Meredith

I worked at the Meredith festival over the weekend, in Raph's Beatbox.



We arrived the day before it started and got a sweet camp spot. Me and Fryman put up Raph's hilarious 'baby boomer' tent, also known as the 'Taj Mahal'.



Business was brisk at the Beatbox all weekend. We made and sold a lot of good food and also had a lot of laughs.



By the end of it all, we only had fries left. People kept buying 'em.



A lot of the time, I was cutting up tomatoes, washing lettuce and 'pounding cow' (making patties from big bags of mince-meat, which I always seemed to be carrying when I saw the Hari Krishnas from the tent next door). I also made the coffee to keep up staff morale.



Working with customers is fun and sometimes nerve-racking. I was tongue-tied for the first half hour and kept saying words like 'mate' and 'hi' at the wrong point in the conversation. But after a while, I slipped into it and started enjoying myself - it's a bit like performing on a stage, I imagine.



The campsite had expanded exponentially, a mass of guy ropes, cooler bags and driza-bones.



One night we couldn't find the tents, because Raph's Taj Mahal had collapsed in the rain.



When I wasn't working, I mostly lay in the tent eating fruit and biscuits, reading Steve Martin's autobiography 'Born Standing Up'.



I also listened in on people's conversations as they sat around being hungover or drinking.



A happy coincidence, I ran into Milly and her friends one night and hit the Pink Flamingo bar for a couple of cocktails. Ed and I returned there the next night to a very different scene, which he likened to a place set up immediately following a natural disaster.



Raph let me escape the box to watch Neil Finn play as the sun went down on Saturday night. It was really beautiful! I was frustrated with the people standing near me who carried on talking and making boring jokes, but they paid for their tickets and I didn't and they're probably really nice people.



It got pretty muddy at some stages, but it didn't bother me or anyone else that much.



The man of the match was unquestionably Fryman. Raph and him have a special relationship, illustrated well in this shot taken on Sunday while packing up.



We stopped for our traditional meal at the pub in Meredith, where it became apparent we were all a bit knackered.

Gingernuts, Gayfag, Cohen and the beach

Hello everyone. The other day, I got it into my head that I wanted to cook up a batch of gingernut biscuits. After procuring the ground ginger, I mixed up a batter of sorts, using a recipe from the internet but improvising wildly to keep it punk.



Without the aid of regular flour, I lavished the mix with a bit of self raising.



They came out a bit fluffier than a textbook nut, earning them the title 'ginger poofs'. Delicious.



Not long after the poofs came out of the oven, I drove over to Elsternwick with Sam and Tess to visit Tom 'Gayfag' Walsh, for the hell of it. Tom, as you know, is highly skilled on the board.



We skated a surprisingly functional pre-fabricated park for an hour or so. Sam looked on, offering the ridiculous trick suggestions and actually very beneficial technique pointers he has made his trademark at such occasions. Tess ran about eating scraps of food and repeatedly stealing a man's tennis ball. A good time all round.



Saturday brought a trip to the famed Hanging Rock, to work for Raph in his Beatbox Kitchen.



My chauffeur was Sebastian, or Seb-o as he is known in 'the box'. He brought a hell of a mix CD (to which I am listening to now, I think this is Danzig), as well as bucketloads of his characteristic skewed charm.



Although we worked like dogs (or much harder than dogs, if you use Tess as a barometer of hard work), there was much merriment and fun to be had. In this shot, Hannah from Neighbours is talking to Aaron (a newcomer to 'the box').



The line-ups were pretty crazy throughout the show. My role as 'Fryman' ensured I didn't exactly see much of the show, but I did relish performing my tasks to the tones of Paul Kelly, then the man himself, Leonard Cohen. What surprised me was these people were standing in line as Cohen played, you know, 'Bird on a Wire' and 'Hallelujah' in an absolutely beautiful setting. Wouldn't you just take a seat and enjoy it? Good burgers, I suppose. I cooked about 400 servings of fries.



Raph on the grill. It was good to be back in 'the box', plenty more to come this summer.



The box by night.



I took a walk to the toilet towards the end of LC's set, pausing to take in 'So Long, Maryanne'. Not bad at all.



On Sunday, Rosie, Tess and I went to the beach.



It was bloody lovely.



Tess loved it too.

Well, hello there!

It has been a while. I'm sitting here at the table at home, on the computer. Listening to music by Frank Black, my old fave. Tess is asleep on the old couch. Let's kick off this blog update with a shot of some people who were kind enough to accept the flyers I was handing out for Dion out the front of an Ice Cube concert.



Mavie is up to his old tricks, screening movies in the park guerilla style. For halloween, he chose Beetlejuice.



Quite a crowd gathered, to the joy of my unfocussed lens. Screw you, spellcheck, I like two s's in unfocussed. Is that wrong?



Tess definitely has two s's in her name, and she sure loves a movie screening in the park.



We've had a few storms, causing interesting flooding of the track.



Our walk was cut short this day.



One very rainy day we drove to the warehouse for a skate, before that was encroached by creeping puddles too.



That's right, it was halloween. Marcelle kept finding costume ideas amongst the detritus of the warehouse.



Sam and I put together some last minute outfits that turned out quite well in the end. Sam was a mummy and I was Sam.



Mavie as a very convincing Beetlejuice.



Riley's secret Riley growth!



Dave was a great handy man, and Andy took our breath away as Bubble'o'Bill.



But outfit of the night went to Tim's highly disturbing half man/half woman.



Jason 'Sleazy Aal', Harriet's dead cowboy, Georgia's troll doll, Mel's ghost and Sleeper's Laura Palmer also get a collective honourable mention.



Chris and Marcelle



Action shot



I went with Joey to skate the new Cranbourne skate shed, hallowed turf indeed, the proving grounds for one Scottie Cameron, etc etc. The new street course sucks!



But the bowl is tops.



We flailed around for a while, scared out of our wits.



The foam pit is a hilarious addition, utilised to great comic effect by Joey (clip forthcoming)



My mum came over for a few days last week, which was lovely. We went around doing stuff, sat around doing not much, and ate at Beatbox on Friday night.



I have been missing all the social events of late, but am determined to correct the situation. Dropped in on Z Man's exhibition - not the opening, mind.



He had described it to me via email and it was exactly as he described. The pic to the left is called 'a big fuck you', if memory serves correctly.



This flickers on and off slowly, to great effect.



Raph has expanded his burger empire to the rooftop of Curtin House in the city, which is also where I work. Very tempting stuff, but I keep it to one a week. Nice to pop up there for a chat whenever the mood strikes me. He had an opening do this evening just been, it was a grand affair!



Charlotte was there, feeling my pain on the hayfever front. It's ridiculous!



Dion casts a disapproving (or is it menacing?) glance my way, while Sam explains something in the background.



That's all for now!