot. Stupid old bastard. 

But as you get older, you catch yourself saying things that your parents said to you and you almost tell yourself off, 'Oh my god I sound just like dad', you know the stuff they'd ram down your throat just suddenly burble to the surface of your conscious "CUT IT OUT OR I'LL KICK YOUR ARSE TILL YA BACK TEETH RATTLE!"

Ok, so maybe I deserved to get yelled at like that, but damn it stuck with me. 

The definitive proof of this evolving transition into my old man hit me a couple of weeks back. 

See, my old man and his piss head mates like to go to the Melbourne F1 GP on the Friday each year. It's a practise day, the crowds are smaller, but there's still plenty of action going on, they get together and pretend they're 30 years younger than they really, inhaling large quantities of booze, bless their zimmer framed days. 

Me and the old fart get along great, we're mates, we went to Bali together twice last year, he's good to travel with, we're very much alike, in fact he's like an older version of me. 

Now some may argue that I'm contradicting what this whole blog is about about, and some may argue that, by definition, I would be a younger version of him. uh uh. 

See, he's a 67 year old bloke trying to be 37, it's not the other way around. He's bloody hopeless like that. What it makes realise however (here comes the contradiction again) is that I have at least another 30 years of drinking and acting like a dickhead if I am like him. 

But I digress

On the Friday of the GP, I missed two friends going away drinks because as the day went on,I stayed in touch with the old bastard as he got more and more pissed. Now, we both live out in the suburbs, and I offered to give him a lift home at the end of the day. 

By the time I was finished in the studios, I called him, and the human on the other end of the phone was, fair to say, a dribbling mess. I was both proud, and as you can imagine, concerned for his drunken old soul. 

I finally figured out where he was from his incoherent directions "I don't know where I am, I'm walking towards traffic lights", the roles were certainly reversed from 20 years ago. 

As we were driving home, him silent in the passenger seat like a petulant child caught drinking, me concentrating on the road, of course I gave it a bit of 'look at this fuckin idiot, get out of the right lane dickhead, it's 80 you fuckwit, EIGHTY!'

My pissed passenger just started to giggle as I got angry, he sighed and said 'ohh god, you're exactly like me, ha ha, you're stuck with that for the rest of your life, have fun, ha ha'

What a prick. 

it's all about timing

It's a hell of thing timing isn't it. Sometimes it falls your way, sometimes it doesn't. "GREAT TIMING" you'll say.. or "Shit, that's bad timing".. there's no such thing as 'time' is there. No grey area.
In the past few weeks I have been on both sides of this 'time' phenomena.
I've been so happy, and so bummed, just because of timing, and now it seems that I have both pleased, and pissed someone off.
I wish I was more in control of my time, but I'm not, it's usually dictated to me for whatever reason, work I guess plays a big part in my time, which I love, but like any work we do, sometimes it gets in the way.
I'm probably not making much sense, but I really don't care, I need to get what's inside, out of me before I attempt to lay down to sleep and before I react poorly to timing issues. I have to learn to worry about me. I suppose that can be misconstrued as selfishness, and I'm ok with that, coz sometimes we all need to be a little selfish if that means looking after ourselves for a change. I certainly don't try to be selfish to hurt anyone else, although I appreciate that's what can happen, and it sucks, but where do you draw the line.
I lost a friend a few years back, he was the nicest person you could ever meet, everyone loved this guy, he was, quite simply, the most lovable, funny, selfless, genuine, and caring guy I had ever known.
But maybe that was the problem, we'll never know. That makes me sad.
Whilst he lived his life, he did what he loved, and he seemed happy, clearly he was not. I often think about my friend, and my own demons, and use him, even though he's gone, as an example of how to live, and how not to live. Quite the paradox really. Sometimes, we need to put ourselves first, even if it means upsetting someone in the short term. It's a bitter pill happiness, isn't it.

choosing your favourite is hard...

.. Especially when you have a huge pool of talent to choose from.
Let me explain.
I've recently been asked to submit my top 5 guitarists of all time, and trust me, this is truly like asking a parent which is their favourite child. Providing of course that their kids are relatively normal and that one isn't like Charles Manson so as to give an unfair advantage to the other child, or children.

I can play guitar, poorly, and basically, but my appreciation of axe wielders goes back to the first time I dropped the needle onto my first record "Chipmunk Punk".
For those that aren't familiar with the blinding awesomeness of Chipmunk Punk, Alvin, Simon and Theodore, those 3 mischievous critters turned their paws to covering some great songs back in 1980. None of which are actually punk songs, more new wave than punk, it featured songs like Queens 'Crazy little thing called Love', Blondies 'Call Me', The Knacks 'My Sherona', so for an impressionable 6 year old, this was pure spun gold, especially is you turned the record player up to 78 so the chipmunks squawked at a pitch that would drive dogs to insanity.
But I would jam on my wooden tennis racquet in the lounge room of mum and dads place, doing knee slides during the solo of My Sherona, not fully realising how much the music was actually influencing my taste in music and increasing my appreciation for the sounds a guitar can make.

So where do you start with a a list like this?

A top 50 list would be easier, but still, how do you decide on a top 5?

I was talking about this with a couple of people and I came to the conclusion that there is no way I could name 5 players that everyone would agree with, I don't believe anyone could.
The idea of a list like this is to create debate, because everyone will have a different opinion, that's obvious, because music is such a personal thing.
10 people can think a song is great, but there will be 10 different reasons as to why they think it's great.

So with that in mind, I've decided to construct this list based on why certain guitarists do it for me, and me only, my memories, my emotions, my senses.

This of course can't detract from the greatness of other guitarists, as I said there are hundreds to choose from, but I'm hoping that fellow lovers of guitar will understand what I'm talking about. It's a very personal thing.

With that in mind, I still don't know where to begin, because I have emotional favourites, technical favourites, and pure raw brilliance favourites.

But I have to start somewhere, so, in no particular order, here are my Top 5 Guitarists of All Time. Read that again, MY top 5 guitarists of all time, not yours, mine, and the reasons behind them all.

Brian May from Queen. This is a sentimental and emotional favourite. Queen is my favourite band of all time, Brian May built his own damn guitar out of a hearth from around a fireplace with his dad. That's awesome. He plays with a US dime (10c piece) which helped create his unique sound. I just bloody love the sounds he's created and as I said, he's a sentimental favourite.

Dimebag Darrell from Pantera. There's no doubt about it, the guy is (was) a true freak of nature on the axe. His riffs and solos and legendary and often replicated and held in high regard, and not just because he was taken from us early, but because he was just that good. Listen to his work, watch the videos, soak in his personality, you will soon understand why he's in the list.

David Gilmour of Pink Floyd. Is there anyone who plays with more soul that Mr Gilmour? Every single solo is pure heart, pure fuckin emotion and perfectly crafted in my opinion. I guess you could say that he's an emotional favourite too, because my brother introduced me to Pink Floyd, and I thought everything he listened to was awesome, so I drank it in, listening to Dark Side of the Moon, The Wall, Wish You were Here, escaping into their world and creating my own at times through imagination.

Joe Satriani. I remember reading about Joe somewhere and discovering that he taught people like Kirk Hammet of Metallica, whom I thought was blistering and brilliant in his own right, so I thought, damn, I have to hear this guy, and I bought Surfing with the Alien, and I played it over and over. And over. When I heard 'Midnight', I had never heard anyone play like that before, it just floored me, I don't think I'm the only one.

Kirk Hammett of Metallica. I guess you could say I was a late discoverer of Metallica, 1987 I believe it was, when I started high school and some kids were blasting Master of Puppets. Again, I had never heard anything like it, I wasn't aware that metal would become such a huge part of who I am. I subsequently bought their back catalogue and like any band I got into for the first time, I completely drowned myself in the sounds Kirk would make.

SO there it is. Yes I am aware that I haven't included people like Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jimi Hendrix, John Petruccicoz music speaks to us all differently, and I respect that, I enjoy that, and I LOVE what music does to all of us.

It's been 10 years since you left.

Well it's almost ten years ago, but we'll get to that in a sec, I have to go back a bit further first.

In September 2001, I was working in Mandurah, Western Australia, at Coast FM, hosting a night show which was a whole lot of fun and really where I found out what sort of announcer I would be. This is despite the fact that I was told by a guy called Mike Parry that I'd never make it in a capital city market. Less than 4 months later I was working at Fox FM in Melbourne, but I digress.

I received a phone call, at work, around 5pm from my mum, my sister was on the other line at mums place back in Melbourne.
She asked me to sit down because she had something to tell us. "You have another brother".
My sister said "I know, you already told Sandra (my other sister) and I that."
I, on the other hand, had no idea, nor did my older brother.
Long story short, I was told that mum had to give up her first child at birth, and this had eaten away at her, understandably so, but circumstances as they were in 1960, meant she simply had no choice.
As you would expect I was taken aback by this news, especially as he lived in WA, and had heard me on air over there.

A month later, after I had stewed over the news that, not only was I the youngest in the family, I was now one of 5 kids, I receive another call from mum.
If I was shocked and taken aback by the news of another sibling in September, you can imagine how I felt when mum uttered the following sentence.
"I have lung cancer."

Mum was a smoker most of her life, from the age of 16 she told me, when her dad died from a bizarre car accident (he was a policeman), whereby he was side swiped by an oncoming car, he lost and arm and died once he drove himself to hospital.
But mum had given up smoking 12 years prior to making this call to me in October of 2001.
Mum was instantly given treatment, pretty heavy stuff too, I don't really understand the stages of chemo and radio therapy, but mums was pretty full on.

I made plans to come back to Melbourne for a visit in November of 2001, and when I got home, I found that mum was reacting extremely well to treatment, oncologists and doctors were surprised with how well it was all going, and that it looked like mum would have quite a good chance of beating it.

I went back to WA a week later feeling pretty good with the situation, and kept my head down, chasing my goal of working for Austereo.

IN December of 2001, my old man called me to say that mum has the all clear for them to travel, and so they would, to Woolgoolga, north of Coffs Harbour, where they would stay in a friends shack on the beach. Not long after, I get a call from Craig Bruce at Fox FM, offering me work back in my home town. Of course I say yes, and I start to organise life for the move back home.

Due to making bugger all money in WA, and since I was living in a fully furnished place, I really didn't have much to move home, so I bought a box trailer, fully enclosed, which would be ample enough for our (gf at the time) gear.

A week before I was due to drive back from WA to Victoria with my trailer and life in tow, my car was stolen.
It was used in a high speed pursuit throughout Perth and met it's demise when it was struck by a police car. It was a write off.
I had let the insurance lapse by 3 weeks. It was agreed value insured for $11,000. It was gone. I was a broken man, I had put so much love and care into it, it was my pride and joy.
I picked it up with the help of friends, and brought it back to Mandurah, where I was able to sell it complete for $2500. That was enough to pay for flights, removalists etc.

Back in Melbourne, excited about new work prospects, I moved home with the parents for a couple of weeks until I found a place of my own, close to home so I could be near mum just in case.

I started with Austereo on the 7th January 2002.

As I mentioned mum and dad had gone away on their yearly jaunt up the NSW coast, but had made an early return when mum started getting some pain in her hip and chest.

Mum had secondary cancer in her hip, and it was spreading.

I was completely numb. Whilst I knew nothing about cancer really, all I knew was that it wasn't good and we'd lost my grandmother to it (mums side), My aunt had it (mums side), one sister was recovering from Hodgkins Lymphoma, and the other had previously suffered cervical cancer. So I knew this was bad news.

As time went on, this got worse, and I was in denial, complete and utter denial. Mum was the healthiest, strongest, compassionate, caring, selfless person I knew (I could go on with superlatives, but you get the idea) so I was sure she would win this battle. I was wrong.

Mum was moved into palliative care at Monash sometime in Feb of 2002, I don't really remember when it was, I was in denial and didn't have a clue what it was anyway.

Mum seemed to be in good spirits in hospital, so of course, I thought all was going to be ok

Mum was going to be 61 in April 2002, and as time went on, I had learnt more about her son she gave up at birth. His name was Craig, and mum and he had been speaking quite frequently now, which was excellent news. He held no resentment, and in fact was keen to meet mum, and it had been arranged for him to be here for mums 61st birthday.

Reality hit over the coming weeks, mum wasn't getting better, and in fact there were a few occasions where we, as a family, would drop whatever we were doing and rush to the hospital as the doctors would tell us there may not be much time left.

It was decided that Craig should get to Melbourne asap. And he, like us, dropped everything and made bookings to come over.

By the 11th of March, things were grim.

Craig was to arrive on the 12th.

By now, mum was pretty heavily medicated to ease the pain, and as such, didn't say much, if anything at all,  but we knew she could hear us around here due to her scrunching her eyebrows or a wry smile, if she could muster one. We comforted her, stroking her arms, chatting amongst ourselves letting her know that we were all there and that Craig would be here soon. We each had our own time with mum, and I pretty much cried the whole time talking to her when she said "Don't be sad, I've had an amazing life, it's ok." That's when reality hit me. Mum would not be coming home.

By the 12th we were pretty much in a bedside vigil. Constantly reassuring mum that Craig would be here soon and she could meet her long lost son. By the evening, mum hadn't said two words for 2 days.
Then Craig walked down the hall, it was the first time I had seen him, but he looked a part of our family, there was no doubt who's son he was. I hugged him and we all followed into mums room. "Mum, Craig's here" was said in chorus.

Mum, after no saying anything for 2 days, opened her eyes, saw Craig, a tear in her eye, reached out her arms and grabbed him with so much force I thought she would crush him. "I've been waiting your whole life for this" mum said.

I started crying and left the room. I went outside for some fresh air, and to be honest the rest of the night is a blur, we spoke to Craig, trying to make the best of the situation by making each other laugh as our family does in times like these.

When I was dropped off at home late that night, my aunt, mums sister, told me she's be picking me up in the morning around 8.

I woke up to the sound of a car horn beeping, I walked to the front door, and my dad was there, he asked if I was still coming to the hospital.
I said no.

I both regret this decision, and stand by it. Here's why.

I told dad that morning, "I said my goodbyes, I have a picture in my head of how I want to remember her, smiling and laughing, she'll be gone today, she's met Craig, I'm sure that's why she's hung on".

He understood and left.

At around 10:30pm, on the 13th March 2002, I got the call I had been dreading from my dad. Mum was gone.

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering why I've written about this, well, believe it not, I think it's important to get it out of me.
For years I've struggled with it all, the sequence of events that changed my life forever. Not only with family, but with my career.
I've written it now, because I don't know if I would have been able to write it on the 10th anniversary of mums passing, and I want people to realise how important family is. I'm lucky, in a way, my family is incredible, so supportive and accepting in every way. OF course we have differences, as all families do, but I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of people to call my own.

Anyway mum, I just want you to know that I think of you every day, we all laugh about stuff you used to do when we're together, but we miss you terribly. The pain will never go away and I will never get over losing you. I love you always mum.

3 years on, we will never forget

I wrote the below 3 years ago after watching our state burn. 

I've just returned from Echuca, which for those international friends who don't know, is approx 2.5 hours north of Melbourne on the Murray River, the great river that divides Victoria and NSW.

I went there on Friday to watch The Southern 80 Ski Race, the biggest race in the southern hemisphere and a huge party weekend that is a heap of fun.. and this year, some mates and I thought we would camp on the river for a different persepctive as we usually stay in town.

When we arrived on Friday evening, it was 47 degrees at our camp site, that's hot, I don't care who you are, that is fuckin hot.
Luckily for us, we had the mighty murray to keep us cool, along with many beverages, tents, shady trees etc..

What happened next is still doing my head in.

We knew it would be hot on Saturday.. but we certainly were not prepared for just how disgustingly hot it got.
Putrid Northerly winds blew in on us at 100kph as we took refuge in the river before heading to another part of the river for a qualifying session of the ski race, and it was there that we realised we were becoming part of history.
The wind felt like fire against our skin as we stood in the shade watching boats and skiiers blast down the by, the kind of heat you feel when you stand in front of an open fire for just little too long, it felt like this wind could strip the skin off your body.

We headed back to our camp site and the thermometer in the Toyota Prado showed 49 degrees. And we did not doubt it.
Just before we reached out camp site, the small green LCD numbers flicked and showed something I never thought I would see.

50

50 fuckin degrees. Iin Victoria. Surely it can't be good.

We had set up another thermo at our camp site, in the shade, and it too read 50 when we arrived. Later, we had a phone call from other friends telling us that 52 had ben reached further up the river.
Disgusting.

As I said, we had the river, and many bevvies to keep us cool. Yes I am burnt, but not badly.

And then we heard the news of the fires that were devastating our majestic "Garden State".
And each time a new report came on, the worse things got.

Today, as a result of these fires, the Ski Race was cancelled, because the paramedics who were on hand, were all called away to the fires, no paramedics means no race, hardly a big deal given the circumstances.

So we packed up our camp site, and headed on our way, listening intently to the ABC, getting horrifying statistics, and with each stat, our car would fall silent, followed by sighs of pure disbelief.

Once again, deliberately lit fires are decimating our country side, but more iportantly, destroying homes, and most heartbreaking, taking lives.

As many would know, Victora has been in a state of drought for over 10 years.. we've seen lakes dry up, farmers get pushed to the edge with sad consequences, water restrictions come in as a permanent fixture in our lives.. and they say global warming doesn't exist?

Melbourne has long suffered torment from the northern states about how much rain it gets.. well, I'm here to tell you, we don't get jack shit in comparrison.

Over the past few years we have seen hotter and hotter summers and I have watched and been thankful as each summer has pased, that the bushfires had been relatively 'under control', but we were all waiting for this.. we were all waiting for the day when we would se the top blow off this monster.

This weekend it happened.

We found the limit of what our country can take.

The mercury bubbled, the winds came through, and whilst 3/4 of Queensland "The Sunshine State" is under water from flooding, Victoria is burning down and suffering the hottest temps ever on record.

I still remember Ash Wednesday, the last time we really felt the true force of what mother nature can do with fire, and now, you will remember this weekend for the very same sad reasons.

It just does my head in. Where wll it end?

My fear now, is that this coming winter will be somewhat catastrophic for us Victorians.
Sure we need the rain to fill our reserves, but lets hope we can do over a few months, rather than a few days.

My heart goes out to those families who have paid the ultimate sacrifice this weekend and also praise and respect to the fireys who fight these monsters.

Swift justice to those fuckers who lit these fires, don't come bragging to me, it wouldnt be healthy.3

Fuck me, I'm confused.

Not really an ordinary post from me, but I had to get it out.

It's amazing how one day you can be 'up' and the very next day, due to no real circumstance, you're down.
Today is one of those days, yesterday I was bouncing off the walls, today I'm flat as shit carters hat.
The only thing i can put it down to is the weird reams I had last night.
Why can't I shake it off?
No one died in my dreams, they were, as dreams are, just random events slammed together in a goop of vagueness.
Standard really, but something about them has bugged me. Maybe it's because they were vivid as fuck. I don't usually remember my dreams, but I can recall just about all of this one.

I was in Thailand, at a bar, with a mate, lets call him 'Merv', we were tying one on, huge night, next thing we realise, our other mate 'Biff' is gone, missing, can't find him. We panic a bit because he's never been to Thailand before and it can be the wrong place to go missing in.
I remember looking down, and seeing his camera, and his wallet and for some reason that made us feel better, as if, he's OK, even though he wasn't there.
Dream cuts to Merv and I standing at a window of a house, maybe mine, I'm not sure, it's dark outside, but we're peering in through a window and see our mate, Biff, asleep on a bed, we start belting on the window, but he doesn't wake up, probably too pissed, but we laugh and walk off.
Next we're in a small shopping centre, and out of no where, Mervs brother 'Jeff' is sweeping the floor of a shop and calls out to us. The shop is a hairdressing salon, this confuses me for two reasons, if there's anyone in the world who could be further from a hairdresser, it's Jeff, he sells cars.
We go into the shop and laughing about the night before when 'Biff' strolls in, we hand him his camera and wallet.
Then, it cuts to me being back in the Triple M studios, but not in the one I would normally use, the one opposite mine, but through the studio glass I can still see the guys at the hairdressing salon, so my studio is in Thailand.. what.. the.. fuck?
Next, I get a visitor in the studio, a friend who works here, not unusual, but her presentation was very different to how she normally looks.
We have a conversation (which i won't go into here) but really wasn't out of the ordinary, it addressed some issues, but as I mentioned earlier, no one died or got hurt, so as you can imagine, when i wake up, I'm completely baffled and have been a bit 'off all day.
As a consequence, I stayed in bed longer than normal, didn't do any exercise.

What the fuck is going on in my head?