Mentalechoes

Sitting in my flat on a Sunday afternoon, the temperature feeling like it’s around mid 20’s, reminds me a lot of Brisbane on Sunday afternoons at the end of summer. Sitting in a chair in just a pair of long shirts, enjoying the feeling of being hot. Just a little bit of a sweat going, and wanting to have a cold can of drink in your hands to cool you down. Lovely!

It’s one thing I do miss from back in Brisvegas; the summer heat. There’s something very relaxtastic about sitting on a couch of an afternoon on a verandah, drinking a beer, while the stereo plays in the background. Maybe a mate or two to complete the ensemble. Perfect!

It’s been a bit of a shit summer this year, all things told. And I’ve been told by more than a couple of locals that this weekend is the last warm weather of the year. I do find that hard to believe after all the stuff I’ve been forced to swallow about global warming. If anything, I would expect we’ve got another 3 months of fine weekends until the temperature cools slightly and I need to put on a light skivvy around the end of December.

I live in hope!

Andy.

Tags: Brisvegas, summer time, hot afternoon

It was last friday night that I found myself in the Red Light District to play an evening of poker with a circle of loose mates in a flat right in the center. It’s almost strange to wander through the crowded main strip because you’re not there to lap up women with your eyes, but just taking the most direct route through that part of town. Try as you might you can never move quickly because the hoardes of tourists are only moving at a slow crawl, giving their lust and curiousity ample time to be satisfied.

Now as it turned out, I’d gone out of the money on the first game, and bought into some gear being delivered before the beginning of the second, which made me a bit short to meet the minimum buy-in at the table, so I had to go and get some more cash from the bank machines at Dam Square. That was the easy part, and on it’s own would never have even turned into anything remotely interesting. No it was the phone call I took while on the way to the cash machines where things took a strange turn. My friend who was hosting the poker night rang me and asked if I could pick up 20 chicken wings from the chicken shop near the old church. No problem I told him. You could count the number of snackbars on one hand in that part of town so it would standout as much as the Christian Youth Hostel, and so couldn’t be hard to find.

The thing was, the chicken shop was actually really fucking hard to find and it took me three circuits of discount corner where all the cheap nasty hookers assembled to find it. Honestly I started getting worried because two of the girls I kept passing started coming out of their windows to intercept me and drag me into their love dens. Luckily for me two years of playing competition touch football back in Bris-vegas had made me nible as cat on my feet so I managed to dodge their groping fingers without having to resort to any kung fu moves

When I did find the shop I went in and made my order for 20 chicken wings and the nice man with the bored shitless look on his face politely asked me if I would eat them there or take them away. Fuck me, was he kidding? Did I honestly look like the kind of person that could even eat 20 chicken wings in one sitting?! I could have pondered that some more, but I didn’t bother, instead I told him takeaway and texted my friend the wings were in the fryer.

Once the food was in hand, I began the walk back to the flat, and on the way had to pass discount corner one last time. This one very large breasted black hooker saw the bag in my hand and began gesturing for me to come over. I waved her away and continued walking. I’m not sure what caused me to turn around, some latent spider sense I wasn’t aware I had, or the ravenous growls coming out of her throat, but the next thing I knew this woman was chasing me down. Christ it’s scarey how frighteningly fast 120 kilos of hungry hooker can move when they want to. She almost had me but I managed to cut through some stoned as fuck tourists and make it past her safety zone at point she turned and went back to her love den. It was a close one though and I made a mental note to watch that for the next time.

After I made it back to the flat and I was happily chowing down on some wings, I had a laugh to myself thinking that it’s not the drugs or alcohol that gets you attention in that place, but rather the piping hot spicey chicken wings. Funny how they never mention that in any of the guide books.

Padwanna!

Tonight at Amsterdam’s Heineken Music Hall I saw one of the great bands of my time, Duran Duran! Now I’ve been a Duranie since these guys first hit the scene with Planet Earth (which is actually playing in the background on my piss poor excuse for an entertainment center as I write this) back in 1981 when I was but a really young teeny bopper. 24 years later, to see them live, completes one of my lifes great desires.

Like a fine wine, these guys have gotten better with age. Over the 2 hours they played they took us on a journey of classic 80’s glam Duran all the way through to their new look, new millenium latest releases. Standing there dancing to the techno-electro-dance-rock-pop-new wave-synth numbers, I was transported back to being 18 again and then taken all the way forward through my young life to now. Ahhh… it was like a ride in some magical time machine with 2000 of your closest old friends.

You can see that the band really had fun too, as there was this aura of joy around them as they played. I read just recently on John Taylor’s website that after finally knocking his coke addiction on the head, he realised that he was passionate about the band and the music, and tonight it really showed!

Really, these guys represent the last of the great 80’s and 90’s rock synth fusion bands to still be recording and touring! At their peak they were icons of style and everything new wave. Unlike a lot of “pop” bands back then, they weren’t trying to keep a foot in the 70’s. Fuck no, they were going where noone had gone before! They wanted to bring a new sound to a new generation. Their influence in music would imprint itself into the dance music that was to follow them, particularly in UK house styles that was so popular in early underground rave parties.

When they finally hang up the instruments and stop releasing records (pray that it is not so for a long time), a musical era will come to an end. I don’t think the world will see their like again for they are unique as is their sound and their look.

Padwanna.