It's been a couple weeks since the last blog, and will probably be a couple more before the next one since I've been traveling. Which makes this tough, cause I've actually got lots of things to talk about and lots of good new music to share. But I guess the most appropriate thing to do would be to work through things chronologically, which means starting with the blog about the Australia trip.
Pretty much all you need to know is that after 10 days in Australia and two failed attempts, on my last day there we finally found kangaroos and I got to play with them. End of blog.
Ok, not actually end of blog, but it was probably the high point of the trip. One of the high points of my life up to now, in fact. For some reason it was even more exciting than playing with cheetahs or baby lions. Maybe because I know/think a kangaroo won't maul me. And I got to feed them, which was great. One of them was slobbery like a dog, and one of them kept accidentally nibbling my hand while she tried to get the food out of my palm. She was my favorite.
I did also eat kangaroo a couple of times. Not my first time eating kangaroo, but my first time eating it in Australia, so that was also a goal of the trip. Sadly I learned it is illegal to eat koalas, but I wanted to do that too. A friend suggested I post a before/after picture on instagram of the kangaroos I played with and a kangaroo steak I ate a few days prior, which would have been fantastic, but I try to limit my instagrams to two a day, except in amazingly fun circumstances. But just know that it was considered and would have been great and accurately reflected my love of all living things, both in their playful and edible forms.
Other than that, the rest of the trip was great. A quick day-by-day run down: explore Melbourne, music festival, wine tour, best Chinese food outside China, work/opera, work/fancy dinner, explore Sydney, Great Ocean Road (x2 days), play with animals. So that pretty much accounts for everything, except that one day after the wine tour where I cannot, for the life of me, remember what we did. And I swear it wasn't because of the wine. We didn't even get drunk, though that did not stop the guy at the 2nd winery from thinking I was an alcoholic and pouring me less wine than everyone else.
The highlight (other than kangaroos) was actually seeing friends, though. I had a friend who is currently funemployed join me from Tokyo, and we visited with China/Japan friends who are from Australia, which was wonderful. A couple of them I hadn't seen in a long time, and one of them (Peter) I had seen pretty recently, but it was still great to see him again. The man's a legend. We give him a lot of shit for being really old, even though he's not that much older than all of us were when we got to JET, but he definitely plays into the part. We do, of course, say it with love. After all, rare is the atheist who will become an online ordained minister in order to fly halfway across the world and officiate the wedding of two good friends. Also, Peter, you better be reading this, because you need help with music, as you mentioned to us. The "World Wide Web" is a great place to find out what's "hip" with the "youths." If you're able to figure out how to connect your screen to your typewriter, that is. Try using the VHS.
Melbourne is where we spent most of our time, and it's a great city and apparently one of the most livable cities in the world. To be honest, though, I might have preferred Sydney. Melbourne is great, and pretty much all the Aussies I know are from there (as is Hiatus Kaiyote, who are incredible and make me want to live there just so I can be their friends and see them live all the time), but Sydney is a beautiful city. And the weather is really nice. And they have boats as public transport, which to me is a very novel thing and a great way to see the city. Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back. I'd like to see more of Australia, and my friends there, so I'll have to make it happen sooner rather than later.
Music is another thing I've had trouble deciding what to share. I bought this album right before I left and I basically listened to nothing else the entire time in Australia, so that was the obvious choice. But since then I've found a bunch of songs that I love, so I want to share them with you as well. But again, we're going to work through these blogs/my life chronologically, which means you get some Leif Vollebekk today. Which you will be very happy about, I hope, because he's kind of amazing. Even though he's Canadian, he's got the whole Americana Folk Rock thing down. He just released his second album, North Americana, and I can't stop listening. I heard the first single, When the Subway Come Above the Ground, on one of the sites I check for music, and about a minute in I knew I needed more.
Not all of the album is folk rock like that song, though. A lot of it is acoustic folk, but done to perfection. The album actually kind of reminds me of Laura Marling's album from last year, which bodes well for Leif Vollebekk because that album was amazing and one of my favorites of the year last year. In fact, I'm pretty sure this album is the first release of 2014 that's going to make it into my top 10 for this year. Anyway, he does the folk/blues thing really well too. I was actually reading on his facebook or website or something about the new album, and he was talking about how it was 4 years in the making, and there was a quote that I thought summed the album up really well and made me like it even more. It was something along the lines of how he's given four years of his life to this album and put everything he has into it, and now he's got nothing left, nothing but this album. And luckily for us he's sharing it. Cairo Blues, which is probably my favorite acoustic track on the album, definitely let's you feel it.
So here's a somewhat embarrassing confession for those of you who have read to the end of the blog. I love American Idol. It's kind of my guilty pleasure. I have never purchased any music by any of the contestants, and I think they generally make terrible music, but I love the show and it turns out some amazing singers. I often hear songs and think about how great it would be if someone performed them and how if I were a judge and someone performed one of the songs I had in mind, I would gain a lot of respect for them as an artist. And I am judging, so it still applies, it just makes no difference to the outcome of the show. The new season is currently in auditions (at least that's as far as I've watched. I need to catch up.), and though I know it won't happen, I really, really, really want someone to come in for their audition and perform Cairo Blues, to which the judges would be blown away and talk about what an amazing song it is and how this contestant is a real artist and someone to watch, etc. This would make me happy.
Pretty much all you need to know is that after 10 days in Australia and two failed attempts, on my last day there we finally found kangaroos and I got to play with them. End of blog.
Ok, not actually end of blog, but it was probably the high point of the trip. One of the high points of my life up to now, in fact. For some reason it was even more exciting than playing with cheetahs or baby lions. Maybe because I know/think a kangaroo won't maul me. And I got to feed them, which was great. One of them was slobbery like a dog, and one of them kept accidentally nibbling my hand while she tried to get the food out of my palm. She was my favorite.
I did also eat kangaroo a couple of times. Not my first time eating kangaroo, but my first time eating it in Australia, so that was also a goal of the trip. Sadly I learned it is illegal to eat koalas, but I wanted to do that too. A friend suggested I post a before/after picture on instagram of the kangaroos I played with and a kangaroo steak I ate a few days prior, which would have been fantastic, but I try to limit my instagrams to two a day, except in amazingly fun circumstances. But just know that it was considered and would have been great and accurately reflected my love of all living things, both in their playful and edible forms.
Other than that, the rest of the trip was great. A quick day-by-day run down: explore Melbourne, music festival, wine tour, best Chinese food outside China, work/opera, work/fancy dinner, explore Sydney, Great Ocean Road (x2 days), play with animals. So that pretty much accounts for everything, except that one day after the wine tour where I cannot, for the life of me, remember what we did. And I swear it wasn't because of the wine. We didn't even get drunk, though that did not stop the guy at the 2nd winery from thinking I was an alcoholic and pouring me less wine than everyone else.
The highlight (other than kangaroos) was actually seeing friends, though. I had a friend who is currently funemployed join me from Tokyo, and we visited with China/Japan friends who are from Australia, which was wonderful. A couple of them I hadn't seen in a long time, and one of them (Peter) I had seen pretty recently, but it was still great to see him again. The man's a legend. We give him a lot of shit for being really old, even though he's not that much older than all of us were when we got to JET, but he definitely plays into the part. We do, of course, say it with love. After all, rare is the atheist who will become an online ordained minister in order to fly halfway across the world and officiate the wedding of two good friends. Also, Peter, you better be reading this, because you need help with music, as you mentioned to us. The "World Wide Web" is a great place to find out what's "hip" with the "youths." If you're able to figure out how to connect your screen to your typewriter, that is. Try using the VHS.
Melbourne is where we spent most of our time, and it's a great city and apparently one of the most livable cities in the world. To be honest, though, I might have preferred Sydney. Melbourne is great, and pretty much all the Aussies I know are from there (as is Hiatus Kaiyote, who are incredible and make me want to live there just so I can be their friends and see them live all the time), but Sydney is a beautiful city. And the weather is really nice. And they have boats as public transport, which to me is a very novel thing and a great way to see the city. Anyway, I'm looking forward to going back. I'd like to see more of Australia, and my friends there, so I'll have to make it happen sooner rather than later.
Music is another thing I've had trouble deciding what to share. I bought this album right before I left and I basically listened to nothing else the entire time in Australia, so that was the obvious choice. But since then I've found a bunch of songs that I love, so I want to share them with you as well. But again, we're going to work through these blogs/my life chronologically, which means you get some Leif Vollebekk today. Which you will be very happy about, I hope, because he's kind of amazing. Even though he's Canadian, he's got the whole Americana Folk Rock thing down. He just released his second album, North Americana, and I can't stop listening. I heard the first single, When the Subway Come Above the Ground, on one of the sites I check for music, and about a minute in I knew I needed more.
Not all of the album is folk rock like that song, though. A lot of it is acoustic folk, but done to perfection. The album actually kind of reminds me of Laura Marling's album from last year, which bodes well for Leif Vollebekk because that album was amazing and one of my favorites of the year last year. In fact, I'm pretty sure this album is the first release of 2014 that's going to make it into my top 10 for this year. Anyway, he does the folk/blues thing really well too. I was actually reading on his facebook or website or something about the new album, and he was talking about how it was 4 years in the making, and there was a quote that I thought summed the album up really well and made me like it even more. It was something along the lines of how he's given four years of his life to this album and put everything he has into it, and now he's got nothing left, nothing but this album. And luckily for us he's sharing it. Cairo Blues, which is probably my favorite acoustic track on the album, definitely let's you feel it.
So here's a somewhat embarrassing confession for those of you who have read to the end of the blog. I love American Idol. It's kind of my guilty pleasure. I have never purchased any music by any of the contestants, and I think they generally make terrible music, but I love the show and it turns out some amazing singers. I often hear songs and think about how great it would be if someone performed them and how if I were a judge and someone performed one of the songs I had in mind, I would gain a lot of respect for them as an artist. And I am judging, so it still applies, it just makes no difference to the outcome of the show. The new season is currently in auditions (at least that's as far as I've watched. I need to catch up.), and though I know it won't happen, I really, really, really want someone to come in for their audition and perform Cairo Blues, to which the judges would be blown away and talk about what an amazing song it is and how this contestant is a real artist and someone to watch, etc. This would make me happy.
No comments:
Post a Comment