i can’t help it. every time i go to the tip shop i buy something with a beer logo on it. it fuckin sucks. i can’t afford it… but these signs are kind of cool. ones six foot high and the other one isn’t… i don’t know where to put them now.

i also got a helmet…

i bought this picture from a garage sale and my mum thinks its beautiful but i think there’s something sus going on. her hands looks softly forceful. its jesus and st john by the way. i’ve started writing a song, i’ve only got the chorus though: “jesus and st john/gettin it on.” - should be a hit…

this will be super inspiring so everyone should check it out:

The Craft of Adventure will be an inspiring evening showcasing the photography, film, music and speaking talents of six adventure seeking Tasmanians.

http://thecraftofadventure.wordpress.com/

Saturday 4th July
From 6-9pm
At The Long Gallery, Salamanca Arts Centr

This is an exhibit that Sean Fennessy has put together for Amplified. Looks like it could be pretty damn interesting and i think everyone should check it out because (Betty Eats Cakes And Uncle Sells Eggs) photography and music are probably the two best things after beer and drawing. Heres the low down, yo:

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SOUTHERN EXPOSURE: IMAGES OF TASMANIAN MUSIC is an exhibition of local music photography produced over the last few decades by a range of photographers.

Photographers:
Jon Emerton
Scott Gelston
Ryan Cooke
Sarah Robinson
Kim Eij
Julian Teakle
Sam Orchard
Raena Jackson-Armitage
Kieren Griffin
Sean Fennessy

ARTS TAS (146 Elizabeth St) July 8-31
MAWSONS PAVILLION July 16-19
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Awesome!
love from josh.

I’ve made some things out of copper and sterling silver up in Byron Bay with my rad… They’re all polished and shiny now. Some of the copper’ll make you turn green cause that’s what happens… But it guess it’s all the rage these days anyhow.

The bottle and cup pairs are earings, the dinosaurs and man drinking are pendants, and the rest are nothing but shiny little things…

closer looks:

This is the second installment of my story. It’s day two and probably my favourite day of all. I’m still working on it so there’s probably a few mistakes but i’ll smooth them out soon enough. If you haven’t read the start, then you should. Its a few posts bellow.

Day 2

I was up early and the northern Victoria sun had taken the place of my motel Jesus. I filled up with tea, dreamed of toast, and made my way to the side of the road. Three minutes got me a ride with a young tradey to the CBD. I sat in a small café, ate a chicken focaccia and drank a long black. After ten dollars spent and a postcard sent I hitched a ride across the border into N.S.W.

Albury was full of cars but no one seemed to be heading north. I stood before an off ramp for an hour or two and had more conversation with a dead cockatoo under a Hume Highway sign than eye contact with drivers. I changed spot and I got an unexpected lift with a young mum and her two kids to dual servos on the edge of town. I asked around for lifts north but was told there’d be a better chance in five hours when the truckers come in to feed. Some misguided advice led me to another off ramp at which I stood for two hours chucking rocks at a sign and throwing hopeful glances and a thumb at the rarity that was a passing car. An old man with a carload of old women swerved to the side of the road going 90 and showed no signs of straightening until I got out of his way. I hated his generation for a good hour after that.

So, I decided the roads from Albury lead nowhere and the people that use them have no hearts. The service station seemed my best option and the attendant cured my blues with talk of definite lifts north. Three hours, one bad coffee, and a burger and chips later I started asking round for rides. I approached a stereotype in chair. His tattoos, big shoulders and grey beard all screamed murder, or at least armed robbery, but I was desperate.
“Can I ask you two questions first?” was his reply to mine. “When’s the last time you showered and how much cash you got?”
I was clean and I had enough cash; so I told him that much.
“You’ve got a ride then.”

As we walked to his double trailer tank truck, which by law he’s not allowed to give lifts in due to safety and insurance reasons, he told me the qualities of Ethanol. He had two tanks stuck to the back of his cabin with roughly 30 000 litres of highly flammable clear burning liquid in each of them. If we crashed and didn’t blow-up straight away, he explained, then we’d have to watch out cause we wouldn’t be able to see the spillages flame, making it pretty damn difficult to decide on an escape route.

I spent six hours from Albury to Sydney in a truck cabin with a wombat hating, Harley riding, cop bashing truck driver and I’ve never had a better time. Peter, his name being the only thing about him that didn’t remind me of jail, was your classic stereotypical biker hard-arse. He wore faded jeans and a navy blue polo top with two arms covered in badly executed jail tats protruding from his sleaves. Your eyes followed the blurring green lines to where his knuckles clutched the wheel of his livelihood. He kept his truck clean and had “no respect for the cunts that kept them like pigsties.” Truck drivers weren’t shit but a weak bunch of losers he’d say as we laughed about the shit coming through the two-way. He owned a farm and had a wife who he claimed was even harder than him. She once stabbed him in the shoulder with a potato peeler and he told her that it fucking hurt and if she stuck it in there she better as hell get it out. Once she bought a Commodore from a car yard and it was running hot so after the third time of taking the car back and being told ‘they’re meant to run hot’ he came back at midnight with his 33. and shot a hole through every radiator in the yard, picked up each shell and went home. He also had kids and had given his daughter’s ex-boyfriend a knockabout in the shed telling him “you better go in there and tell her it’s over and never come back”, cause he was a ‘poof’.

He had plenty of cars, a Harley, a dirt bike and a three-wheeler that he said tries to kill him every time he rides it. So next time it throws him off he’s going to shoot it. He has eight guns in a six gun case and shoots wasp nests with a 12gage and wombats with his 33. in the guts “so they die in their hole”. He got eight years for cop bashing but didn’t mind cause he got to see a bunch of his friends in there. He’s sick of men trimming their fucking pubes and talking about their fucking feelings. “What’s with these checkout-chicks that get held up with a sawn-off shotgun and have to get fucking counselling afterwards?” He’d had a shotgun down his throat and told the cunt to pull the fucking trigger and he didn’t need any counselling. “But don’t let a man tell you that a shotgun down your throat ain’t fucking scary, cause it fucking is.”

He cranked Lynard Skynard through his truck speakers as we chased the puddles of strong white light ahead. He liked all types of music, from country to metal to opera but wasn’t a fan of Paul Kelly. He says it takes them a while to get used to him after rocks up to the opera on his Harley.

One time after twelve bourbons and two lines of speed he fucked a stripper on stage. He used to keep his tobacco pouch down the front of his pants and another time after “fuckin’ for ten hours straight” at a party in Melbourne with a mate and seven girls, he was on a plane back home when he got up to take a piss. He opened and shut the cubical door, unzipped his fly and looked down.
“What the fuck!?” he says and burst out of the toilet with his cock hanging out of his pants and headed towards his mate. “I’ve got fuckin scabs all over my fuckin dick! Those bitches gave me a fuckin’ disease!”
He stood in the isle with his fly open as he and his mate examined the crusty dark red dots covering his manhood. He was asked to sit down and had to continue his examination half an hour later in the airport toilets. So, him and his mate stood staring at his groin by the airport bathroom sinks as fellow travellers squeezed by to wash hands or take a piss. He put his hand down to try scratch one of the scabs, it came off without pain, and he lifted up to his face.
“It’s fucking tobacco!” screamed his mate. “It ain’t a fuckin’ disease, its from your fuckin’ pouch!”
“Thank fuck.” He replied.

The stories continued and a few subtle hints told me that Peter didn’t think I was the worst bloke in the world.
“I can tell by the way you talk that you ain’t half bad, and you shake hands like a man, but if you’d given me a fuckin’ limp wrist I would’ve told you to sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up all the way to fuckin’ Sydney. I wouldn’t be talkin’ to ya if you were a fuckin’ loser.”
I felt honoured. And relieved that my media manipulated fears of truck driver molestation would not be realised. Life was good.

It was 11pm and we were almost there. I had no plan and little did I think that a ‘lift to Sydney’, though in this case extremely entertaining, doesn’t necessarily get you near anything, let alone a bed. Syd City is huge and it turns out that my cop-bashing pal was parking his truck about 18k from the nearest outer suburb… and it was midnight. Truck drivers have to record all there mileage so an extra few k can get them in a bit of trouble, let alone driving a 60 000lt gas truck into the ‘burbs to a motel, but my trigger-happy speed-snorting truck-driving mate had a heart of gold.
“I’ve done enough bad things in my life, its bout time I did something good.”
Wearing his heart on his sleave, between the faded green skulls and ribbons; he genuinely seemed concerned about what I’d do if I were dropped in some dark street in the middle of an industrial estate 18k south of civilisation. I guess a taxi could have saved me, but my cash funds were running as low as my phone credit and it was bound for disaster, so old mate went more than 30k out of his way to drop me at the nearest motel he could remember, The Cross Roads. I was eternally grateful for his words, his wisdom and ride.

I would have hugged him, but he would have stabbed me so we shook hands and said our thanks and farewells. He gave me his number for a lift back if I needed and I thanked him again as I jumped down from the cabin. He shifted it into first and took off back down the Hume. I sighed, smiled and walked towards the warm glow of motel lights. A bowl of coffee sachets, white towels on a double bed and a day worth remembering. Life was great.

to be continued…

Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of best blog name and winner of the taking good photos award: Michael Hodson.

http://ifuckinlovetakingpictures.blogspot.com/

I just hitched up to Byron Bay from Melbourne in four days and I’ve starting writing about it. Here’s the start.

Day One

I ain’t no rambler or drifter but I make do with the books I’ve read, the dreams I have and a road that leads me north.

No amount of Melbourne rain could dampen my spirits and even amongst the decrepit convenience stores and graffitied walls of Sydney Rd I dreamt of old time diners, truck-stops and highways and of Kerouac and Sal thumbing rides and getting high on Benzedrine and Bop. My belly was still warm from Burn City’s farewell gift of a hot chocolate and chicken pie but three hours in and the road didn’t seem so romantic anymore. I walked backwards along a black river with a sign and thumb out, but like the wind, the cars showed no sign of stopping anytime soon.

My first ride was a safety vest and some King Gs wrapped around a dust coated beer gut, and a lifetime of regrets. His face reeked of whatifs and ifonlys while his voice spoke of destinations and dollars he’d never see. He was kind though his laughter was forced. I said I was fine for money but there are only so many times you can refuse. “Buy yourself a fucking hamburger.” So I took the fiver and thanked him for the ride. I was happy as hell and I hoped he would be one day soon.

I was in Wallan now at a service station complex on the side of the highway. 50 minutes from Burn City, 19 hours from Byron Bay. I twirled the cardboard sign between my hands and eyed out the 18wheelers. I ate and asked around for lifts till a three hour ride to Wodonga showed its face. 110 on the Hume. Flat conversation and polite laughter wedged between awkward silences and a soft show of mutual respect for any sort of company. Me and Phil, the 30 something boring army mechanic, drove till the sun was as low as the petrol gage, which meant the moon was up and we were out of petrol. We sat in the dark for an hour just 6ks from our destination waiting for his niece to bring a jerry can. Trucks passed faster than the time and the conversation was as static as the car. An hour or two later I said goodbye to Phil and hello to a one handed Motel attendant who took $60 from my wallet and in return gave me a key and jug of milk. Room 8. A bowl of coffee sachets, white towels on a double bed and neon light shining through faded curtains that made me think of Jesus. I turned on the TV an the detective on CSI spoke of a murder at a roadside motel in room 8… I locked the door and latched the chain and hardly slept till morning.

to be continued…

I’m up in Byron Bay and i’ve been working on some stuff in my dad’s workshop. Didn’t have any major ideas so i stuck with what i know best… bottles, cups and beards. I’m gonna get involved with some monsters and dinosaurs thogh, so stay tuned.

I swear i had never heard if Bridgewater Jerry untill a few months ago and it got me keen to write some stuff with lots of references to Tasmanian places and folklore and such. I started a song that might turn into something…

Old Bridgewater Jerry made his was down
the banks of the Derwent to old Hobart town
And oh mother England look what you’ve done
the bars are riddled with maggots, the steets riddled with scum

I’m thinking i might turn it into the tale of a thief or something but i’ll do a bit more research before i do…

…. just thought i’d let you know.