Swayzak (and pot)

I'm currently listening to a new Swayzak album I picked up yesterday titled Some Other Country.
Swayzak are a group I heard about last year when !K7 were having a CD sale, and I went spazzy and bought a whole pile of CDs.
I bought two of their offerings, Dirty Dancing, and the B-Side collection Route de la Slack.
While smoking a whole load of pot last year, I fell in love with Dirty Dancing (unfortunately Route de la Slack never grabbed me), so when I saw the new album at JB yesterday, I couldn't help but pick it up.
It's good. So far my favourite track is Claktronic, but doubtless others will grow on me with subsequent listens.
I like them.
In truth, I already liked the album before smoking pot, but the music perfectly suits the combination of Mickey's dark, red downstairs room, and a spliff. It's a shame that this album will never be able to be given that level of treatment. *sigh*
Actually, this morning (while listening to this album) I realised that my pot smoking habits will forever change from the dim lighting and moody tones of Mickey's red room, to the natural light of either Coogee Beach, misc Brisbane parks, or my back verandah; and that's a bit of a shame.
It was such a strange and wonderful time/room/experience, and it's a little upsetting that that chapter is forever closed.
But thems the breaks.

Swayzak are a recommended group.

Listening to: Swayzak - Some Other Country (Album)

Colori #1

Colori #1
Originally uploaded by franzliv

We are at Mickey's and I am looking at pictures like this.
Drugs are good man.

We Jammin'

Last Sunday Ben invited Me, Leanne, Mickey and Ross down to his place in Kurnell for a jam.
Ross brought his bass, and his harmonica (and Mickey's MicroKorg), and Mickey brought his Trombone. All I could bring along was a mouth harp. Leanne and I spent some time trying to find the mouthpiece for a trumpet of hers, but alas, we could not. Oh well.
It was great fun!
I like the MicroKorg. I like it a lot. I want one.
Leanne took a few photos of the jam. You can see them here.
Because of Leanne and my limited musical experience, we spent some time outside reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. It's fucking awesome. During said times, there were some pretty cool sounds coming from the band room, and they accompanied the writings very well.
Ben's Mum provided us with plenty of food, and after dinner we finished it off with a bit of a smoke. Oh, and a trombone solo:

Great fun all 'round.

Smokin', Swimmin', Spewin' and exSplodin'

As the weather last week was pretty fucking awesome, Simon and I decided to take Mickey and some weed to Nth Avoca beach. Mickey didn't taste very good so we sat in front of a sand dune and smoked the weed instead, and spent the next hour laughing at a variety of incredible things.

We laughed at ourselves:


We laughed at the ocean:


We laughed at a tennis ball:


We laughed at the faces and reclining lady that can be found in this cliff:


And we laughed at this toupee crawling through the sand:


We went for a swim and were bashed about by waves that took no pity on us poor stoned folk. It was awesome: the physical sensation of the water crashing against us, the coolness on our scalps as we dived beneath it, the roughness of the sand at our toes, the sun shining on our faces, the colours exploding in our eyes and dripping off our auras... It was awesome, and even when I threw up from swallowing too much ocean the colours in my spew were so captivating that I happily watched their luminescent parts pool below me and ride an incoming wave directly into Mickey's ankles (as my eyes slid up to his incredulous face).
BEST VOMIT EVER!

We spent more some time sunning on the beach, and then Simon and I went for a second swim before heading to The Green Dolphin in Wamberal for a HUGE lunch/dinner of Caesar Salad Burgers and too many chips. VERY, very tasty but my gods, don't get the $7 chips unless you're eating with a family of 10 starving bears and a wolf cub...

Mickey was desperate to pee at this point, having needed to pee in the car on the way up and at the beach (though it had run away at the first touch of cold water), so we drove to Avoca beach to use the amenities, sit for a while, and eat Cold Rock caramel fudge ice-cream with picnic bars and nerds mixed in - which is by far the best combination I've had.

Also at Avoca beach Simon saw this cute little dog and has fallen in love with it. It was such a happy prancing little dog, and had every cute girl chatting to the guy who was walking it. Well done!

So, with the day coming to an end we starting driving back down the freeway to home... only to take THE BEST DETOUR to the Hunter Valley for the night! YAY! We rocked out to Tenacious D in the car then settled into the house with another joint, some enlightening conversation about a "marinara trench", and then created the following videos:


This firework was MEANT to spin around on the ground then shoot into the sky for a loud explosion. As you can tell, it didn't quite make it. Our ribs were hit with the shockwave and we could feel it for an hour afterwards!


This firework was old and broken and had no fuse, so we stabilised it (ingeniously) by sticking it in a plastic bottle inside a watering can, and lighting it with a sparkler.

FUCKING AWESOME NIGHT!

(followed up by this Peat's Ridge breakfast the next morning)


Simon and I are currently listening to Mint Royale - See You In The Morning
Simon and I are currently co-reading The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (by Tom Wolfe) and Otherland (by Tad Williams)

The Sapphire Coast Trip

From the 13th to the 17th November, Leanne took me on a road trip.
She saved the destination as a surprise, but I was told that it would be down south and near a beach.
But a beach holiday down south? Don't you usually head north for a beach holiday? Well, there is logic behind that: we're about to move north, so this will probably be the last opportunity to head south before it becomes a supreme trek/pain-in-the-ass.
Leanne did a little research, got directions, and on Tuesday 13th November 2007 - after an itchy night from an allergic reaction to Mescal - we headed south to a secret destination.
Now, I was expecting a 2 or 3 hour trip down south, but Leanne had bigger plans; she took me all the way to the Sapphire Coast, near Bega.

View Larger Map

Yup.
Day 1.
Now, what was awesome about Google Maps was that it decided to take us a scenic route in the Kangaroo Valley. I'm so glad it did. This meant that we got to drive by some pretty places:





The Kangaroo Valley is absolutely spectacular.
During this drive through the valley, we saw a sign for a café, and deciding that coffee and a bit to eat wouldn't be a bad idea, we stopped.
The café was undergoing renovations, so there was no food - we would get coffee and stop for food later. The café was located in a national park. The guy behind the counter asked if we'd seen the falls yet. He said he came here 3 weeks ago and didn't want to leave - he was from Victoria. So Leanne and I finished our coffee, and went for a walk to "the falls."
On the way we passed these:


and joked that they were the falls. We were very wrong:





We couldn't believe it. What a perfect surprise. What a wonderful start to a wonderful adventure. Better yet, there was nobody around. It was just Leanne, I and the view. Well, after about 5 minutes, some people walked up, so we followed the path around to the next lookout and stayed ahead of them the whole time.
Oh, this was the next lookout:


Wowsers. There are more photos on the Flickr set that I have created, if you wanna see 'em.
There was another lookout after this one, too, at Twin Falls, but you'll have to go to the aforementioned Flickr set to see that.
Shortly after that, we saw a sign for the "Worlds Best Pies." Not being able to refuse, we pulled over for lunch. They weren't lying. Holy cow. Absolutely magnificent pies. I had a chicken and vegetable, and Leanne had a red wine and steak. Oh man. I want one now. Better than just that, they did great milkshakes (we shared a vanilla and malt) and you could eat it all outside in their lovely herb garden. What a happy moment. This trip was off to a truly fantastic start.
A few hours of driving later, following Google Maps directions, we took a right turn at the Snowy Mountains Hwy. Unfortunately, and for no good reason at all, only a few km after this turn, is another Snowy Mountains Hwy - the one we were actually meant to turn at. This meant we went 40km out of our way (which you can see on the map I've created), and had to turn back. Not all bad though, the drive was very pretty, and we listened to King Billy.
So this meant we were about an hour later than we could have been.
Leanne's research had turned up a few different possible campsites to choose from. The first one we decided to check out was in Bournda NP, and sat next Wallagoot Lake. We pulled in (and saw some roos), but while it had showers, gas BBQs etc, there were a fair few people, and we really wanted one next to the beach, anyhow. So we left and after looking at the list of possible campsites, decided that the Gillards Beach campsite sounded best. We had a little trouble finding it (the GPS on my phone had never heard of Gillards Rd), but eventually we came to the dirt road leading us there.
Oh man. We were SO glad we decided to check it out. It was perfect. Each campsite was surrounded by bush, so you didn't see or hear your neighbours, and our campsite was walking (but not smelling) distance to the toilets, and was huge. There was a shaded area for us and the car, our own fire pit (with billy stand and hot plate) and the tent was set up at the top of the stairs to the beach. Oh yes, the stairs to the beach, we were 6 stairs away from the beach - with our own private access. That's what I mean when I say "perfect."
You can tell how happy we were by this photo:


After lighting and sitting around the fire for a little while, we explored the beach in the dark, and were struck by two things: phosphor in the water, and three dead birds all in a line. The phosphor was really cool, but the birds were... odd. But we weren't phased. The phosphor was awesome, but didn't make an appearance for the rest of the trip - we caught the beach at a magic moment.
The perfect end to a perfect day. The stars were bright and beautiful that night, and we enjoyed them on our backs and on our knees.
This road trip was going to be absolutely perfect. It was.

Day 2.
We woke, after a fairly uncomfortable (damn roll mats...) nights sleep, but it didn't matter because it was a perfect day, and we were at the perfect spot. We decided to have breakfast on the beach, so we got some fruit our of the car, and headed down to the beach.
Hey ho, what's this?


DOLPHINS!?!





Could this place get any better? Wow!
After revelling in the awesomeness of this place, and after enjoying kiwi fruit and banana on the beach, Leanne and I decided to head for a walk south down the beach.
One immediate thing we noticed: more dead birds.


So many dead birds. To solve the mystery for you now, the ranger came by the next day and he told us that it was because they are migratory birds (they even sleep while flying), and this is very near the end of their journey, so a lot of them don't make it. It only happens once a year. Nice. So Leanne and I occasionally had to put up with a bit of stink, but it didn't mar the trip in any way.
There were also bluebottles:


They were all on the beach though; we only saw one in the water as the tide came in, and we didn't get stung at all. That was all that was less-than-perfect on this trip - and they're fun to pop anyway.
The walk down to the south was the main event of the day. It wasn't that far, but it took us some time because, on top of the dolphins, dead birds and bluebottles, we were distracted by photos, swimming, skinny-dipping, sex, and the beauty of it all.
After we arrived back at the campsite, a HUGE goanna shuffled by our site and into the next. Man, this place is incredible.
But we needed one thing: Fish 'n' Chips. So we headed into Tathra for some. They were fantastically crispy, but - as I often do with fish 'n' chips - I felt a little seedy afterward.
No matter. We ate them by the inlet, and walked to the beach afterward. It was lovely.
After that we drove back to the campsite, and played with fire.


But not before a visit from a wallaby and her joey. So cute.
Soon enough, it was time for bed.

Day 3.
Leanne and I decided that today would be a day of exploration. So we popped in the car and headed south. We ended up visiting (and spending most of the day) at Bournda NP (across the lake from where we were originally going to camp).
What a beautiful place.
Driving in will take you past Wallagoot Lake:


Which is beautiful in itself, but the road leads to a beautiful picnic area that has a walking track down to Turingal Head and Wallagoot Gap.
The walking track itself was spectacular. The trees that surrounded you gave the area a surreal Sleepy Hollow feel. Take a look:




As if the path wasn't beautiful enough, it led to this:


Wallagoot Gap.
Holy fuckballs, I am in love with the Sapphire Coast.
We sat at the Gap for a little while, then followed the path to the head.




I think the photos speak for themselves.
After lunch at the original picnic area, we continued south to this strange development at Dolphin Cove. In the middle of nowhere, down an unsuspicious street, was this little nugget of new, large houses. Just about all of them looked funky. It was very cool. It was built around a golf course, and surrounded a beach. A strange place. I'd actually quite like to spend a couple of years of my life there.
But onto greater things.
Driving home, Leanne and I passed a sign for "Tathra Oysters" and couldn't help but stop in. We also bought some wine and headed down to the "Historic Wharf" to enjoy them. This led us to a fenced off (for vehicles at least) collapsed road. It was cool. You could see old tarmac and gutters down on the rocks below, while little segments of road still existed up where we were walking. We settled on a rocky outcrop, poured the wine, and slurped the oysters. The ocean surrounded us, and spread out forever. It was all very lovely.
After the oysters, we stopped at the general store to buy some bait as we were planning on fishing - something I've never done (beyond a reel), and something Leanne was excited to show me.
Unfortunately, however, the waves were too strong and started too far out to enable our bait to stay far enough out in the water, so we weren't able to catch anything. More unfortunately actually is that we didn't get the opportunity to fish again. Well, I guess we will just have to make another trip sometime soon.
After cheese & fruit, another fire and more animal interaction, we went to bed, satisfied with the day's events.

Day 4.
Today was to be our last day at Gillards Beach. Sad times. Because we hadn't walked north up the beach yet, that was the thing to do today.
It was so wonderful, and I was so excited by it all that during the walk I ran to the water excited as a schoolboy.


I wouldn't let the fact that this was to be our last day get me down.
It didn't take too long to reach the pointy rock at the head that could be seen from the beach in front of our campsite, so we kept walking past it.
Moving around the head opened up another secluded beach. This meant another opportunity for skinny-dipping! Weee! (no photos to show you...)
After a fun little frolic, we kept heading north to the rocks we could see jutting out of the sand up ahead.
Leanne did a fine impersonation of them, if I might say so myself:


And I looked mighty sexy posing against them, too:


Hell yeah.
The rocks were a very soft siltstone (it could be engraved with your nail), and many other people had engraved little messages, so I took it upon myself to add a little one of my own:



Walking back to camp, some surfers appeared (lucky we had our clothes back on), which gave me an opportunity to show off my sun-safe headgear:


Sexy, no?
Once back at camp, we made some lunch, and a wallaby came by to say hello:


Cute little fella. He/she came SO close! I could hold the camera right up to it, and it would sniff it. So cute!
After all of this, Leanne and I both came to the same conclusion; we needed a spliff. So I rolled two super thin joints. We smoked one at the campsite, and then went down to the beach for a second one. We had chips:



saw a crazy bug:



talked shit:



and went swimming for 45 minutes. Swimming was the most amazing experience. We made our own martial arts (Tai Sea) and were amazed at the worlds-within-worlds aspect of all the waves. It was incredible. I fell in love with the sea all over again.
Tiring ourselves out, we took a much-needed nap, before cooking dinner; it was pasta tonight. Simple and relatively tasty.
But all things move toward their end, on that you can be sure.

Day 5.
We woke a little later than planned, but still caught what could be called a sunrise. And after waving goodbye to our most wonderful campsite, we headed home.
We stopped at Narooma for some breakfast and some coffee. I like it strong, and I asked for a mug of strong black. He asked how many shots, me thinking a mug was going to be large, asked for 4. It wasn't large, so the coffee was stronger tasting than I expected. A lesson was learnt here: 4 shots of coffee is a LOT of caffeine.
***VIDEO COMING SOON - for some reason, YouTube won't encode the video, so I will have to encode it myself and then upload it again***

On the way home we stopped off at Jamberoo to say hello to Jill.
And that's about it.
That was my trip down south.
Thank you for reading.

I might add that we were both keen to stay down there (and are both keen to go back down), but we had to come back for Claudia's engagement party, and Mickey's "I've sold my house" party, both on that Saturday night.

Listening to: Fez Dispenser - 2: This is Trip-Bop (album from CD Baby) along with just about every other CD I bought from CD Baby - it took me that long to type this mofo up...

Yet Another Weekend Up At The Hunter

What is it now? 5 weeks in a row? I don't know... but I've been up at The Hunter every weekend for while now. I suppose it's good that I get use out of it before it sells... if it sells.
But it was good weekend.
Mike, Leanne & I went up for a smoke.
We were on clouds, we became planes, we flew through the air and across the hills, waving at the little people...
Indeed. Fun.
We ate too much, though.
Altogether too much.
I need to start eating better. And probably exercising, too.
This shall happen this week.

I am seeing Black Sabbath with Ben this Wednesday. We're seeing it in Newcastle (Bogan HO!), and as such, I've taken the following day off of work. It's funny; I hate work, but I hate taking days off work because we don't get paid for them. I actually entered into a bit of an argument about not being able to work up hours for days off with my manager on Friday. I'm trying to find out if what they are doing is legal. The lady at my recruitment agency isn't very helpful, though.
Sigh.

Coming Weekend

Wednesday night saw the birth of the idea of going up to the Hunter with Leanne, Mickey, and Ross and smoking some green.
Turns out Ross can't make it.
Leanne has now been offered to work tomorrow (Saturday) at double-time. So she is seriously considering that offer.
Mike and I will still head up tonight, though.
So, if Leanne decides not to come up tonight, we will meet her at Morrisett after work. This also means we will have Yummy Thai (that's actually the name of the restaurant) for dinner, which will be nice.
Mum is mega-stressed at the moment, and she will be coming up, too - so that'll be nice. I said I'd shout her dinner.
So. Yet another weekend spent up at The Hunter.
Sorry guys.

R-I-P-P-E-D

Man. I got absolutely ripped at Mickey's last night.
It was sick.

S-T-O-N-E-D

Maaaaaan I got SO FUCKING stoned last night with Mickey and Simon...

It was the best drug experience I've had.
I started hallucinating.
I waved my hands in front of my face and they shimmered and staggered, my interlaced fingers suddenly diaphanous in the light of the bare bulb on the ceiling.
I got stuck for ages with my hands hovering over my face and my elbows stuck out in the air - I couldn't move them and they rested there perfectly cushioned by invisible forces.
Mickey and Simon were kilometres away, but also overwhelmingly close, looming like giants above my head. They sat on the couch and discussed my future like god and the devil, or the two halves of my conscience.
I was pinned on the wall and their couch was lying on the ground. Forever.
We lived in roving boxes.
Spinning planispheres blurred my vision to a hollow rounded point.
I laughed so much I cried and my tears were thick and solid, a tangible paste or goo like honey.
My breathing was going in circles and I could feel my chest slowing down and speeding up, my breath falling behind the physical action of my breathing, like a yoyo trying to catch up with its future self.
I ate handfuls of dorittos at a time.
Everything was square and curved.
Glowing, sparkling, living, shining, squeaking, shaking, roving, squeezing...
My feet got stuck in the concrete of the floor. I couldn't move them and they were sitting there below the floor on an angle even though I was lying down with legs straight out. I was mired, completely, chained and sunken ankles trapped and swallowed, engulfed.
Light above, dark below, laughter in the middle.
I made myself sit up occasionally and pretend that I was capable of passing the orange juice.
I smoked more because it was so awesome.
They were pure weed, and I hardly coughed.
Mickey smoked the cardboard roach.
I like Mickey.
Simon videotaped me talking to Mickey about my breathing.
I had to keep my eyes squeezed to an almost-shut so that I could see them properly, sitting on the couch.
They never moved from the couch.
They talked from a long distance away but I loved them.
Michael K came over for the first time but we weren't sure he was there because he wasn't there for very long, just enough to laugh at us I think. It was a mass hallucination. He never came at all until the second time he came and sat in the King's chair that Mickey keeps in the red multimedia room.
The room was made of smoke.
Simon and Michael talked about geek phone stuff and Mickey and I just drifted off.
This is the most stoned that I have ever been.
I am not telling this story in chronological order.
It was FANTASTIC.
I have never been STONED before man.
My feet were stuck in the gound.
My hands were spinning over my eyes.
My god was a dream.

A Volcano in the Hunter

The weekend that I was at one point so negative about turned out rather well, actually.
In all, a good amount of people came (Leanne, Mum, Denise, Ben, Carly, Leanne's workmate Nick, and his friend Ben), and there was much merriment. Stonehurst (aka Cedar Creek) are still selling damaged stock at a 50% discount per case - so we ended up all buying cases. Fantastic. We ended up paying about $9.50 a bottle, for wine that should be about $25 a bottle in stores. Fucking awesome.
Nick's friend Ben is a bit of a pothead, and owns a Volcano. A fantastic little device that extracts THC from Marijuana without having to actually smoke it. If you follow the link above you can get an idea of how this wonderful machine works.
Not only is it incredibly easy to "smoke," it's also incredibly efficient. I bought a 50, and we used maybe 1/3 of it between the 7 of us. Fucken A. So I guess this means a few more gatherings are in order.
So the night consisted of wine, weed, music and general shenanigans. All was happy. We bought a fuckload of fish n chips, and Denise brought plenty of munchy food, including awesome cookies (I will attach a pic soon). Ah yes. Fantastic.
Sunday had a lazy beginning, so lazy in fact that we missed the awesome Bacon & Egg roll place in Cessnock - they close at midday on Sundays, as is typical for most places in Cessnock. So we went to The Carousel Cafe instead. Tasty, tasty, tasty. I had another puff on the bag before we went, so my memory is a little hazy and I'm not sure if we paid or not. I hope we did, they're nice people. But they don't have hash browns. The nerve - and a distinct plus for the awesome bacon and egg roll place. But still, for breakfasts, nothing beats the place at Peats Ridge. It's just so hard to time it all right for breakfast.
But yes. After breakfast everyone went their respective ways, and Mum, Leanne and I went back to Cedar Creek. We watched Here Comes Mr Jordan, which was not bad, and then we went home.
The end to a lovely weekend.
Yay!