Day 2: The Legend of Jojo Starfly, Meredith Music Festival

Saturday 11am

I just want to say how lovely it is to hear the Four Season re-interpreted by the Ballarat Brass Band first thing in the morning when you're sporting a colossal hangover.

Next come the Devastations. To say they are too loud is like saying the guy darting around camp with a watermelon on his head is a bit wacky. I didn't mind the arrogant Berlin-based Melbourne expats, I thought they had improved a lot since the last time I saw them when they were shit, but their gigolo din didn't wash so well with my comrades and these guys know their stuff. They rated their act just above Charlie Sheen's C-level oeuvre, so somewhere between Platoon and Two Guys, a Baby and a Funeral or whatever that show's called.

Newlyweds under the arches


Apparently The Black Lips vomited, gobbed into the air and caught it, made out ("there was a little bit of tongue licking too," said De Campo) and one dude cut his hand on a beer bottle playing slide guitar and wiped the blood from his hand onto his cheeks and I missed that too. Somehow I missed everything worth mentioning outside of the music which I heard fine. Not that I'm complaining. The sounds were enough. Sounds were nice. Everything else was a bit yikes.





Our adjoining neighbours baked us some treats.



















Winner of the most significant coverage of an apple in one bite is Coinflow $











On the back of my red fleece, clockwise from far left: Stevie, Tammy, Gerry (or Gerald), Jojo, Terry, Paul and I forgot the other one. JoJo is a wheelchair bound fly who had his spine shot out at an Ice-T concert. This weekend is dedicated to Jo jo Starfly. All proceeds go to the Jo-Jo's Foundation




Strangely the sun came out to Andrew WK. "This is actually awful," says Josh Town. I was indifferent, but I did admire his motivational gusto.


Art Brut rocks. A quite civil mosh pit erupts with girls being hoisted by guys who didn't try to touch their bits. Thoughtful.













A serious moment



I believe the night ended shortly after this mad boogie to The Gossip

The ants seemed to appreciate the company of us as the weekend wore on because they never once tried to pick a fight with us or complain about being inconvenienced.

Day 1: Get Involved! Meredith Music Festival

“Now that you’re Australian I think you’re supposed to call them sheep” — De Campo, questioning whether it was a llama I saw on the way to Meredith.

Friday, 1pm.
We pitch our tent in an even better spot than last year, snuggled amongst gum trees and on top of a bull ant farm who seem fine with it.



“How is this, I arrive at Meredith and I drink a f@#$ing apple juice?” De Campo (seen here drinking a beer) is not one-hundred percent. I compensate by knocking back six beers in quick succession.





“Shane you are so modest,” Suzie says because I chose to do my business down the hill while the girls went behind the first available tree. I confess to being a solitary man in respect to my business. I’m a very private person, I tell her.

There are few things Toby enjoys more than to inflate a neighbour's air mattress using the power of his car engine.

3pm.
Josh Town soldiers towards the food tents and orders a lamb wrap. The food here is generally excellent, but Josh Town has made a very poor choice. He chose the lamb wrap and it is very lame and considerably dry and it costs him $10 and he now feels hard done by the organisers of the festival. He goes to the info centre to complain, but the food doesn’t warrant a complaint because the organisers have bigger problems to deal with it. They dismiss him with a wave of the hand and he is standing there with bits of dry lamb on his mouth and it’s a sad moment in Joshy Town.

6pm.
The longhaired Melbournian Ned Collette is witnessed from a tree to the right of the stage and up close towards the end of his set for two of his more interesting numbers. One cut produces a tiny spark before bursting into a flaming guitar solo and the other jaunts along a country road with a smile before it too bursts into flames. "There's not many ideas here really," Josh Town says, but he just ate an unfulfilling lamb wrap, so what does he know. Sometime after midnight the Ned will be witnessed preparing to board the Ferris wheel all by himself clutching a solitary red rose and our will heart will go out to him, but in actual fact this story will be untrue, a made-up ruse between Alex and I who thought it would be a gas to spread a rumour about the Ned but when we told his girlfriend the following night, she didn’t think it was funny at all and perhaps it wasn’t.

8pm.
Another local act, The Galvatrons are sounding pretty good. They probably lean a little too hard on Eddie Van Halen's synthesiser, but are still pretty refreshing, at least from a distance. Up close you realise they are total clowns with annoying banter. We return to camp for some Frisbee action.

Josh returns separately and says he was standing by the toilets waiting for Matt when a wacky guy walks up and asked what he was doing, why he was just standing there. “I’m waiting for a friend, he’s using the toilet. I think he has diarrhea.”

“No man, c’mon it’s Meredith you got to get involved!” said the dude, and having established a new catchphrase, he disappeared into the night in rainbow coloured parachute pants.



11.30pm.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring are a feral, freak-show. I collapse in the moshpit and it’s like turning legless in a pigsty. The band are not at their best. I get the hell out of there.

Gimme that chip, I joke to an Indian chap boring into a revolting splatter of nacho chips, near the food tents after the show. “You got three seconds, he says, or you’re gonna wear it!” It’s funny to us, but the little guy is serious. I back off. We move on to the open air cinema to watch R. Crumb visually elucidate on the origins of asparagus.

Later on, Crystal Castles play and they are vague to me, yet good I dance to their music, the night-blue basslines, female vocals, a punchy spoken word and a shout. This is after a stiff nightcap at the Pink Flamingo bar and a Ferris ride.

I am told off numerous times for clearing my nose in an unspeakable fashion. In my defense, it’s an inevitable with the dust and all, Meredith a veritable pigsty at 3am.

Blitzen Trapper, Wild Mountain Nation

The Trappers are one of those groups that throw everything at the wall and most of it sticks in your mind and hardly none of it stinks! The name is cute until you realise these Portland hillbillies have trapped Rudolph’s best mate and it’s only you who can save them! By the third track (the Shins-aping Futures & Folly ) you forget about all that though. You might even give pause and reflect on how weird you felt when you wrote your Blitzen rescue plan, but rest assured everything is going to be alright. After some old-fashioned mountain pop honey, the group try their hand at power pop and it comes off like the nitwit stylings of the Dandy Warhols. They regain their cred towards the finish line, flexing Deerhoof art-rock muscle, lighting up the atonal guitar fireworks ala Pavement’s Wowee Zowee and chiming in with some sweet, pre-pubescent Alex Chilton ballads.

Lee Marvin made me do it

Half asleep in bed, I hear the faint rumblings of De Campo closing the front door. She comes into the bedroom. In her hands she holds a gigantic 1200ML sealed bottle of Bundaberg Rum that she found on the footpath in front of the house next to our recycling bin. She displays it proudly, label facing front.

“Lee Marvin.” I mutter. “Lee Marvin is behind this!”

(It's the morning of the first of three Lee Marvin nights that will take place over the next three Wednesdays at Cinemateque at the Australian Centre of the Moving Image (ACMI))

At breakfast Olivia mentions the Lee Marvin connection I brought up. I have no idea what she is talking about. “I never mentioned him,” I say. Yet on top of the cupboard, there it is, the mysterious bottle of rum.

After work, I order a burger deluxe from the joint in the courtyard at ACMI. Why I ordered this I do not know. The burger has two robust patties that the bun is unable to contain. It’s hot out here and the flies are buzzing around my head and trying to get into my food and I am making such a mess with this burger that I feel I need to take a shower immediately afterwards. I am 35 years old and lacking the metabolism (not to mention the good sense) to process such a beast and yet here I am eating this double-beef monstrosity. Why, I ask, why? Two words: Lee Marvin.

The Professionals, Dir. Richard Brooks (1966)

A hell of a fun movie with a hell of a cast: Lee Marvin, Burt Lancaster, Robert Ryan, Ralph Bellamy, Claudia Cardinale and Jack Palance. There’s horse-riding, dynamite, whiskey-guzzling, bodacious gunslinging babes, ample stunt-work, quality Mexican scenery, wicked salivating bandits and cool, badass dudes. What more do you want? Outstanding Hollywood product. The candied version of The Wild Bunch.

I stayed on for part of part two of the Marvin double, 'Hell in the Pacific', and was far less impressed with that, so I went home unencumbered by strange entity.

The Big Wedding

My speech at Toby and Suze's glorious wedding on Saturday (included below) was my third public speech ever. The first one, a short poem to my grandmother at her funeral in 1998, went down well. The second one, on my wedding day in 2000, didn't go down so well. Conspicuously lacking motor skills, I read half of it, before falling over, using the bride's veil to catch my fall. It ripped.

Toby Dutton came into my life at a time when I needed him most. Down on my luck at an unspeakable speakeasy I was crying out for some form of refreshment.

“I have a face that is a cross between two pounds of halibut and an explosion in an old clothes closet!” James Dutton was acting strange. I turned to him aghast. “It’s David Niven,” he said.

I had somehow managed to infiltrate an elite circle peopled by James and his sensible wife Miranda. The effort required vast reserves of raw power and as a result, I began to perspire freely. Beads of sweat leaped off my nose like excited little lemmings hurtling off the nose of a cliff. I imagined Tchaikovsky putting together a pretty nifty score based on this visual for a new episode of Disney’s Fantasia…but I digress.

Anyway, all this activity was making me a tad parched.

Prior to the Flaming Lips concert, James, once again as David Niven, addressed the circle, commanding their full attention. “I wonder why it is, that young men are always cautioned against bad girls. Anyone can handle a bad girl. It's the good girls men should be warned against.”

Rather peculiarly, Miranda erupted into sustained, uproarious laughter.

The Flaming Lips were now on stage doing whatever it was that they do, but I did not care. I gazed longingly at the bar. The path to it was populated by an impenetrable wall of ‘pardon the expression’ nimrods standing neck to neck. I recalled a history of people visiting the bar here and never returning. I did not like my chances. But, then…emerging from the shadows, a heroic apparition…not unlike a young Boris Karloff in a classic scene from 1919’s Omar the Tentmaker…emerging from his tent. “Shane, meet my brother Toby,” announced James. “He’s new here.”
“Nice to meet you Toby.”
“I would like to meet a good girl,” he said.
“Didn’t your brother warn you about those?”
“To hell with him and his delightful impersonations, I want a good girl, goddammit! Preferably one with my Mother’s name – Susan Mary.”
“Okay well first… I pointed up at the bar…would you kindly go up there and fetch me a refreshing, sparkling apple cider, they’re rather delicious. Besides you’re closer.” And technically he was, even though he was standing right behind me. Toby started on his way and instantly I regretted what I had just done. Throwing him to the wolves like that. We had only just met. What if he didn’t come back? Well he did go and obviously, he did come back and that’s just the kind of loyalty, generosity and self-sacrifice that Toby Dutton will bring to this great marriage! Though I did make him sound like a great big puppy there, and he is but he’s chiefly a saint.

I’ve worked real hard ever since to be the proverbial captain of Toby’s yacht, the Kenny Loggins to his Jim Messina maintaining smooth sailing, with or without Malibu Rum, best of friends to this exemplary dude, I sure don’t know what I’d do without him sometimes, he’s just the loveliest guy, adored by all, held in such high esteem, a multi-faceted artiste, sings a heck of a rock and roll. Toby Simon Charles. Here’s to you.

“It's the good girls men should be warned against,” David Niven said, as you might recall, via James Dutton. In this case, the golden life-force that is Susan Mary Luke.

Now Toby and Suze may have met at a bingo parlour, but Suzie chose not to yell “Bingo!” until their wedding night, which comes later when they are finally alone together.

Like Ballarat in the 1850s, Suzie has a heart full of gold. She is electric. I stand in awe as Suzie engages the most unlikely pub patrons, and in time they saunter off sloshed on her fresh perspectives, while Suzie buzzes rapt with the sheer joy of good conversation. Toby found her so engaging, they got engaged. I reckon she’s a cross between Susan Hayward, actress of determination, Suzie Quattro, tough spunk du jour, one of the Golden Girls and Mother Theresa.

Like the sun, people feed off Suzie’s amazing energy source. Sounds unpleasant, but it’s really quite extraordinary. She is valued as a rare thing in our lives, a necessity and an extravagance. Together they are a perfect pair.

Now I’ve hardly mentioned the art and music that Toby creates, it is much-loved and appreciated — so here’s to Toby and Suze creating beautiful music together.

1st December 2007

Vale the Literary Pugilist

H has proposed a Mailer bio-pic ala I’m Not There, in which six actors/actresses play Norman Mailer (though he says you can't use Mickey Rourke or Whoopi Goldberg - too obvious, I guess).

The lovely Susan Dey as a cockfight referee in a small San Diego fishing village, early 1900s.

Jimmy Smits as the dubious accountant Ozzy Osborne mutters to. Jimmy massages Ozzy's wife while Ozzy naps in his chair.

Harmony Korine as himself, filming himself getting beat-up outside convenience stores all in the name of cinema verite, but after multiple trips to the hospital, he quits when he realises he only has 24 seconds of footage.

Kelly Osborne as Tracy St. Claire a bored goth interning at the New Republic

Unorthodox 80s lightweight Livingston Bramble, as Jackie Jones, a sex-crazed TV repairman down-on-his-luck


Patrick Swayze is Tina Livingston a reformed serial killer transvestite/radical novelist who uses semi colons instead of questions mark and hyphens instead of the letter g.

Kevin Rudd

He deserves a chance to f%#k it up

Muriel Lake Incident @ Cinema Paradiso, ACCA, Melbourne

The security chap was kind enough to hustle over and urge De Campo and I to check this thing out, as it had just begun.

We donned headphones and peered into the black of this miniature movie theatre where a film in black and white is being shown on the little big screen. You can hear it through headphones and even though the miniature cinema is empty you can hear patrons squirming in their vinyl seats and whispering loudly (“I thought this was supposed to be Orson Welles”).

Empty cinemas are ghostly.

Muriel Lake Incident is a disconcerting experiment in watching a movie while listening to people talk during a movie.

What’d you think? asked the chap as we walked out legless, our mouths agape and our viscus slugged. “That was frightening,” was all I could say and it was so much more than that.

Dinosaur Jr, Eddy Current Suppression Ring Live!

One of those reviews that don'r run for whatever (perhaps obvious) reason(s)

Forum, Melbourne - The ironic girl air guitaring in front of me gets the Mentos thumbs-up from her boyfriend and three of his mates, it’s unpleasant but satisfying that I burp into her hair singing ‘Rabbits’. Dino Jr. on a full stomach is like taking a bullet in the gut. Must remind myself not to eat African food before big-time rock shows. J Mascis wears a Wipers t-shirt (ode to the Godfather of high-octane grunge) though he probably doesn’t deserve it. Ennui has never sounded so monolithic and unwaveringly trashy. I suspect the mix licks but my mate Steve says its legit, J just can’t control his volume control, burying the vocals, the bassist (a beastly Lou Barlow) and his beatmaster, sending ‘Beyond’s’ voluptuous bomb ditties into the vacuum of the Forum’s vaulted ceiling. The dino dudes doze after a speedy set by ECSR that sees Brendan Suppression climb the speaker stacks and sass his raps on the lower level roof while Eddy and the boyz spark a nu-rave Life without Buildings and slay like the second coming of ? and The Mysterians.

Pointless persiflage/ Cold Sore Country

I’m skipping a Bryan Brown double at the flicks tonight, which is a shame I hear Austrian movies are pretty good, but I’ve simply had enough stimuli for the week in the last two days and am longing to get cosy on the couch with a bowl of De Campo’s Pesto Pasta. Apologies for the pointless post I’m a pretty pointless guy and am keen to remind posterity of how I was on this day in November, my 35th looming like a leopard through the ferny dusk of my post-pubescence.

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A cold sore has emerged and no, it ain’t a damn case of herpes. Try telling that to De Campo who don’t believe me, she’s certain that that’s what all cold sores are, a case of damn herpes. I have a special crème I've grown accustomed to that I apply to the area five times a day. It’s healing up rather well and I look less like David St Hubbins after a gig at a trade show in Waikiki everyday. Of course I used to get cold sores back in high school but that was when my face was a magnet for any monstrous type skin condition (my parents used to make me eat dinner in the other room and my brother used to call me Swamp Thing)

I believe I acquired the cold sore through the use of a Mentholatum used to stop me from biting my nails. Given that it’s only the early stages in the ‘stop and grow’ process the bitter polish stings the corner of my mouth where I still like to bite, not as often as I once did, but still enough to make my mouth look like David St Hubbins raising the roof at a roofing convention in Cape canaveral.

Bliss-out moment of the week: My barber Craig is so cool he plays vinyl records in his shop just like the olden days! He let me put on a record yesterday when side A of the Smashing Pumpkins had finished: Can’s Ege Bamyisi. It was up so loud I was in heavendrinking Coopers Ale on his couch using the other side of my mouth.

Two films from Bergman

All these women (1964)

A pretentious music critic romps around —in a highly offensive manner— the estate of a near-dead genius on cello, groping the genius’ wives and irritating the viewer with maximum detestability.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

Sexless strife and trenchant powerplays among bourgeoisies in crisis. Starring Liv Ullmann, who, I had to remind myself, is only an actress, and this, only a film. Masterful.

But Undercover of the Night always brings a tear to my eye

I did more out of the ordinary stuff on the weekend I went to Sydney and played with my good friend and two of her good friends who are now my good friends.

Out for Thai food at Three Mangoes and Tom said do you think the name of the restaurant is a pun on Three Amigos, I threw my hands up in the air and said damn that’s clever (which was true) and his wife M said no because that’s Mexican talk and then Tom said Hey, check it out and slapped the wall and sure enough it was prime Santa Fe sandstone he was slapping. We ate a bunch of food that was real nice and I was hurriedly stuffing my face with fresh chili trying not to look macho. M did the same. I asked if she could feel the geyser of endorphin and she said no what a strange concept and I told her I said that’s at least 55 percent of why I do it. Her return glance was priceless let me tell ya. We intervened on our good friend and said write a play, be a star, do whatever and do it now! The wine was all gone so we went back to my aforementioned good friend’s who runs a hell of a blog and listened to Stonesy. Companions were all too articulate for me as I struggled to explain why the stones were capable of matching Neil Young for honest to goodness feeling. They knew what they wanted to say and were original in how they said it (but freaking jaded as shit too, I’ll just add quietly). I cut my losses and told Tom I was going to make him a Pavement mix that’s gonna blow his mind! Anyway we’re throwing a reunion party for Tom and M’s band in Melbourne next year. I don’t think I have to ask De Campo’s permission for that!

The next day we checked out Tom & M’s new digs in an artist colony South of Sydney. My good friend couldn’t keep her hands off the trees, tres wild! Meanwhile I never seen so many birds in my life. A white cockatoo Tom said looked like me was displaying its yellow Mohican something or other. A qualified botanist we were like you should do guided tours, Tom. He was like nah. He seems happy making his woodcarvings and playing Facebook Scrabble with his Dutch dealer. But seriously everywhere we turned Tom would point out a kookaburra (if ever a bird made you feel good to be alive…). We also seen some rainbow larakeets and most chilling - a snake in the grass. Tom said it’s a black snake I said No way it’s a tiger snake, which is black too, yes, but also deadly.

Food for Thought

"The brain is the final pathway of all action. You can’t do much without a brain, which is why decapitation tends to lower IQ..."link

The Wonderful Jubilee of FJG: Weird Confessions of a True Partygoer

Please adjust the fader so I can appreciate the rear speakers in the back seat of this 1970s oatmeal Jaguar. Oh yeah. Nothing like a mewling Kleenex number on a warm sunny drive to make me feel like I’m heading to Zurich via Acapulco when I’m actually heading to Bendigo. De Campo rides shotgun in silver denim Capri’s and a classy western shirt. Contessa, glam and summery in a plush black dress she bought at a big sale Gertrude Street is a sensible driver never breaking the speed limit although how is she to know when her speedo is broken? I flip through a New Yorker oddly cultivating a desire to see the new George Clooney movie. Night falls. We pass where we need to turn and ask for directions at a BP station. The woman we flag down throws her map at us.

We get to the party and the hosts have set up some plush lodging for De Campo and I in their garage. Profusely flattered. Classic people eating drinking and being merry. Pleasant spots to hangout like at wrought-iron tables under trees or under their large pergola near a fire. A lot of people sit at a large table under the rear veranda near the sidetable where a selection of salads are sitting. The BBQ is hot and sizzling some sausages. Some people like Mia and the boyfriend of a sterling academic have just put steaks on. After making De Campo dinner, chat to G Roy about shiraz cleanskins and the plight of today’s prose stylist.

Gather inside the studio for speeches, music and dancing. The wife component of the most sensible couple of rock lays down some sweet-lovin' harmonica. The birthday girl is celebrated by two speechgivers in matching dresses who give rivetingly witty speeches that leave the entire party dazzled. One of the girls pitches a reality show starring FJG that is so vividly executed that she begins casting the feature film and taking suggestions from the audience. She needs an actress who is tough and firm and assertive before going onto mention a few other characteristics not representative of Cybil Shepherd yet it was at that moment I meekly suggested Miss Shepherd's name only to be reprimanded by a woman next to me who said that that wasn’t the best example I could have used and rather than say it was a total joke I said I really needed to find a toilet and when I came back to the party everyone was waving their arms to a ridiculous, mesmerising R&B song like it was some Christian revival.

Bendigo’s Surrender Monkeys dropped an ace set, followed by the extremely excellent folk rock of Sydney’s legendary Lighthouse Keepers. Inventive tambourine playing is seen and heard. The Cannanes won’t be playing though, their bassist broke his wrist lunging for a Shiraz. Instead there’s a blinding free-for-all jam to partake in. This lasts for several hours and brings much pleasure to the neighbours living adjacently.

Sunday
11am-12pm: Discuss panic and anxiety and type of medications useful in combating them. Eat sausage listening to Morrissey
12-1pm: Discuss the difference between a swallow and a sparrow — outcome at odds with my belief system. Disappointed with the sparrow, listen to Hansalf Trio.
1-2.30pm: A family of magpies (the same ones who used O Neil’s hair for their nest) and a bluetongue lizard are spotted with sausages in their mouths, listening to The Humpty Dance
2.30pm: Suzie returns to the possibility of Robert Mitchum playing FJG in the feature film version of the reality show.
1.40am: Woke up with a terrible panic proceeded to toss and turn for the remainder of the morning, then I had a dream that was more like an accusation into a type of sock that I stopped wearing five years ago.

The Cabinet of Red Crayola

Movie capsule: Dr. Caligari
”Sleepwalking Cesare, under Dr. C’s command, wakes up after 23 years to embark on a murderous rampage inside the wobbly landscape of the mentally deranged.”

Pretty straight forward capsule. I would have preferred it to be sillier or more outrageous, incorporate some wit perhaps. At least I didn’t give the entire movie away like I did last week (I Walked with a Zombie).

I was keen to see The Ancients at the Tote after the film, seemed like a cool doubleheader, until I found out it was just the Ancient and decided not to. No backbeat, no dice is how I basically roll these days; with rare exception (Mia Schoen, Kirsty Stegwazi). Instead watched some TV: The Chaser (punchable), Summer Heights High (superbly acted), NEWStopia (meh). Even though it was greatly satisfying to see Shaun Micallef back on air the only redeeming moments for me were the inspired names of his correspondents and his facial expressions. Then again I didn’t know what the hell he was on about half the time, so what do I know. Maybe it was gobsmackingly genius.

My copy of Soldier Talk by Red Crayola arrived today. Apparently I should be excited to listen to it and evidently I am. Will my thirst for funk ever cease?

Movie Reviews (in less than 25)

I Walked With a Zombie
On a sugar plantation in Haiti, voodoo has taken a woman’s soul. Why? I don’t know why not ask her mother-in-law.

Cat People
Odd reaction to birds. Met him at the zoo. Wait, who’s this sneaky tramp? Apparently it’s the other woman. Panther time!

Extraordinary Wrap-Up

Rode bikes out to Old Scotch Church and admired the scenery along the way.



My sis got married at this church in 1984, the same year the Minutemen released Double Nickels on a Dime. There’s some beautiful fur trappers buried there.































“What are those?” she asked pointing to a large patch of stuff.

“I don’t know...I ain’t a damn farmer."

We stayed at Asian Salad Guy's after the wild Flipper concert. De Campo took this shot the next morning as we wandered toward Hawthorn Street in SE Portland for a slice of whatnot.

Asian Salad Guy


















Steppenwolf performed at the Oregon State Fair and they were total crap I don’t need to tell you anymore. Interesting sidenote: my cousin’s niece who has a twin gets drum lessons from Steppenwolf’s now drummer, a talented guy who knows his way around a cowbell.

Still at the fair, I befriended several goats and kept stepping in their filth. I still had manure on my shoe when we got our stuff together the next day and loaded our things into the truck and headed for the beach.





No fronting, the burgers at my parent's local are wicked. De Campi has a Helvetia hat she picked up the last time she was here that is frayed from constant use. She went to buy another one, but they didn’t have any, so she bought the shirt which they did have instead. It fits her real nice as you can see in this photo I just took.

Hey ask her what the best burger in the world tastes like and she’ll say it tastes like a Helvetia one does. My Dad used to carpool with a guy who had eaten two of their jumbo burgers in one sitting. Ugh. Ugh, you say? Uh-huh.








The front cover of the Muddy Spurs' posthumous outing.

The last handful are pictures I'm too tired to name, other than to say they were taken in Portland around MusicFest NW, and in Idaho. All photos in this entry were taken by De Campo unless otherwise noted.

Grizzly Boy

Dude, so like, I woke up, totally dishevelled, squinting like hell, had a total meltdown when I realised the car was due back yesterday, so I shook De Campo, said get your things, baby, we gotta roll like a scene out of Badlands, hopped in the convertible blasted the soundsystem up to high heavens like Dick Dreyfuss in American Graffiti and proceeded to go like hell down the interstate as if racing furiously would alter the fact the car was 24 hours late, heading into the airport lot, saw a car turned upside down on the divider, continued on to the Hertz end where my brother and his wife were already awaiting us. "Hey I thought that was you back there," Dirk sniggered. I hugged the crap out of him and legged it into the office, told the dude at the counter my situation and he was like 'don't worry about it'. Next thing you know it's before lunch and I’m sucking down cans of Coors in the parking lot of a Motel 6 in Grants Pass, Oregon like they’re frigging Coca-Cola.

Jet boat cruise on the Rogue River that afternoon. The wildlife roll call:

4 bald eagles
6 river otters
1 deer
7 osprey (two of which had fish in their mouths, one of whom dived into the water before , prompting the river guide to chime: ‘you don’t see that everyday!’)



In Winston, Oregon the next day we came face to face with a hungry grizzly and the camera shook from the absolute danger/life-threatening nearness!



HOLY DOGSBREATH!