What are the Odds?

UPDATE : 11.4.07 - 10.55 Deleted content due to unsubstantianted and possibly offensive claims

Intentional Groupie Action

The Basics
The Hopetoun
Tuesday 3rd April

With a supporting act like The Saturns it’s very hard not to be upstaged. They have all the right moves for an emerging rock band and have a pretty faithful following, including the main act that will be playing with them at least twice, over the next month, during their tri-state marathon. Fronted by Danny Holdsworth, The Saturns gave a performance that is full of frenetic energy that infected the crowd. With some of their influences being more visible than others, it was made easy for the newcomers who had never seen these local boys before, to enjoy the 60s to today inspired rock and roll sounds until their all too short set came to an end in a demonstration of pure rock star moves by the entire band. Think Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, David Bowie and Beck.

After a brief interval and set up, The Basics took command of the stage with the opener ‘Rattle my Chain’ from their upcoming, second album ‘Stand Out/Fit In’, (out 5th May). A stream of new and old songs followed including a few covers thrown in for good measure, all received with equal cheering and roars from the gathered fans. A bit of banter between bass player, Kris Schroeder and drummer, Wally deBacker resulted in a request from the crowd being honoured. They joked that this was the last time this particular song was being played; but then said ‘a request is always performed.’ Who would have dreamed of hearing ‘The Right Stuff’ by New Kids on the Block played in a pub in Sydney by a band from Melbourne dressed like the Beatles?
That said, it received one of the biggest cheers of the evening. Three encores and 80 minutes later the Basics left the stage to ‘Money, That’s What I Want,’ by Barrett Strong (but covered by The Beatles in the 60s) and a promise to ‘see you all next week’.

You can count me in and judging for the reaction from the rest of the room, you can count in everyone else too!

(343 words)

I sent this review to The Brag today in the hope of publication, but we’ll see. I wanted to say that I stood and watched Wally with the eyes of a true groupie and only just noticed the others playing. He’s had his hair cut since I last saw him.

Belly-Dancing Groupies

Edna and I went ‘belly-dancing’ last night, as we always do on a Wednesday night. It became a bit of a regular thing a few months ago when we stopped working together. Wednesdays are Sushi, Belly-Dancing (aka a pint or maybe, two), Over Analysis and a Swim night. We only make it to the pool about a 3rd of the time;-)

Last night we had a major weekend debrief to do plus she had to dump Steps (see entry for Friday night). After a fairly fun, but intense weekend she had told him on Monday morning that she would call him on Thursday evening ‘cause she was busy until then. So he texted her…30odd times and when she didn’t return the texts, he called her and left messages. It had got to the point by Wednesday afternoon where she couldn’t pick up the phone and had a face like thunder because of the stress of it all.

After much consultation with other friends at work (yes, she does have other buddies) it was decided that he had to go. So after a ‘courtship’ of just 4 days, she was going to dump him. The general consensus was that due to the lengthy duration of the ‘relationship’ a phone dumping was acceptable.

So after Sushi, that’s what she did while I popped into the supermarket. It was all over…a weight was lifted.

We were wrong…as we sat and drank the first Strongbow of the evening he texted saying that ‘cause of all the bulls*it he’d never have a relationship again. She ignored it. Twenty minutes later he texted again, this time asking if they could still be friends. This went on …and on…and on. As far as I’m aware there have been no texts today.

All the drama, laughter and cider inspired us to come up with the 4P’s of dating. A joint effort that rates the following of each potential boyfriend. Each of the following is scored out of 10 with a maximum rating of 40.

Personality – Does he make me laugh? Does he make weird sweeping statements about things he knows nothing about? Does have similar interests? Is he safe to air to your friends?
Performance – Does he make my toes curl? Does he do things you never knew you could do? Does he do the hokey pokey? Is he aware that hickies are totally unacceptable after the age of 12?
Presentation – Does he have holes in his socks? How does he smell? Does he give a pash rash that rivals a radiation accident scrub down? Does the six pack on his stomach rival the six pack in his fridge?
Post-Coital – How does he behave after the deed? Is he still exhibiting the niceness of before or does he just say ‘OK, let’s get you home sweetie?’ Can he remember your name?

Needless to say, this was a two-thirds night. But we did get to be groupies for the acoustic guitar player that is always on, on a Wednesday!

(461 words)

Credit where credit's due : Thanks to Edna for the contributions in purple and for allowing me to share her story ;-)

Giving Love The Slip

The evening of St. Valentines Day started with Sushi at the Harbourside Sushi Train. The choice was a bit slim on the fastest train in the west, but that may have been due to it not being quite six o’clock when we started. By the time we left all the good stuff was coming out, but Edna and I were full. Five plates plus Miso and a green tea is fine, anymore would just be piggy!

We arrived at the Slip Inn just after seven. As we entered the building we were given a sticker with a number on it. We had been marked with the Shag Tags. The idea behind this is, send a text message to the Number provided, the message appears on the screen and hopefully you pull. We pulled our first glass of free champagne and found a seat over looking the beer garden.

Being the critical bitches that we are, Edna and I came to the conclusion that there was a good reason some of the people there. We had our second glass of champagne and started talent spotting. We came to the realisation pretty quickly that it really was a good thing that neither of us where there to pull.

A change in vantage point didn’t make the desperation in the room any less …well…desperate! So we settled in and watched the screens sending their messages out to the world. Some were funny, some were so old they had cobwebs and others were so English.

:-)Well h-e-l-l-o boys, from xxxx
:-)That cigarette burn really hurt you idiot!
:-)My shag tags better than yours, it's red for a start. Come and see xxx
:-)1206 Your hot!
:-)Fancy a foursome come see xxx
:-)Virren, Virren, What kind of a name is that? Where your parents hippies or summit?
:-)You must be from outta space, 'cause I can see stars in your eyes
:-)do you have a map cause I keep getting lost in your eyes
:-)2 guys required for a bang contact xxx
:-)do you have any raisins, if not fancy a date?
:-)Im from the FBI the Fabulous Body Inspectors, assume the position!
:-)apart for being sexy what do you do for a living
:-)1241 you have big balls
:-)Roses are red. Violets are blue. I have an xxx and now 801, so do you too
:-)You must be going to hell cause it’s a sin to look so good
:-)Who let the dogs out and why are they all at the Slip Inn

We got chatted up too, even though we were clearly making no effort. A pair a travelling Scotsmen asked Edna for a blow job, she kindly declined on the grounds of having only known them for ten minutes. When asked if she would consider it later she phrased the dismissal slightly harsher.

I was targeted by a short bullish guy from Johannesburg wearing a red FBI shirt. He kept coming back even after I told him I was married, now that dedication to getting laid. He left about 11 ‘cause he had to get up early for work. I really didn’t need to know that!

Edna and I left about half midnight along with all the other desperados when they closed the bar. We walked up to the Three Monkeys for a night cap, had one, but the Hungry Jacks across the street called to us with its siren song, promising flame grilled burgers and fries.

All in all a good night was had. I got to see how the single life could be and Edna got to be sad and ever so slightly depressed by the amount of non-gay-talent in Sydney. Both of us suffered from multiple-apoplexy from the terrible spelling and grammar usage in text messages.

This morning I’m feeling a tad over hung and have drunk two cups of tea to counteract the effects of the late night fries.

(633 words)

UPDATED : 20:09 15-2-07

I should have mentioned this earlier, but the entry was already moohosive, but it’s been bugging me that I left it out, so here it is.

When the free champagne ran out, Edna and I decided to continue drinking it so, of course we had to start paying for it. After a bit of confusion between Edna and the Barmaid, two glasses of the fizzy stuff sat before us with a demand for $12. Edna gave her a $20 note and got $6.40 change. Not normally the change for twelve dollars, so we tried to work out if we had missed heard her, and figured she'd confused the 20cent pieces for dollar coins. Maybe we had missheard her request for money...after all twelve and thirteen sixty sound alike don't they?. So we asked ourselves what rhymes with twelve?

The next round was mine and I was paid $13.60, the next round was also $13.60

Henceforth, $13.60 will be known as Schwelve!

Impromptu Groupie Action

Edna had a really rough day at work and needed to attend a dinghy pub and have a glass of wine. I had had a day filled with meetings, so joined her with gusto.

After dinner at the Sushi Bus with hubby, we went off to The Macquarie, but rather than drinking wine, we started on the Strongbow Dry. The sexy barman had grown a beard which made him considerably less sexy and the consensus was, we don’t like beards. Apparently it’s tradition for Irish men to shave of their beards off for St. Patricks day, so he’s be sexy again by the middle of March.

At 8.30 a band started. Now as it would happen, Edna and I been in this pub before and this band had been playing, so technically, having seen them more than once makes us Groupies! Yah! The band DBussy play sunk/soul/groove (whatever!) and started off really well, but the end of their second set seemed to have got really loud and the lead singer was screaming a lot. So we left.

The Brighton, on the corner of Oxford Street and Riley Street. Music was provided by a video jukebox playing mostly eighties rock with bad mullets haircuts. Liquid refreshment came in the form of more Strongbow Dry in glasses kindly fetched by the bouncer that kept flirting. We talked about her lunch date with Del-Boy, her interview and how the silly tart of a boss made completely unprofessional comments straight after asking her seven competency questions. We talked about boys (goes without saying really), drink and plans for the continuation of her birthmonth. Also we made plans to visit the Slip Inn (famous for introducing Prince Fred of Denmark to Mary of Tassie) on Valentines Day for a ‘Anti Love’ night with ‘non of that coupley stuff’.

I rolled in at just after three in the morning and feel surprising good.

(317 words)