The world adores matt hayward

How can you some up this chestnut? Well there’s more holes in the plot and continuity than Gary Glitter’s last alibi. It’s pretty average in most if not every regard.

Firstly, there’s no effort to explain how these guys get all there toys. At least in the original series, they try and make it look like they were repossed from fallen drug barons. But now, it’s just implied that there US Cops and because of that they have this amazing cachet of planes and cars that just belong to them. Quite unlikely I reckon in reality.

Then the baddies are these neo nazi cocaine smugglers. Now while nazis make awesome bad guy candidates, not quite so plausible as Miami drug barons taking on (or even worse working with) the Bolivians, Hatians and Colombians. This too me was a bit unbelievable.

Oh and then there’s the Yoko Ono lookalike (it gets better guys, she actually evolves into a really hot chick). But even Yoko’s not the worst thing about this hash job of editing and plot development. And they try and make the other baddie Pablo Escobar wannabe look like Denis Roussous. But put them in a bling bling SUV and apparently most Americans believe they are Bolivia’s worst drug lords. I’d hate to see how bad ass Tiny Tim and Nana Mouskouri could be in an SUV, scary . . .

Basically Foxx and Farrell in their lead roles are a thousand shades of beige. There’s none of the flare or character of the original two. Somehow they even manage to make some of the blandest shower sex scenes i’ve ever seen. Sure they’re great actors separately, but there’s no panache, character or dimension to any of their acting in this one. In fact there might have been one line of decent dialogue by one of the baddies.

Except for two side boob scenes and a great brain stem shoot, just plain miss this movie. That is unless you can stop saying "Why?" or "WTF" for at least 90 minutes. Because believe me you will be. This film makes escapism challenging and the Yoko thing just ruined it for me. I think I would rather listen to Yokos worstest hits sitting on a rusty bed of nails, with my girlfriend’s mother than watch this movie again. It would be less painful. Thanks for the invite though Stevo!

Yes they were the famous words of Johnny Rotten. As he jumped on stage at the Sex Pistols swan song gig in San Francisco in the late seventies. They played one song (after no soundcheck), Rotten promptly laughed into the microphone, threw it to the ground and well, that was it. They broke up and that was that. The crowd gave an uproarious applause. For they had seen a true moment.

Well I probably was barely alive then, but one moment I was truly alive to see was 911 September 2001. Frankly I am agnostic to the politics, because i’d rather be erudite than patriotic; true to oneself before one’s country. Because despite all the conspiracy theories (and some damned compelling evidence), something I remember was before that event made me realise that I too was cheated, as were we all.

Sometime around 1999, I was at Monash Uni in Clayton campus waiting to start an exam. I was proabably eating a sandwich, or nervously flicking through notes before the big exam. Anyway, we were around the engineering wing of this campus and I was looking at something I thought was some avant garde corporate art sculpture, by your typical acid whacked 1970s type.  I was crap at studying my notes so I took a closer look.

What I thought was Kraftwerk in steel was actually an artefact of a great tragedy. It was the piece of the Westgate Bridge in Melbourne that buckled in 1970. A small plaque next to it confirmed its plight. Now this was a bridge that took almost 10 years to complete, connecting Melbourne’s east and west. Relatively insignificant in the overall world sceme of things (with all due respect to those who died).

You could forgive those in Manhattan for not knowing of their tragedy 30 years ago. Anyway this big hunka steel was put there, in the grounds of the engineering wing, so that they could determine what the hell went wrong and caused the bridge to collapse. Pretty rational post mortem stuff. You know, so it doesn’t happen again. I didn’t think anything more of it (for years) and marched with the other sheep into my advertising exam.

Then it hit me the like so many tonnes of bricks. Four or so thousand people died when the three towers fell. And you know what, the steel trusses that collapsed were sent to a scrap yard in New Jersey. Within days of the collapse, they were on a junket to Iraq (how ironic) as scrap metal. FEMA or no other nerdy government boffins for that matter weren’t allowed near them.

Tens of tradies died in the seventies making this bridge, god rest ‘em. Anyway my point is this. Why, IN BIG CAPITAL LETTERS, W H Y is this artefact still on public display at Monash Uni and the ruins of the Twin Towers (and Tower 7) have probably been melted down into Saudi scrap?

I’m not asking you to dismiss everything else, or start wearing a beret and a cap. But even the most right wing Bush lover would have to admit that’s a bit suss. Three big towers 4000 dead, no post mortem on the trusses. Bridge collapese in Melbourne, 30 or so dead, piece still on public display. You can’t put that down to culture.

With a big snarly Johnny Rotten smirk on my gob, I ask you, ‘ever feel like you’ve been cheated?’.

A few weeks back the snow was pretty bad in Victoria. So we decided to drive up to Bright. A town about 3.5 hours out of Melbourne nestled between the snowfields, the King Valley gourmet region and Glenrowan.

The theory was that if the snow picked up, then we wouldn’t waste money going skiing. But if not, at least we were in town and there was plenty to do. As it turned out, we had a few cold days, but the weather was absolutely beatiful - for spring! Fantastic holidaying weather nonetheless.

Some highlights were staying at the Buckland Resort. These 4 self contained studio apartments have everything from an espresso machine to 3 choices of pillows, LCD TV you name it! It was pretty expensive (approx $200 a night per 3 nights) but exceptionally good value. In many ways, these apartments are better than mine! It’s only about 5km out of Bright town, with some exceptional views. So I really can’t recommend this place highly enough.

Restaurant wise, there are two, two hat highlights. Simones of Bright is brilliant. It’s a converted house so it has great ambience and reflects all the great Italian heritiage of the area. Venison mains (venison is big in these parts!) were quite simply unforgetable and their gnoccino (or just plain gnocci) was without doubt the best i’ll ever taste. Not cheap but reasonable. It’s a feed well worth staying in Bright for.

Next we ate at the Villa Gusto resort. Now this is la dolce vita! This place is a completely private Italian villa resort and they go out of their way to make the experience special. If it’s not the Sangiovese library (about 40 different domestic and Italian varieties available) the four course meals, the villa ambience of cosy open fires and second to none service make it all worth while. If I had to choose between the two, Simones is better, but the Villa is the shiznit for a romantic night.

Cafe wise in Bright there is at least one awesome gourmet cafe with a great selection of local gourmet products and wines to buy, plus friggin’ awesome coffee. Definitely not what you’d expect in these parts, and a great epicurean surprise!

We spent a whole day in Milawa, where seemingly even bird crumbs are gourmet. Everything in this tiny two bit down tastes better than if god cooked it. The mustard shop and cheese factory are brilliant. Just so much to try it’s unbelievable. The Milawa Brown Brothers’ winery has at least 40 red, white and fortified varieites to taste, so be warned! Several of which you can’t get anywhere but the cellar door. So bring an esky!

There are some other wineries worth checking out too. Gapstead has an extensive list for tasting. The Petit Manseng is the best buy here. It’s a wine that would go perfectly with Vietnamese rice paper rolls. The pick of the area would have to be the Politini Sangiovese though. It’s everything you like about a Shiraz, in a Sangiovese! Sangiovese really will be the next black and the King Valley are leading the way.

There is an awful lot of varietals around that are just plain Italian (Marzemino, Barbera, Nebiolo and and obtuse though. Bad Wineries? Well Michelini did nothing for us. Try with caution.

Anyway, the country doesn’t have to be meat and 3 veg. Bright, the King Valley and Milawa have some fantastic food and wine going on and make for a fantastic stay all year around. Snow or no show, give it a crack! I for one can’t wait to go back.

Been here a few times now. First time the service was reasonable, for the price paid. But the second time it was well below average. They had the silver service where staff come and pour your tea and top up your wine. Unfortunately on a Wednesday night, they were adamant about taking the tea and wine from the table, but not so demanding on actually making the effort to top it up! This was pretty dissapointing.

Chinese lovers will be glad to know that there’s plenty of dishes on offer, great for sharing (geez a lazy Suzan on the table would be good!) and the duck crepes for entree are unbelievably good. Other dishes are decent but not stand out. David’s makes a great dinner venue for 4-6 people, particularly given that it’s so close to the Jam Factory.

We were also treated to an Arundel Estate Shiraz from Sunbury which I thank them for, because it was Shiraz find of the century. Wine list overall ain’t so bad, nor is the decorum. Biggest problem here is that service. It just plain sucked.

This place gets 3 out of 5. Give it a miss unless you’re in the area.

At long last, the Bad Boy Bubby Movie Soundboard is ready. Go on, have a play!

If you don’t know the movie, you haven’t lived. It’s a cult classic, well deserved of a soundboard, and now here it is. Please feel free to post any comments or suggestions, bugs or whatever. It’s the first draft of what should be a very beautiful thing! Have fun with it.

 

 

I read this while on holidays the other week. All I really knew about Bon beforehand was that he lived up to his reputation as a heavy drinking, hard rocker. While that is true, Bon had one of the most interesting lives of anyone you can care to imagine. This book is amazing!

This book calls on archived rock magazines and interviews with Scott’s wife, girlfriends, family and flings. Of course, there’s heaps of interview excerpts with roadies, friends but sadly very little first hand stuff from the band or their record label Alberts. Apparently the author suggests they run a very tight ship.

Unlike Lemmy’s bio, this book is written by the erudite and journalistically inclined Clinton Walker. He’s very successfully journalled Scott’s teens, in Fremantle, his family background, a brief stint in a correctional centre, right up to his formative years in bands the Valentines and Fraternity. The hard ships of these times in his life, and the depiction of the Australian music scene (in all states) in the late 60s/early 70s is vivid and enlightening to say the least!

It’s evident after reading this book that there was no accident in Bon Scott’s stardom. Scott gigged his arse off all over Australia and had been through the band ringer not once but 3 times. Scott was definitely the antipode of the Young brothers. He was experienced, sociable, well aversed and exuberant. Qualities that the very talented, and youthful Youngs, lacked. Especially Angus who was still in his teens when Bon was almost 30. The recalcitrant and apparently paranoid way in which the Youngs ran the band would ultimately ostracise Scott into a life of loniless and alcoholism on the road.

The events around Bon’s death are discussed objectively. Around that time, Bon had found all the trappings of success but still no life partner and was living a lonely existance. Suicide is implied in that he was drinking especially heavily before his death, but there’s nothing too conspiratorial here. But those who’d think he was a chauvenistic old rocker would be interested to see all the letters in this book he’d written to lovers. He also had a penchant for all things Japanese. He was far more gentle, according to Walker, than most would imagine.

This book is well worth a read just to remember how much cooler other people lives are than yours! There’s plenty of rock and roll stories, anecdotes and the plain the good, the bad and the ugly. I’m loathed to say that the Australian history aspect of the rock scene is in itself enough reason to buy the book. But the real reason is that whilst you may not have a Whole Lotta Rosie, your life’s definitely a lot easier to live than that of a soon-to-be iconklast rock starm waiting to be a millionaire. Yes, the whole book is worth it just for that. Bon lives. 5 out of 5!