Since I’m about to go to Australia I decided that I should meditate upon the things that I already know about the country. I would like to have a recorded state that I can use to see what I learned or how my perceptions changed. Lessee… Halfway through the HTML-ization of this knowledge, it strikes me that I have been a very effective subject of Australian cultural export and advertising barrage. Things I Know About AUS thanks to… Neighbours Every woman in Australia is hot. Every woman in Australia is jonesing for a singing career (Imbruglia, Minogue times two) Things I Know About AUS thanks to… Colin Hay of Men At Work Vegimite is a type of sandwich Recently I’ve started to wonder if “Man From down Under” was actually an allegorical song about being from a place of disconnectedness.

I had a very nice weekend this past weekend and I will write about it now: Friday night there was an exciting one-day cricket match between Australia and India at the Sydney Cricket ground. It was a very intense battle in the last hour where India needed only 30 or so runs to overtake the home team. The partnership was strong with India captain Sourav Ganguly on the strike. In an error, his partner ran when he shouldn’t have and the bowler stumped Ganguly and sent him in. Then after a series of stellar catches Australia finished off the Indian batting line and won the game.

I’ve been loath to say those three words for a while, but yesterday I went out and I hopped up on most every wave that came in, rode it into a good depth and then leapt off the board. Here’s thanking the guys and girls over at Let’s Go Surfing. Now I can’t claim that my showing was flashy or riddled with deft snaps (hey, it’s a longboard fergoodnesssakes) and that I was on a longboard … but if someone asked me “Hey can you do that” I could say “Yes, a bit.” ….and I’m happy with that. Bondi Evening During the afternoon, surf I met some nice folks named Marcello and Kris.

Ah, my last full weekend in Sydney, ending with the Australia day celebration. Australia day observes the arrival of white people to the Australian continent. I was at The New Windsor yesterday when I asked what independence AD celebrated and the barfly to my right replied “Nothing, we’re still prisoners of the old bag [the Queen of England].” I had to chuckle at that one. Speaking of yesterday, I spent the early part of the morning at the Art Gallery of New south wales checking out their Caravaggio Exhibit. I’ve always been a fan of Caravaggio because he was one of the first artists to really explore the seedier sides of life.

Celebrating New Year 2004, solo, I went to the Opera House and wandered The Domain (a gigantic park).

I took a trip to the hip district of Newtown and photographed my room at the Shearton.

When I first arrived, I wandered near my home, the Sheraton on the Park on Elizabeth Street.

In around 1992, I heard Frente!’s (hereafter, Frente), cover of New Order’s masterpiece, “Bizarre Love Triangle.” Stripped down to singer Angie Hart’s vocals and guitarist Simon Austin’s light guitar arrangement, it dangled like a bauble amid the rest of the 120 Minutes slate driven, in no small part, by the incredibly photogenic Hart playing to the camera.

The cover was part of their name-making Marvin the Album that was used to spread Frente from being an Australian band to being a folky, fun band with international reach. In Summer 1996, after my first year at college where I’d been introduced to the Sundays, Frente returned with their second album: Shape which kept Hart’s angelic voice, but layered it into an ambitiously energetic, complex, Brian Wilson-esque psychedelia that, sadly, never got its due.

Let’ un-forget Frente’s Shape.