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March 21 Green with, well, hairspray.Friday is always one of the best days of my life, and this year St. Paddy's Day fell on a Friday and I was in Heaven (well, the atheist equivalent anyway, I am pretty sure the equivalent is a pub on Paddy's Day).
I was expecting to work behind the bar so I took the day off my regular job. It was only after I cancelled my regular job at the fruit shop that I found out I wasn't needed. I COULD have gone to work, but I am not one to turn down a whole day off on my favourite day to drink.
I got to Irish Murphy's by bike at the crisp time of 7am for my free breakfast (Ah, the benefits of being a chronic alcoholic at an Irish bar).
The breakfast was great. There were sausages, bacon, fried tomato, fried mushrooms, a hasbrown, black pudding and some bread. With a Guinness to wash it down it was indeed food fit for a king, or at least an arrogant drunkard.
Paddy #1 was already drinking when I got there at 7, and he proceeded to drink a further 4 pints before gettig on his bike and heading to work. Brave, brave man.
Just as people started to arrive I went to go and help the workers set up the outside area for the day. This took ages and I wasn't too pleased when I found out that I wasn't going to get paid for it, so I went home to get changed into my kilt and grabbed my pipes so I could make some money busking.
When I got back to the pub there were a few problems. Apparently some other buskers had set up and my pipes were too loud to play inside as it would drown them out so I was asked to open up the outside stage at 2pm, which gave me a good 30 minutes to get another Guinness under my belt.
I went outside and belted out a few tunes only for it to become increasingly obvious that nobody was going to come outside, plus the band on the stage was starting to set up, so I made short work of it and decided to call it quits and go inside to get tanked.
Luck struck when I was packing up though. The piano accordian player from inside came out and introduced himself as the old Drum Major of Newtown Pipe Band from a time before I was a member.
He proposed that we belt out a few duets inside and cause a stir. I was in favour of that, and just as we were about to head inside the distinct sound of bagpipes was heard coming from the stage.
Yeah, that's right, Donnegal Express was the band booked to play.
For those of you out there who were dropped as children I may need to point out that Donnegal Express is one of the major Celtic bands in Geelong and their piper happens to be Graeme Bolton, another member of the Newtown Pipe Band, and a bloody good piper too. He doesn't really play with us anymore because he is always in professional bands earning a lot more money than any of the other people in the band.
Basically, me opening for Graeme Bolton is a complete joke. Barry (the old Drum Major) and I had a quick chat to him and then we went inside to make a bit of noise.
Barry went and got his chair and we found a good spot. The spot was so good that there were already people playing there and I had to wait. However, Barry knew them so he got up and had a go with them, and after a few songs it became apparent that they weren't going to be moving anytime soon so we went to the stage in the front bar and set up. Barry left his chair in the back bar to save space.
We belted out Highland Cathedral (one of my personal favourites) and Scotland the Brave and were getting set to do a few more when Benny O'Toole told us to get off the stage as he was about to host a competition, so off we went.
It was odd how we got really big applaudes at the end of each song, yet nobody gave us money. Bastards.
We got asked to play Happy Birthday for a girl near the booths, so we did that and then I decided I was done for the day. If I wasn't getting paid and I was already feeling a little bit drunk I wasn't going to keep playing.
I went and signed up for the Guinness and oyster competition and then went scouting to get more people to sign up to. The memory of Bobby Dazzler is still fresh in my mind.
During my scouting I came across a Yankee and a Mauri who both swore they were going to slaughter me in the competition. Since this was going to be my first competition I was sure that they would beat me.
After a quick chat to the Yank I found that it was his first competition too so we made an alliance that if one of us won we would buy the other a pint. The prizes were a $300 bar fridge for first place and a $100 voucher for beer for second place. Both very excellent prizes.
The Mauri was a different story though she (yeah, SHE) was very intimidating. Very fierce girl and I was pretty sure she would either beat me or stab me, so I kept my mouth strategically shut and listened to her brag about by how much she was going to beat me.
I hung around with some mates until the competition time roled up and I went to the placce. I was in heat one, directly against both the Yank and the Mauri. The ultimate showdown.
The idea of the competition was to eat six raw oysters out of the shells one at a time and then neck a pint of Guinness and hold the empty glass over your head. Simple.
GO! I struggled getting the oysters out of the shells, but the pint was no problem. Guess what dear readers, you are now reading an article by the second place getter of heat one. Neither the Yank nor the Mauri came first. In fact, the Mauri was struggling to get through the second half of her pint when I had finished and was having a look around.
Unfortunatly second place in a heat gets you nowhere so I was out of the competition.
I did however earn the right to make fun of the Mauri for being probably the weakest drinker in the competition, and to her credit she took it well, and I was unstabbed.
The Yank was heading off after that and I took this chance to start an international incident.
I told him we were going to have a skulling competition just between us. Australia Vs. America, for the glory of being the world's greatest beer drinker.
One pint each, and on the command of go from the Yank's girlfriend we were to neck them.
This one was no competition. I had my pint finished cleanly and placed down just to watch the Yank spill the second half of his down his shirt. We all had a bit of a laugh and they went on their way.
The night started to get blurry after that, but I clearly remember having a bit of a dance, being inappropriately groped by a bunch of girls (who then went on to break my sporran), getting my hair and beard spray painted green against my will (by a man named Greenwood nonetheless), being told be a gorgeous Scottish girl that if my beard wasn't green she would kiss me (me beard wasn't green for long), seeing Jackie (who refused to dance with me) and drinking a lot of scotch that I smuggled in.
I also beleive I traded all the money in my hand (about $2.30) for a pint.
The stuff I remember was an absolute blast, except for when Jackie wouldn't dance with me, so I went home drunk and heartbroken, but still in high spirits.
An absolutely great night. I will go out on a limb and say it was probably the best day in the whole history of time. 15 hours of drinking and not even a hangover the next morning. Next morning was only a bit dodgy because I started work at 7am, and I was still painted green!
I can't wait until next Paddy's day.
A special thank you to John, Ade, Jack, Dave, Mitch, Tess, Hame, Lonza, Simmo and Mart for helping make the day that much better. February 24 Beer = loveIt is my well found (and poorly documented) discovery that I will use nearly any excuse to go and get drunk and usually cause all kinds of conflict and conveniently forget all the bad stuff until the hangover has gone away. Last night was no exception.
I should have taken heed. I felt that the night was going really well and I thought that it was getting pretty late and I should go home until I saw that it was only midnight, so I kept drinking. Smart move right there.
I essentially pissed up all my uni book money again and I am going to be in a bit of strife, but hey, apparently I will grow out of the compulsion to over-drink phase of my life. Apparently.
I started the night getting myself drunk at the Sawyers Arms just to rack up another pub for my challenge and I discovered they have very reasonably priced Jameson's Irish Whiskey, dangerous.
I then went off and met up with Jack and we went off to the Barking Dog where we intercepted the Deakin pub crawl and found Sticko. We had a brief chat and downed a few pints and realised that we probably have 15 members and that means I can get the ball rolling for People for Pints. I actually spent too much time trying to sort this out and we all eventually wandered off to Room 99.
Things got hazy around there and I remember the line being too long for Room 99 and then I remember everyone being gone and then I was in Eureka drinking scotch. I clearly remember most of the people I was out with scattered throughout the night and I think Dave and Bretcha were fighting or something. Way too hazy.
But then the most amazing thing (lie) happened and it is the actual reason the title is what it is. I stumbled along and basically mashed some poor girls foot with my work boots and she yelled out in pain, and I was about to tell her to shut up, but there was the slight problem of her being absolutley gorgeous and I suddenly didn't want to yell at her and I apologised more than I have ever apologised in my life and she said she had a stuffed foot earlier and that I didn't really hurt it that much because it was already sore so I offered to buy her a drink to make up for it anyway and then her mates said they were leaving and they all left and I was shattered, BUT she did lean over and give me a kiss on the cheek. I think I am in love, well, I was last night and I happily stumbled off, until I realised I had no idea who she was and I sprinted after her (not easy in a packed night club) but she was gone. Great, trust my luck to have them actually leaving instead of just trying to get away from me like most people do! Damn it.
Well, I was still exstatic and kept drinking and for some reason I went to Home House with Pete, Rach, Nicole and some guy.
I can barely remember any of this, but my next memory is getting woken up by a complete stranger in an alley way because that is where I passed out. I don't know how I got on my own, but I am sure the booze had something to do with it. The girls who woke me up were pretty cool and they drove me home but to my horror my hat was gone! That was my favourite hat and it is completely gone!
At least I fell in love with a complete stranger. Good on me. February 21 Island of PhillipLast weekend was Rhiannon's 21st birthday bash on Phillip Island and it blew my mind.
I am going to keep this short and sweet. The event involved a lot of drinking and featured a small bash by me on the bagpipes at the place of dinner. There was a night club and a beach. There was an Irish pub and a 20c coin that made me drink a lot of beer quickly.
There were a bunch of fire twirlling hippies and a bunch of cockheads that followed our group back from the club.
There were plenty of airbeds stolen from me. Bastards.
Basically it started with getting to the camp site and cracking a few beers. This soon spilled onto the beach and ended for me when Caz vomited everywhere and I took her back to the tent so she could get some sleep and I could go back drinking. The downside was that I fell asleep first and didn't get to go back to the beach and all the booze I took to the shoreside was drank by other people. At least they didn't waste it, even though I was pretty keen on keeping the empty bottle of scotch.
The second day involved a great bacon and eggs breakfast cooked by Goog and a bit of a walk on the beach that spilled into a trip to town. This lasted quite a while and ended with a game of mini golf, and I kicked some serious arse, providing the idea was to get the highest score possible. I did delibrately bugger up one of the holes activities to get a clean hole in one. Smooth.
After golf all the bastards who drank my drinks the night before bought more alcohole for themselves and none for me and we went back to camp to drink.
After a few hours we got ready to head out for dinner so everyone threw on their fancy clothes and I got kilted up and primed my pipes and headed off.
There was plenty of speeches at the dinner and Manny, Kane and I started a 20c game and I lost outright since I had every second drink and Manny didn't have any!
After all the birthday formalities were over we went back to the camp to get ready for a night on the town, so I drank as much of my beer that I had left and realised I was too drunk to be bothered changing out of my kilt so I went out kilted up and I had a heap of people trying to look up it all night. It was a bit funny, but it annoyed me later on.
Everybody was really getting into it and it was a really great night even though the only club shut at about 2 or 3 so we wandered back along the beach to go back to the camp to drink and a heap of dipshits followed us and I was getting really annoyed at them.
When we got near the camp we saw a big tent on the beach and all this fire lit and it turned out to be a bunch of hippies doing fire twirling and shit so we hung out with them all night until I fell asleep on the beach and then decided to go to bed.
I went to my tent and found Manny had stolen my air bed for the second night in a row and nearly everyone was fast asleep so I went into Caz's tent again to hang out with her and Jean who was this cool guy from somewhere overseas I think.
The next day was spent packing up and I made Lara cook up a heap of hamburgers that ended up looking shit so nobody ate them and Lara got angry at me.
We all went into town for breakfast and then everybody went on their own ways and the party was over.
It kicked a serious amount of arse and I am still nursing my highly alcohole damaged insides.
Oh yeah. I lied about this being short.
Check out the gallery for some pictures I took of the event. January 31 BonbeachI figured it was about time for me to have a new drinking misadventure and I had a trip coming up to Melbourne. Put the two together and only fun situations can arrise.
I headed up to Bonbeach in the Western suburbs of Melbourne on Saturday to meet up with my long-term friend, Elliot, and all I brought was scotch, chips and a change of clothes. There was simply a vibe that this was going to be a good night.
Elliot lives in a house rented by a few of his mates and when I got there at four in the arvo and we all started drinking while Azza brought in at least two more slabs and started calling up people.
A lot of the night was spent out on the porch knocking back drinks and I was a bit shocked to see I was the only scotch drinker. Plenty of people on Beam and Jack, but only poor old me on Johnny. Well, my bottle didn't last long and there were plans flowing to head down to the golf course and still flags, and the potential to victimise other residents with a barrage of eggs, but all these plans involved more alcohol, so I caught a lift down to the shops and bought another slab with Azza. Aaah, the night was still young then.
For many hours there were no problems apart from Azza'a little brother declaring how much he hated Asians right in front of a girl who was part Chinese. When he was told of this he just responded 'Your skin isn't very Asian coloured'. Nothing like the logic of a fourteen year old with at least a six pack and a half under his belt.
Things started getting more and more social as heaps of people I didn't know and didn't meet showed up, and the idea of going down to the beach was thrown up and a few of us went down. In retrospect, swimming in the ocean in the middle of the night while drunk is not a good idea, but nobody presented that at the time.
Another thing that may not be seen as a good idea is going skinny dipping just because everyone else did. For some reason I ended up throwing my undies at Azza and hitting him square in the face (probably the only time I can throw well is when I am too drunk to be coordinated), and that was the last time I had any contact with my undies. They ended up being tied in a knot and used in a game of piggy in the middle. Since I was the piggy, I quit and went to shore to dry off. Eventually, the bastards with my undies came to shore and when I asked for them back one of them grabbed them and bolted into the ocean and threw them as far as he could. Well, they are floating around somewhere now. At least I still had my pants, so it wasn't a complete loss.
Since I am a nice guy, I gathered up everyones stuff and helped carry it back the the house and when eveyone collected their stuff from me I noticed that my shirt was missing and nobody could be fucked helping me try and find it. So I swore at them a bit and grabbed my knife and went back to the beach.
There was no trouble along the way, but a couple of people had decided to have sex on the beach roughly where my shirt would have been left so I thought the responsible thing to do would be to interrupt them and see if they knew where my shirt was. They politely told me to go away and I wandered back to the house where my sandals and hat were now missing.
It was getting pretty late at this stage and I was getting a bit grumpy so I went to bed.
In the morning all my shit turned up. Somehow my shirt ended up in the laundry. Go figure.
I was planning on leaving at noon, but when I went out to pack my car Elliot asked what that red shit under my car was. I knew exactly what it was. It was my transmission fluid.
For those of you out there who aren't very mechanically minded, it is NOT a good thing when your transmission fluid is on the road instead of in your transmission sump.
Mum and Dad ended up having to drive right across Melbourne to do a quick fix of the car and then I bolted home. All fun and games.
Anyway, the car is now at home on blocks and I have to try and fix the fucking thing, so I better dash. October 09 The newer it is...I thought I better add another news article for those of you out there that don't like the bagpipes. I do find it odd that you have decided to read the journal of a man who plays said instrument.
Well, it's not REALLY news, just more of what happened at the pub last night that didn't involve bagpipes.
After I finished playing the pipes I had a chat to Trent who let me know all about the amazing Halloween night at Irish Murphy's on October 31st. (I know this is a blatant advertisement, but I expect any of my friends who read this to show up, it should be a great night). He also told me there is going to be happy hour drinks from 7 til midnight. I have already decided what I am going to go as, and as my friends will easily recognise, it's the kind of costume that has landed me in legal trouble in the past.
Bah! Enough of the free ads. I had a chat to Trent until I decided to go. At this point I noticed that it was pretty late and Jack should be finishing work soon, so I went and visited Jack. Due to the timing of some phone calls, Lochie met us there too and we worked out our plan for the night.
Jack had to make an appearance at a birthday and then he was off to the pub at 11, so Lochie and I planned to meet there at 10. SInce it was now 9 it gave me just enough time to drive home, eat some yoghurt and then walk back to the pub. Which is what I did.
When I got to the pub I met Rach, Pete and Nicole. Nicole offered me a piping job to open the Little Aths season but I had to run it by the band before I could accept it since it is on show day and we already have a gig on that day, so I had to sort out the times for the events.
We all had a chat until Lochie and Michelle arrived. After a bit of people moving about and all their commings and goings it ended up being Pete, John and I around a barrel discussing the fate of Pancreas.
Pete and I wandered over to the table that Lochie, Rach and Nicole were sitting at when John left and we pretty much stayed there until Jack got there.
Actually, we pretty much stayed there after Jack arrived too. When I say 'we', I mean Jack, Pete and myself. Rachel and Nicole kept heading off to the dance floor and Lochie kept following for the whole night.
The only time the group shifted was when the back bar closed and we went to sit by the fire.
This is where we bumped into Spealto McLead who hung out with us for the rest of the night.
If I said the rest of the night was uneventful I would be telling a lie.
Benny came up to me at closing time and told me to get Jack and go to the back bar. I thought we were finally going to get knock off drinks after putting in the tough drinking efforts for the last year or so.
We went out the back to find out there was a bomb threat called in on the pub.
Thats right. Even after the IRA are disbanded Irish pubs get bomb threats. Benny moved us out the back bar so we didn't get harassed by the cops. I've had enough of that for one lifetime.
We went to K-Caf after the whole bomb incident turned out to be nothing.
Not much happened. We all just got tired.
Then Pete and Rach drove home together. Jack went home tired. I went home in a dash for the toilet. Spealto went home alone and Lochie and Nicole went to Lochie's home in a surprise twist that none of us saw coming. By none of us, I mean all of us. We just didn't actually expect it to happen.
I did a little bit of updating in regards to the photos. There are some new photos of times when I had a beard. Well, they aren't really new, I just took them from another one of my galleries on this site. There are some brand spanking new photos of me in the 'old photos of me' gallery. I know they aren't old photos, but they will be one day, so see them now, before it's too late.
Thats pretty much it for now. I better get some work done. October 03 Damo's birthdayLast Saturday I went to Damien's 20th birthday and the attendance was pretty poor. We were meant to all meet for dinner at the Wharfshed and then head out. At 7:30 (the time we were meant to be meeting for dinner) only Damo, Kate and myself were present. About half an hour later Damo's mates from Safeway rock up and we got to finally get some food. Jess from Safeway felt the need to 'inform' the other people there that I was one of the people who 'drove around Corio in balaclavas with a knife threatening people'. I told her that we drove around Norlane obeying the speed limit with a cap gun in the car without actually threatening anyone. I will point out that there were absolutely zero reports of anyone in the car handling the cap gun in Norlane. Jess then called me an idiot for doing it so I told her we really didn't do anything wrong. She asked why the cops were called and I had to explain the intricate workings of the idiocy of the general public. She then called it stupid again, and I told her that she didn't even have the full story so how could she even know if it was stupid or just dickheads getting scared over nothing. It was at this point one of her mates told me that once Jess gets an opinion she cannot be shifted from it. I took this as a stepping stone to tell her that if her opinion about something she knows nothing about cannot be shifted by clarification by a person who knows all the facts on the situation made her a prime example of the type of idiots the get spawned into society. Perhaps it did not make the most pleasant dinner atmosphere, but hey, I really dislike idiots. I had the spag bol and it was pretty bloody good. I knocked back a pint of Stella and we all started making plans on going out around the time Keegan arrived. I know that I am a pain in he arse at times, and a few people would argue that I am a pain in the arse ALL the time, but I guess I was just a bit on edge so the pain in the arse factor was pretty high, especially after bing called stupid. The Safeway people were under the impression that Lamby's was a good place to go on a Saturday however much that Keegan and I were strongly suggesting Statik. Yes I am aware that Statik is shit, but it was their birthday celebration and they had cheap drinks, unlike Lamby's which is ALWAY crap on Saturdays and has rather expensive drinks. Well, we ended up at Lamby's as the Safeway crew outnumbered us. After about 45 minutes of pure shitness it became evident that it was going to remain shit and we planned on heading off. Keegan and I were thinking to still hit Statik and then move onto Eureka and finally Homo. The Safeway crew decided that Room 99 was the place to go despite the fact that Saturday is the day when they DON'T have cheap drinks so it is expected to be dead. I told them it would be crap and then went to Statik with Keegan, Damo and Kate and we didn't see the Safeway people again. I will cry about that later. We hit Statik and met Nicole and Bracken. Keegan and I polished off two jugs of Fat Frogs each and a few other minor drinks before dashing to the Brit to see Keegan's boss' band play. Nicole and Bracken shifted off to Eureka. Some more minor drinks and it wasn't long before the Brit closed and off we headed back to Statik so Keegan could talk to some people he knew. It was about this time that I decided to go to Eureka and Damo came with me. Keegan was going to catch up later. On the way to Eureka (a whole walk around the corner) we bumped into Langy and Big Bracken. They were both heading home so I borrowed Matt's passcard thing to get into Eureka cheap. Damo then decided to go home and off he went. At Eureka we caught up with a few people including Nicole and Bracken and when Keegan found us there weren't many people left that we knew so we all headed to Homo. After a couple of jagar red bulls we got into the VIP room thanks to Bracken and we all kicked back until we felt like leaving. When we did leave it was light outside, I had zero money and I felt sober. What a crock. I have spent $30 in the past and felt wasted and this time I spend about $100 and feel like I had a good nights sleep. Bah! I proceeded to then walk to Deakin and do some assignments. I was really hoping to get smashed as it was meant to be the last time I was heading out until exams are done. August 09 Lachlan's 21st (oh what a feeling)Lachlan’s 21st was on last Saturday. Needless to say, it kicked arse. Frankly, whenever someone organizes to get my mates together and supply us with beer, it earns a huge positive opinion from me. Seriously, great party Lachie. I will see you on Friday. Remind me to buy you a pint.
After Luke, Manny and I managed to arrive and gave Lachie his present we hit the bar… repeatedly.
We drank a lot that night. Heaps. It was brilliant. Lachie’s mum even gave us some pizza. It’s OK, I saw the delivery guy, it wasn’t Domino’s so it was edible.
For some reason I felt that I had to have a friendly fight with the bartender. It went for a whole 5 seconds and consisted of him kicking my legs out, so I stood up and lifted him off the ground and then sat him on his arse. So he got up again and kicked my legs again, but as I fell I grabbed onto him and dragged him down and ended up pinning him down. By my count that shows that I won two out of three scuffles which proves me stronger than bartenders. I rule. There was a downside though, the bartender got carpet burn on his elbow, which sucks since I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone and carpet burn can sting sometimes. I also managed to also get carpet burn on my elbow and I did a bit of damage to my wrist, but hey, wounds heal and chicks dig scars. August 06 Friday nightSome words to describe last night:
Disgraceful, excessive drinking, scary, questionable locations, public drinking, private drinking, tiring, destructive, tresspassing, painful.
I'm sure there are more, but frankly I have just worked my only shift for the week hung over. I'm too shitty to write anything else, all I can say is that I'm definately having a few drinks tonight. July 10 I hate you allI hit Melbourne last night with Jack and Billy Baxter.
Billy took us to his cousins bar (the Holliava). It is a trendy little venue with a way too generous manager. We ended up doing 15 pots of heavy each and we all agreed that that was more than enough for us... so there was no doubt that we were going to Steve's bar.
We picked up Kane on the way there and then we all hit Dallas bar. We got there and Steve started dishing out the free drinks. Jack and Billy bailed at around 2-4 and Kane and I kept on drinking.
We kept going until the place shut and then we went back to Jack's dad's apartment and tried to get some sleep. All I can say is that when the night is fucking cold and you don't have a blanket that a heater is the greatest thing in the world to sleep in front of.
Another thing that I now know for a certain is that I officially hate everyone on Earth after 12 hours of drinking.
I feel so terrible. April 21 I'm older than you... unless I'm notI turned 20 last Thursday. You can thank me later. I had a bit of a bash at Irish Murphy's. I set a challenge to anyone who would listen. The challenge was to drink ten pints including one each of the following: Guinness, Kilkenny, Stella Artois, Carlton Draught, Bulmers, VB, Boddingtons and Heineken, plus two beers of the drinkers choice. Only 5 people took up the challenge. Credits to Wez, Pete, Jack, Manny and myself for attempting this milestone of mankind. I request your loudest applause for Wez and myself for completing the drink list. Pete was only one drink away from his goal and Jack and Manny were just two away. Good effort. I don't want to comment too much on the night, simply because after ten pints, I can't remember too much about the night. I have a few photos for anyone to look at if they give a shit, just check the gallery. |
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