"Estoy Nada pero Un Estudiante"

Hoy el cielo es azul
No hay un solo nube
El sol es calor cuando tu puedes lo ver
Pero esta frio cuando no es radiante

Estoy nada pero un estudiante
De Musica, idiomas, amor y vida
Y yo tengo muchos cosas para apprender
yo pratico todos las dias

Mi comida favourita
es cuando yo comer con mi abulita
Juntos nos sentamos en su cocina
Y hablamos sobre todo
Yo sabe que elle es siempre conmigo
Pero yo la extraño mucho.

"I am nothing but a student"
Today the sky is blue
Not a single cloud
The sun is hot when you can see it
But is cold when not shining

I am nothing but a student
Music, language, love and life
And I have many things to learn
I practice every day

My favorite meal is when I eat with my little granny
Together we sat in her kitchen
And we talked about everything
I know that she is always with me
But I still her miss her a lot.

More Newcastle Hating

Well, it's not really hating. More an observation.

When I was a kid growing up here, a local bank produced a series of Pro-Newie TV ads that featured a catchy gang back up type chorus that went "Hey! This is Our Town!" You remember it right? In a very subtle way it ingrained into you a piece of Newcastle cultural brainwashing that Newcastle was a hard done by town that had fought back and was now a hidden secret that we didn't want anyone else to know about. That attitude still exists and if you can escape the mentality of "ya think ya so fucken good don't ya", you will go on to be happy and successful without ever having to justify yourself to some bogan you went to school with.

The other sentiment of the ad is "Hey, this is Our Town!" I was in the bus the other day coming home after work, driving down a crumbling Hunter St and wondering whose town this was because it certainly wasn't mine. Empty buildings litter the streets like corpses and the graffiti is a reminder to all the grown ups that there is still a generation of angry and bored kids here who have been forgotten.

But hey, it's not my town because my generation left years ago. There seems to be void of people between the ages of 22 and 35 in this town and as a result, shit is falling apart. This is the generation of people that actually get things done. We finished school or uni and then took off, both physically and in our careers and we went elsewhere to make changes. What we left behind were the Baby Boomers and their parents who stopped giving a fuck after the 70's and now just want to chill and not to be too challenged by anything. Newcastle City Council is full of these dinosaurs who still hold the balance of power and despite some cool people like Crackers and Nua coming in to disturb the peace they are still in the majority. Marcus is doing some great stuff with Renew Newcastle, TINA has always been a a good event although with a residual flakiness that is the signature of hessians and we all know the beaches are beautiful. But instead of being a vibrant coastal town with major tourism potential, the city is dying and what remains are small pockets of activity in an otherwise empty space.

Newcastle faces the challenge of completely reinventing itself and it's image in order to stay alive and one day flourish.

And me, I need to get the fuck out!

P.S.

If anyone else at my work sends me that youtube link to the stupid fucking americans dancing down the isle at their wedding I am leaving the building.

Weekend Preview

So my little brother is alive. After 10 days of no contact we were starting to get a bit worried about him and then he sent me an email saying he is in fact in a band in Germany and is playing with Madball and Agnostic Front. I said "Pffffft. Did that YEARS ago!" It was actually pretty funny at the time because Agnostic Front back then were about a thousand years old. How old are they now???

Last night I called my dad and my step mum and set them up on Skype so XbobX can call home for free. They haven't got a web cam yet but when they do I am going to get my dad to give me online guitar tuition since he is the best guitarist I know. I showed him my "on loan" guitar which is from the 1920's and he was impressed. It does have a nice sound I have to admit.

The weekends are coming round at a rate of knots. Not that I am complaining but I am going to Sydney this afternoon for what I know will be a massif night with Igs and Rocket on the balcony at the Penthouse and I have only had three sleeps since the last one ended. I am also taking the Beepster out for dinner for his 70th Birthday, going to my sisters engagement party and then to another birthday party where I am sure there will be lots of rack and bad music. That's ok. I shall sip a G and T like a lady while everyone goes b-a-n-a-n-a-s.

Blah blah

Wednesday night chillin at home eating cashews drinking a coopers packing a bag and getting psyched for the weekend listening to tunes having a strum contemplating having ice cream for dinner definate early night awaits missing you you're a sight for sore eyes!

Public Transport

Since I sold my car before I went overseas I have started taking the bus to work every day. I used to have massive Fear of Public Transport that comes with being a car owner. Once you get to cruise around in your own ride, listening to whatever you want, singing as loud as you want, busting out car dance moves, eating while driving and talking on the phone, it’s hard to go back to PT. But I did and it’s a massive eye opener. I would honestly say it’s worse than taking the chicken bus in Central America.

Firstly, in Newcastle, waiting for a bus can be decidedly dodge. Especially after work when it’s dark. There is always one or more of the following:

A drunk old man – generally harmless but has high tendencies towards inappropriateness

A bunch of little punk ass biatches – generally between the ages of 12-18 who wear Adidas trackies and do annoying shit like kick bottles, throw stones, swear loudly etc. Low to medium on the scale of dodge but annoying as hell and have potential to be random and unpredictable or roll you for your electronic devices.

Retards – now, don’t get me wrong. I love people with disabilities and am a qualified teacher of children with special needs. But there is something about Newcastle. You see heaps of retards on the bus. They’re generally cool. I say hello.

Single mothers – as above, I was the kid of a single mother and I know how hard it is to raise a kid on your own. But again, Newcastle has thousands of them. All 18 and lugging a pram on and off buses with no-one offering to help them. And the kids are always super cute which is even more interesting.

Dudes in cars – they cruise past, slow down and throw some kind of foul abuse at you either to do with tits, ass, or something else gender specific and derogatory. Sometimes they even stop and ask if you want a lift. I remember when my cousin was 18 her and her mates were at the Cambridge and after the gig they were all chillin on the footpath tossing up where to go next. A car pulled up, opened the back door, a guy pulled her into the backseat and the next day she was found raped and unconscious in bushland in Charlestown. That freaked the shit out of me cause I have stood outside the Cambridge a million times.

The good things about Public Transport are:

It's good for the environment. Sort of.

You can listen to music and use the time to get psyched for the day ahead

You can thank god that you have a job and don't fit into one of the above categories.

This was a very Un-PC post.

3.30 itis

I am tired and grumpy and sitting at my desk listening to sad songs and eating Vitamin C cause I feel like I am coming down with the flu. Yeah, the Wine Flu. Too many wines beers and "Cheers". It's an occupational hazard of working in the Wine Industry. I am very sensitive to alcohol and I put it down to not drinking until I was 27 or some ridiculous age like that. I can drink a fair bit but I can't handle being hungover and I get very depressed afterwards. I wouldn't say I am depressed now, just flat, tired and uninspired.

There is guy at my work who is building a house at the moment and it's one of those kit home things that you buy out of a catalogue. He spends most of his day ringing up about carpet and paint colours, consulting with the wife and generally being a suburban nightmare. Makes me want to do a Russell Crowe and throw my phone at him.

It's people like him who scare the shit out of me - not that I am worried about ever being like that - but if that's normal I want to be a complete hessian weirdo for the rest of my life. It's only now that I am older that I give my parents massive props for being hippies when we were kids. At the time I hated it and wanted to be nothing but normal but now I love the fact that I was raised really unconventionally, even if it was a bit extreme at times ie. me and my sisters sleeping in sleeping bags on the side of the stage while mum and dad rocked out in the band together.

Today is Iggy's birthday. She is 32. My favourite memory of Igs is when we lived together in Paddo she came downstairs one Sunday morning after a massive night clutching at her chest. She said "Call the ambulance I'm having a heart attack." After a few questions about symptoms however it turned out that she had drunk 8 vodka and red bulls the night before and was having heart palpitations/anxiety attack. It was pretty funny.

And that is the 3.3o Bulletin ya'll.

How to write a song

Tonight I did something strange
I felt something inside me change
I was lit from within
the embers I thought had grown cold began to burn my skin
I dusted you off and we sat down
same place, different space and asked for the sound.

I closed my eyes as I grew warm
my heart ached and my soul was torn
a million memories flooded my mind as I let you drown me and make me blind
I fell into an altered age
my veins were filled with love and rage
I reached inside all that was me
and let these words
these notes
this song
be
free
　
　
　
　

Things

Things I am good at:

Talking
Writing

Listening

Singing in the shower

Befriending weirdos

Chucking house parties

Getting free shit

Eating

Standing up for myself and others

80's dance floor moves

Writing work emails that get great responses

Dreaming

Picking songs when I have only heard the first bar

Project management especially resource allocation

Matching wine to food for full affect

Making people laugh

Things I would like to be better at:

Spanish

Guitar

Singing out of the shower

Cooking

Saying yes to things

Committment - in general

Paying bills on time

Yoga

90's dance floor moves including the running man and anything new jack swing oriented

Emailing my friends overseas

Trusting in the grand plan

Poetry

Things I am downright bad at:

Collecting the mail

Taking out rubbish

Early mornings

Giving up coffee

Seeing things through to completion before getting bored

Practising

Grammar
Doing my hair

Pretending to be nice to bogans

Self-discipline esp. to do with booze, chocolate, sex, cheese and biccies for dinner etc

and a million other things.

Awareness is the first step they say!

Awake during Sleep Time

So now I can't sleep. In order to get home after 6 hours on the plane and 2 hours on the freeway I drank 2 cans of diet coke and now, bam, awake at sleep time. Doesn't really matter except my thoughts are running away with each other and having a great old time while I am actually pretty exhausted.

I have been having these very strong feelings about the shortness of life lately. Not sure why, just have this sensation of "Don't put it off or it might not ever happen." What exactly I am not sure of, just everything that I want to do and be and see and feel. Not much really! This is an excerpt of some shit that I wrote while I was on the plane on the back of a boarding pass:

"I have also decided to calm the fuck down about everything and enjoy my life - which I am. I want to unblock and unlock myself, travel, practise my music and language, be true to myself and have fun doing it." That sounds pretty good. I also wrote down the lyrics to "When you were young" by The Killers because the Haymaker said he wants to sing it one day and I would really love him to. He would be kill Brandon Flowers thats for sure.

In other news, I caught up with Gina on the weekend in Sydney and she was doing really well. It was great to see her. And I saw Josie and Mon and the Hercules twins who I also love like brothers. Sydney drives me mental. I love it in so many ways, especially my old hoods of Surry Hills and the inner west. I went to the Cricketers Arms which is a great pub and also to the Rose in Chippo. Both places I have had so many good nights in. It's funny because I was always too scared to move back to Newcastle for fear of the ghosts of the past whereas now Sydney has a few of it's own. A few dark nights of the soul were had in that town people! But I guess they aren't ghosts really, just memories, some I would like to forget.

And now that I am back here the ghosts have gone and all that remains are bogans. Ha!

Home.

Tonight I came home from 4 days on the road for work and was that excited to get here. I kept thinking, "How did I spend 10 months overseas and never miss home once and now after 4 days am busting to get back?" The only answer I could come up with was:

1. Adelaide

2. Perth

Both boring as shit cities. Plus I just really dig having my own house at the moment. It's cool in a confronting way. No hiding behind flatmate banter. You want to talk, you have to call. You want to see people, you have to ask them over. You want to do bad dancing in sox in the dining room? It's all systems go. I have been talking to myself a bit more than usual but my friends that live alone tell me this is ok. I have at least one pep talk with myself each day which is usally at 7am when the alarm goes off. We have a chat about getting up v staying in bed. Eventually I kick off the doona and just give in to myself.

Other things I have been doing at home include playing guitar and watching online guitar tutorials which I find very informative and frustrating as they make every song look really easy to play which it is not. I also have been cooking organic vegies, listening to a lot of Prince and Stevie Wonder and enjoying my new internet connection. I drink lots of herb tea and am trying to get the word on a bit more.

“You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day, one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist. I mean it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I miss the idea of it. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people who miss the same imaginary place.”

Maybe it'a not an imaginary place after all. Maybe it's right here!

And we're back!

So I toyed with the idea of ditching this blog and not having one at all but then I thought, nope, I love a blog and this one has a great name. I'm keeping it. I am feeling a bit more private than usual about the current situation, not sure why, bu the need to write is greater than the need for privacy. So here goes.

So that Tate Update for the last couple of months is as follows:

• I have my own house and it's extremely cute and I love it.
• The Arms Reach Discography is out and sitting in a box in my cupboard. Hmmmmm.
• I have a new friend who lives next door. His name is Ross and he is very sweet but lives alone and walks his two cats on a leash. He brings me excessive gifts including CD's, DVDs, an address book with a picture of his dead mother in it, a pen, vegetables and the like. He is very lonely and is a good reminder to me to not push people away for the rest of my life or I will end up like him.
• My brother is overseas with his mate and is currently being an obnoxious straight edge hardcore kid.
• My finances are looking up for the first time in ages! Fuck that's a great feeling.

There's a fair bit happening at the moment and I am feeling strangely calm with a ripple of manic energy that constantly runs through me. The fire is starting to come back to flame after some time of being nothing more than a tiny glow deep in the dark embers of my soul. Ha! Sounds like a bad cock-rock lyric. But it's true.