ELDORADO

Possibly a 59 or 60 model Cadillac Eldorado, not really sure. Spotted in Bedford earlier today.

I WANT TO LIVE HERE

"This trendy home was once a cement factory. The abandoned cement factory was discovered in 1973 and converted to this upscale home by architect Ricardo Bofill. The renovation took two years. The home contains various plants including cypresses, olive trees, palms, and eucalyptus. It serves as Bofillo’s apartment, exhibition space, model laboratory, archives, and architectural office. His renovation included exposing previously concealed structures, cleaning cement and demolishing some structures."

He certainly had an awesome vision of what that could become. Some of those rooms are amazing spaces, a modern day castle almost.....

It's in Barcelona in case you were wondering

THE HOOD # 144

Bubble Head

BOXING DAY HOLIDAY

A pat on the back to whomever invented the Boxing Day Holiday, time enough for a few quiet ales down at The Queens Hotel with a few buddies....

on the walk home I noticed the sunset was almost over and the sky looked almost apocalyptic, very cool all the same

BEAUFORT ST FESTIVAL 2011

I made it to last years but I missed this years and I'm definitely hitting up next years. Closing the street was clearly the best idea I had, clearly someone read my blog post from last year. Great clip with all of ths years highlights below....

credit to the crew at Cut & Paste for the clip

OH NO SEASICK STEVE

Some awful news this week. Seasick Steve is no longer coming to perform at the Festival of Perth. This is not good news as I had a ticket. Instead we get a band from Melbourne called Clairy Browne and the Bangin Rockettes. I'm sure they'll be great but they aint no Seasick Steve....

On Jools Holland

and interviewed on Jonathon Ross, interesting guy

THE HOOD # 143

Anarchy in Northbridge

MATT CORBY

incredible vocals, I've had on repeat for a bit now

MY ACTUAL CHRISTMAS SONG 2011

Nup, I can't do it, I can't leave Paul Kelly as this years Christmas song, he's really not my kinda thing, I was peer pressured into it. So this is my official Christmas Song for 2011. I give you Mr Chet Baker....

a tune to close out the evening with

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE

I'm hoping for an Ann Margaret Christmas myself.

PK AND SOME GRAVY

I hope everyone enjoys celebrating the fake birthday of a Jewish carpenter today/tomorrow, whenever you read this (no humbug intended in that statement - honest) and that you get heaps of cool prezzies. I usually pick a Christmas song about now, being the season and all. I've never been a huge Paul Kelly fan but so far this week three peeps have suggested this song so what the hey....

COME ON PERTH IT'S ALMOST 2012

I'd been hearing really really good things about a small French Bistro down on Beaufort st called P'tite Ardoise Bistro. Really really good things, so I made a booking for a few of us for last night. They couldn't fit us in until the second seating at 8.30pm which was perfect for us as one of the group had a late after work meeting.

Sadly it was not meant to be as when we arrived we were informed that they had a fridge breakdown and  as a result they were closed. Huh? Now I don't want to be picky and I don't want to bad mouth this small French Bistro that sounds really really good BUT.... in my 18 year career as a chef I had at one time or another experienced the breakdown of every single item in my kitchens. Fridges, ovens, lights, fellow chefs (they were the worst), dish washing machines - I could go on. But never once did we close a restaurant down because something broke. The meat and fish got shoved into the drinks fridge, we pushed BBQ's onto the verandah and grilled everything on those or we lit candles, dragged the fallen chef outside and slapped him back to his senses and then rolled our sleeves up and hand washed every item. But NEVER did we  once close down the gig.

Maybe the world has just gotten soft since I stopped cooking professionally, maybe candle light is awful for creating a foam under or the BBQ's just can't handle the aged ribeyes or maybe and just maybe the restaurants owner wasn't on deck last night and the staff milked the fridge incident for all its worth. I'm just sayin and I'm not pointing any fingers, but either way we no longer had a booking. So what now? Where do we eat at 8.30pm

I know, let's try The West End Deli, foods always good there. Off we sped

I wasn't a part of the actual conversation between one of our group and the girl at the West End Deli (I was looking for a park) but it went a little like this. 

"Hi, would you be able to do a table of 3 now? I notice you have a fair few empty tables"

"Oh, um, it's 8.30 and you'll probably not get your main for about 40 minutes...."

"So we can have a table but no entrees just mains? Is that what you're saying?" 

"Well, it's just that if you get your mains in 40 minutes that will mean it's past 9pm and we kind of don't serve main courses after 9pm" 

At this point my friend turned and walked away, slightly dumbstruck and majorly confused. As we approached him and asked if they had a table his response was "I have no idea but I don't think so" Now this is where I start to get a bit shitty. Perth has always had an inferiority complex when compared to its' east coast counterparts. Lately it's taken huge steps towards to alleviating itself of those issues. Yet somehow it still prevails. Again I'm not sure if this is restaurant policy (no meals after 9) and please do not let it be so, or if it's another case of the restaurants owners not being hands on and leaving their investment in the hands of staff who are much more interested in getting home to watch re runs of The Sullivans on TV than serve actual paying customers. 

You've got to do better Perth, much much better or you will always just be laughed at as the cashed up culture less west coast you choose to become. I walked into the Epicurian in Melbourne at 12.30am a couple of years back and received one of the nicest most warmest greetings I had ever gotten in a restaurant. They were happy to see me, seat me, inebriate me and serve me the best spaghetti marinara I had ever eaten at 1am anywhere. Meanwhile back in Perth at 8.45pm I'm hungry, agitated and confused.

We had but one other nearby choice and that choice was Barolo's. Really we should have just gone there from the get go. They were more than happy to seat us at almost 9pm, served us up some fantastic food and some excellent wines suggested by their well informed French sommelier. We were more than happy to hand over 300 of our hard earned dollars to these guys. More so than we will ever be at The West End deli again, I had really like the deli too. Maybe just for brekky huh? Unless 7am is too early for them!

 

SUNDAY SCHOOL? BUT IT'S SUNDAY!

It’s 2011. The appropriate reaction to people who think Jesus is a supernatural being is mild embarrassment, sighing tolerance and patient education. - Tim Minchin

God I hate opening a sentence with a link, so I'm putting this here in front of it. I seem also to have mentioned God already, which is slightly amusing considering the topic I'm writing about in this piece, but I digress, the point is this. This piece by Tim Minchin is being posted all over the interwebs today, Facebook, Twitter, email etc etc. It's a good read and the song is pretty good too (Not one of his classics but a shit load funnier than any song I've ever written) and it got me thinking about this time of the year. So, to the point. Jesus and Christmas, well two points actually.

I wasn't brought up in a religious household, yet I was christened an Anglican. This was my fathers doing, he being of the same "faith" and as my mother hadn't survived my birth I guess there was no clash with the Catholicism of her side of the family. It was entirely up to my father. So good old Anglican it was. That was my first trip to church and I don't think I went again until I was about 11. That was when my stepmother sent me to Sunday school, for I think, a period of two weeks. I have some memories of it, less of a memory of what must have been outrageous behaviour on my behalf to result in such a cruel sentence. "Two weeks and may god have mercy on your soul" Well yes let's hope he does cos I was heading straight into the belly of the beast.

The first shock to the system is getting up on a Sunday morning and finding my "good clothes" laid out on the end of my bed. "Put these on" was the command (it may or may not have been what I'm wearing above but those wing collars are pretty damn fine don't ya think? and it's about the right age, look at those shorts ladies) "But it's Sunday morning, wont I get them dirty?" "Not where you're going" I'm fairly certain my step mother isn't religious but I guess she was hoping it might sort me out, I'm not really sure. So I was dumped a few blocks away from home at one of those odd churches, you know, like the Uniting church. Not Anglican, not Catholic, one of "those other places"

If you've ever been to Sunday School, you'll know of the strange happenings within those walls. We were all made to sit in a circle on the floor. (which I just knew wouldn't be kind to my good clothes, there's a walloping when I get home) and hold hands and pray. Fortunately (or unfortunately) back then we spoke the lords prayer every morning before school started, so I knew the words. (State and church have since separated in public schools so this no longer happens). That was fairly uneventful, this school on a Sunday lark thing might not be too harsh after all. Oh but it was, then the sour looking old woman who was taking the class opened a book and commenced reading what felt like a friggen novel about some event in the life of Jesus. This was followed by a Q & A session, I totally flunked that bit.

Then we were given illustrated books to read, again depicting events in the life of Jesus. Now these I liked, there were pictures of a market with stalls filled with baskets of food and amphora's of wine and Roman soldiers and donkeys and heaps of other cool stuff. Looking back now I'm not quite sure if those pictures triggered the chef or the archaeologist in me, probably both. We even had a section at the back to colour in, frustrating though as they seemed to lack the coloured pencil I needed to shade that basket of olives in the brown/black hue it required. Sunday school suddenly sucked again.

The following week I reluctantly headed back, no books this time and we were mostly pushed out onto a bitumen area to play with some balls. There was something going on in the church and we were just a bit of a hindrance I think. Anyways there was some sort of incident with a ball, the rough bitumen and a girl and I was no longer welcome at Sunday school again..............oh really!

Since those heady days I have only ever ventured into a church as a tourist or for a wedding or funeral. I suspect strongly that this is how it will remain for the remainder of my days. Mostly because of stuff like the quote at the top of this post. So, no baby Jesus in my life and yet here I am at Christmas. Hmmm have I really ever connected the two? Maybe once during the above two week period but mostly it's a time to give gifts to loved ones and then hope you get even better ones back in return yeah? So on that note I'll sign off and I think I'll dribble on about the fat guy in the chimney next post, stay tuned.

DUBSTEP ON THE GREAT WALL

I know you all loved the other dubstep clip I posted back in September, so here is Remote Kontrol Dance's Marquese Scott aka Nonstop is on The Great Wall of China breaking moves to Butch Clancy's Russian Lullaby.

THE HOOD # 142

Face time

I LOVE MY HOOD

Mostly because I am constantly presented with the strangest shit, like this....

Yeah sure that'll work. Or you know, you could just put the roof back up - just sayin.

BILLY MY FRIGGEN IDOL

This is my Billy Idol, Prodigal Blues and such....

so what the in the bottom levels of hell is this?

he even does a version of White Christmas but I can't bring myself to share that as well. And no, this is not my Christmas song for this year

BANKSY V HANKSY

There appears to be a battle waging between Banksy and Hanksy (or are they one in the same?). A case of anything you can do I can do better? Spotted in Chicago 

I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING

at this, well at least you are now fully clued in on what I find funny. God damn tears to my eyes I tells ya.

BUTTER CRISIS

I was completely unaware of this crisis until I saw this video. I am now spending today collecting butter to ship to Norway, purely because I don't want this dude to come to my house and "take your butter from your refresherator and eat all of the butter in front of your family. I will make them watch" You have to watch this clip, this crisis is real people, very very real....wont somebody think of the Norwegian Christmas cakes? "It's not pl...er...pla....errr...ppp...errr....nice"

THE HOOD # 141

street pole street art

WHAT DOES LOVE MEAN?

These notes were posted to the back of the shop canopy next to our office some time ago. I've been meaning to take some pics for ages cos they're fairly awesome. I hurriedly snapped some yesterday, not the best but you can still read them well enough, there's quite a few but here's a selection of the best....

"A bunch of 4 - 8 year olds were asked...."

THE BLACK DRAGON

Major thanks to my brother for this link. 

"Unsuspectingly, one hell of a kung fu man. Something the Chinese didn't expect to see"

"With cat like speed, you know he takes care of business real quick"

BANKSY HAS BEEN BUSY

Backing up from this quite quickly with this piece in Poplar, London....

A VALIANT

Classic spotted in Northbridge this afternoon

BILL CUNNINGHAM

I left the sweltering Pilbara behind me this morning, won't be back till the new year. Seriously hot this week with temps easily reaching 50 degrees C. Check out the temp at the airport at 7.23am .... 34.2 C already, yoiks. 

Flying home on a Wednesday for a change meant I was going to be in the way of my house cleaner so I decided to go and catch a movie I'd been meaning to see for ages so that she could do her thing in peace. A quick glance on the web showed that today was the last day it was showing in Perth too so excellent timing. 

That film was Bill Cunningham New York. A documentary about a quite extraordinary individual, fingers crossed he rides past me on his Schwinn ("my 29th bicycle, 28 stolen") when I hit New York in a month, not that he'll be photographing me for the Times. Highly recommend you try and catch this flick somewhere somehow....

AND LET'S NOT FORGET HANKSY

Seen in Lower East Side, Manhattan, NYC.

BANKSY HITS THE SKIES

New Banksy in Liverpool

and in London

LA LUNA

The clouds parted in time and I got to see an amazing eclipse, so red. Sadly I didn't have a suitable camera up here with me and had to rely on the work camera. It really couldn't capture the colours or any detail. I wanted to get a pic like this....

But I only got these....

THE HOOD # 140

Robert Jenkins added a lil bit more to the Mary st mural during the recent Beaufort st Festival....