Politc Highway

today we arrived in Armac QLD. It is officially the center of nowhere, official, i checked with the wizard of Oz. The road heading to the town continuously got worse the closer and closer we got to the town. By the time we were a few miles out it was a gravel road with dead (road kill) kangaroo’s EVERYWHERE. There was a large Emu dead on the side of the road as well. Got to see some Kango’s hopping around, most of them just stand there looking at stuff (i have no idea what they are looking at or for because there isn’t much). Saw a flock?! of Emu’s running out in the wild, must have been 5 or 6 of them, hopefully they saw there buddy on the side of the road and were running home to tell mom.

2 days of travel- eh

Last night was a big one; I felt the need to get to know my guys here on the crew so a handful of us went out, and stayed out, and then stayed out some more, I verified it personally that the bars in Rock Hampton QLD, AUS close at 2 A.M. (the gentleman’s clubs do not). I’ve never been a big fan of those establishments but the other guys certainly seem to be so what-are-ya-gonna-do, when in Rome...

The hotel that I’ll be staying in tonight is quite unique, reminds me of some back woods Hawaiian shanty village hotel; 3 twin beds (non of which have matching anything to the others), there is a small fridge and it does have half a liter of milk in it (very kind of them), and there is a small mirror, vanity thing but you can’t open the doors because the bed is pressed up against it, it’s actually quite humbling. The 12 inch combo VCR/TV that is mounted in the corner gets 2 channels, and they are both fuzzy and they are both the same channel, looks like i’m listening to Australian Football, which I actually kind of like.

The locals of this small town (300 population) welcomed us with open arms, the hotel is joined to a small bar, and behind that is a pavilion, and to welcome us they have a “barbie” (bbq) for us, plenty of fresh local food, Lamb, Pork, and Steaks, now they didn’t say what kind of steaks but someone jokingly said it was the freshest Kango steaks in town, they picked up off the road, people laughed, but I still am not sure if they were laughing because of the “off the side of the road” comment or the “Kango Steak” comment, I’m guessing it was kango, but it was good and 30+ people ate it so I’m confident all’s good.

Sorry for the lack of wit in this post but I’m exhausted and nothing’s funny...

cheers-

e

Last Day In Brisbane, QLD

My bags are all packed; full of Curry Tuna cans and insect repellant. In order to make weight I had to throw out some clothes that weren't needed; not making the cut was a veteran pair of Old Navy jeans that, much like a 43 year old Place Kicker, had bad knees, but it was strictly business, we hugged then he walked out of the stadium never to be seen again (as of yet anyways it was only 30 minutes ago).

I've always loved the run-on sentence it's been one I've used since before I knew better. They fixed it and then I later learned, "to hell with them, this is how I talk, a lot of information as quickly as possible, Amen."

7 A.M. we need to be on the other side of the city and ready for anything. For all I know I'll be in the bed of a wooden framed pickup truck with a bunch of chickens; for that, I've removed most of my music from my MEDIA PLAYER and loaded it with movies and TV Show's, all of which I've seen at least 10 times.

So goodbye to "Dirty" the Xbox (that's really the user sign-in for Xbox live on that thing), goodbye to those damn Magpie attacks...

e-

3 Lights and a Kiwi

Tree houses in the park
With a picnicking army of ants
Fighting off the birds
Who are waiting on a train

The red light's stuck on yield
While the coffee clan sips
Fish never tasted this fresh
Said the dolphin!

The wooden table dreams
Of when she had roots
And the chairs at her side
Wisper, "masseuse, I'm coming home."

The clouds are still low enough that I shouldn't be talking about them
And as I hear a motorcycle speed by
I can't help but think, "it was the sun's fault all along."

Some holidays are country songs
And most flooring is fake
But it's hard to pray when your kneeling knee is ripped out of your favorite jeans.

E-

Sunday and Monday

Today is MONDAY and it is also SUNDAY still... Fantasy Draft (a beloved holiday in the states) is upon us and ironically it falls on Aussie Father's Day; "Avery, just get me Aaron Rogers and J. Finely." Although, by looking in the mirror as I write this I could use a "man groomer."

I slept with the windows open last night, and since I'm about 20' from the train, the conductor's voice is all i heard, even had a dream about him, he was narrating the story of life, he'd be a great audio book voice, at least from 100m.

I'm still waiting to hear when they're going to throw me to the wolves out in the middle of Aussie land; been training to box with this kangaroo down on the corner; nice enough fella, gotta a temper i tell ya.

gotta go get on my drafting pants and magic scarf.

e-

Brisbane Festival Kickoff...

Now that we've got the fireworks and 2 million stampeding children out of the way let's nurse this hangover; little of this, little of that, a shot of the gym for punishment and some early 80's British comedy TV should do the trick... I hate British humor (or lack there of).

I paid close attention to the Magpie swarm following me as I crossed the intersection, dodged the El Camino jumped into the ditch, crawled on my belly through the mine field just before the world exploded; safely made it to the coffee shop in time to wash my hands, "yes, a black coffee, no, no cream, no, no sugar, did you see what I had to go through to make it over here? all i want is coffee and if I have a choice I'd like it to be of the Kona variety, no choices, ok, give me whatcha got." lazy-

Went to the gym, got one of those ab work out balls, placed it in the corner, rested my head on it and watched European Car racing for 45 minutes, killed the TV and took the lift to floor 2 - Loft 214, why's it got to be at the end of the hall? there is not a further door from the lift and I do not like this one bit.

All jokes aside a lizard chased me for 2 blocks today. He was muttering something under his tongue but I had no change, not real sure they spent this Aussie Dollar currency to begin with. On another note, when you got a $2 coin in your currency system it makes me a little hesitant to reach into my pocket to give homeless folk change... "here hobo, you can have the little silver one's; i'm sure they're shit coins, the picture on them isn't even of a queen, just some homeless guy with a saying under his face "it's ok, go ahead, it's only 50 cents."  IN GOD WE TRUST

Walked another 20k today... I'm single handily curing cancer. Does the charity walks work the same way? Maybe my intentions are the only things that are good here...

There's a skateboard park across the street and I sit on the patio, drinking coffee, smoking random named cigarettes and I watch these kids on razor scooters haul ass and jump off the back side of this concrete ramp, they never come back, i'm guessing that's the ramp to puberty, because on the other side everyone has mexican mustaches and no one's wearing a Beiber shirt anymore.

Today could very well be my last day in Brissy, then off to some secluded camp village to pillage the villagers and steal all their back woods whiskey like some red scarf from yesteryear (note; i wasn't sure yesteryear was a real word however spell check gave me the thumbs up)...

I need to do some laundry but Patrick's pet snake lives in there at the moment and I don't handle snakes all that well (but I'm trying)... I keep adding bleach and setting it to "heavily soiled" I told him, "hey you want an albino one right, give me time Patrick, they're worth more."

I miss my New York friends i met last night. I think somewhere during our conversation the Rum told my brain, "hey bra, listen here, I GOT THIS, let me handle things from here on out, after all I'm Aussie." Sad thing is when the taxi dropped us off my mind wasn't with us and i bet some Kiwi $20 I could swim 10 laps in our Olympic size lap pool. 5 minutes later i had a life preserver around my foot and was being pulled to the shallow end. "mate, by you pulling me to this end that makes 10 laps, pay up sucka... (just kidding none of this really happened).

 Good night, e-