Happy Endings

I'm in an art show! Coming up at the end of next month in Brisbane at Nine Lives Gallery.
The other artists are Joseph Allen, Sonny Day and Sam Morgan. Great company indeed.
The show is based around ideas of mortality. I'll be focussing on my accident late last year. Should be a hoot!

dinner and desperately hungover skate

Beci and Raph had me and some other lucky friends over for dinner. Big green egg, cauliflower, homemade ice cream, the delicious list goes on.



After a few beers and some wine with dinner, we cracked into some cocktails and a few shots of tequila. Then Raph had the bright idea to open his special bottle of cognac.



It was some damn fine cognac.



Ed enjoyed the smooth flavour.



While Olivia only had eyes for Miso.



Leah and Jay were used to this sort of behaviour.



We went for a walk to check out the gay beat down the street. It was my idea! Noe was finding where the batsman and bowler spots were by instinct, an impressive skill.



The next day, I could hardly think, let alone shred. So what did I do but take my board into town and visited the Now Now book sale in the Curtin house.



Spike and Paul



Tom in raised eyebrow work mode. Tom has gone OS for a couple of months, the bloody bastard. Have a great trip Tom!



Scottie sussed out this rail that Callum has done a couple of tricks on, but a ticket inspector kicked us out. Pity, it was looking sensational and dazzling!!



These guys were looking on approvingly, while Ed had a little rest in the middle of Exhibition street.



Handsome boy modeling school.



This would make a good photo with a 'proper' camera



Tim is back shredding better than ever after his traffic bingle last month.



Much shredding went down, by everyone else that is.



I was in a daze, rolling around looking at the deserted business district, thinking maybe I shouldn't skate anymore.



We headed over to ACCA to skate a bench Scottie had been scoping on an earlier cultural exchange. This is by no means an accurate representation of the type of skating Mike had been doing all day. He is like a human panther! But less dangerous!



Billy Elliot - spellbinding!



The make. Note the beer placed under the bench as a possible reward. regular readers will recall that Scottie responds well to physical challenges.



On the way back, we skated this spot i had seen after the play a couple of weeks ago. So good! I tried this trick for ages until my neck seized up. It felt good to skate and I decided not to give up after all.

Nadia 'Mum' Olijnyk

My grandmother died last week. She was a lovely woman, very funny and clever.



I went back to Adelaide for the funeral. It was sad, but really nice at the same time. Here is my brother Pij, my dad Nick and me.



My Auntie Kat with my dad, toasting Mum.



Kat and D with Nadia some time ago



Mum's cousin Lily had some good stories



She wrote in journals a lot, with very vivid memories of her childhood growing up in Ukraine, then marrying my grandfather Peter and building a house, then the war breaking out and everything going crazy, then living in different work camps, then finally coming to Australia and building a life for her family. When she couldn't reach her journals, she wrote on anything.



I also visited my other grandmother Jay.



On my mother's side



Tamara

backside kickflip

irony

Stuff I did

Olivia and Ed's old friend and my new friend Johnny just finished up a season acting in the MTC play 'Realism'. He got us free tickets on Friday and we went along. It was great! Johnny had an awesome panic attack onstage (acting the shit out of it) and there were some great celebrities like Miriam Margolies (?), the dad from GP and Grant from Couch Potato.



The play was in the new crazy looking building down from the NGV. There were space age features like these words appearing on the walls when the lights came up. Ah, the theatre.



After the show, we met Johnny backstage and he took us to the Green Room! It's actually green!



He was about to open some sort of free champagne, but there was noone else in the Green Room, so we suggested heading elsewhere. A green room without multiple celebrities is just a green room, after all.



We checked out the circus on our way to paint the town crazy.



Getting crazy at Madame Brussells. The crazy bouncer lady thought Ed and I were wasted and wasn't going to let us in. "Had a bit to drink tonight, have we?", she grinned in her insane grinning way. Well yes, we had consumed a glass of wine each at the theatre, and another while devouring a particularly gourmet plate of gnocchi. If that's a crime, call the cops! Honestly!



The next day, I went around and saw Fia and Miles. I can't even imagine my childhood with a remote control Dalek involved. Amazing!



We went for a drive to Heide. Autumn is in full swing.



As well as the gallery/house, there are lots of sculptures scattered around the property. This one commanded our attention for quite some time.



All the concrete crates had things in them, even a beetle!



Bright orange funghi. Everything was so colourful and the air smelled so nice.



I highly recommend a trip out there soon. The modernism show that is on in the gallery is also really good.



Later, I went for dinner at the Gem, but it was too crowded, so we went to the Union. Haven't been there really since Joey and Dion lived over the road. Good mexican parma.



Then we waited for Doctor Jay outside his house. Robin and Leah took advantage of the seats in the 'waiting room'.



We eventually made it to a fun party, attended by none other than the ginger prince! You can see that I told him to do this, can't you. He looks sort of scared.



Riley and I compared beards and wine stain removal techniques. Speaking of the beard, a guy walked up to me and said "Aren't you the president of Iran?". Devastating! I had a good comeback for him, though. I said, "No, I'm not".



Marcelle did this for some reason:



It was a highly covert operation, seeing as Sam and I were continually taking flash photographs.



Especially as someone who lived there walked into the kitchen as it was happening.



The perfect crime.



Nick and Jay found some beers



On Sunday, we went to a fundraiser at the Melbourne Museum of Printing. Marc was one of the guides. God help us.



There were prints for sale made on site by heaps of artists from around the place. It was packed to the gills with the upmarket hipster crowd.



This was my fave:



It's an amazing place, I imagine even more interesting when there are a few less people around. I hope they made some money to pay for the rent.



Lovely stuff.



Then I went to the footy with Scottie and Shona!



Lots of yummy supplies were on hand to accentuate the whole experience.



Even the president of Iran agreed a meat pie tastes better at the footy.



The Essendon sign thing was a bit non-committal and crap. They didn't even run through it, instead they carefully climbed under it. Tough times.



Not so with the mighty Saints. Bullshit to spare.



It was great. Such a spectacle. We spent a lot of time observing agitated, passionate spectators yelling.



The Saints won.