Hamburg…. again.

To know is not to prove, nor to explain. It is to accede to vision.
-Saint exupery [1942]

Its not the tragedies that kill us it’s the messes.
-Dorothy parker.

A critic is a man who knows the way but cant drive the car.
-Kenneth Tynan.

You must be as clear sighted when you are loved as when you are hated. This love is only an advance payment for what they expect of you.
-Yevgeny Yevtushenko.

Think that I am going to get a tattoo of St Jude Thaddueus.Look it up sports fans. I think that it’s rather apt.
I want a bowler hat and some tights so I don’t freeze my ass off. And a pair of white converse. The shoes are an experiment; want to see how long its takes for me to get them totally trashed. Never said that it was an EXCITING life I got going on out here.

Nice to be home though. Not fucking around. It’s such an insane way to live that falling on my stained mattress in the junk room was a relief.

Found the photo of me anorexic in my mother’s garden today. Bloody hell! What is going to take to get back to that? Smoking made it all so much easier. I was missing it today and then I heard number one sons wet old man cough down at the end of the hall.
Erm, no thanks.

This is so fucked. Conked out all day and now up all nite grotty and quite inarticulate. I think that I should just give you huge wacks out of my journal but its all a bit to close to the bone in there right now so I think that I will stick with this, for what its worth. The sexy snort highlights…. I just drooled on myself…bloody hell.

Got all my papers and pics out tonite as I am alone at the table and kinda sad but maybe just a little blue if y’all know what I mean. I eyes are sore but I feel compelled to tap away as I have been in bed most of the day sick as a pig. Blah

Got a cool letter today that set loose a flood of memories, as cool and uncool letters are prone to do for that matter.
When I was but a tiny thing my Ma and I were in the front yard of our house. Saint Tina spied a woman in the yard across the road from us with a small child of her own.’ You want to go say hi?” she asked me…. hell, why not?

That day was the start of a life long friendship between both of our familles. Jen, the woman, saved me from myself when I was in the grip of some big nasty drugs and her son Ben that I met that day was the one who taught me how to play guitar.

All these years on from Campbell st in Richmond and my filthy junkiedom Ben now has his own record label and is a DJ doing his thing and I am unwashed in Europe covered in tattoos yelling at people.

“Who would have thought it?” he wrote me and I could hear the smile in is words.

Me on the edge of his bed fumbling around with his fire engine red gretch style axe under a poster of the Rolling Stones.

Amen friend.

Thank fuck for you and you family.

I have been laid low since the horror trip back from the UK.I feel totally brain damaged at all times. So fucked up that I just roll with whatever every day. I think that we all pretty much slept around the clock. I know that I did.

And it does change by the hour.The plan man…..

Our Album comes out this week. How cool is that??? A real live platter on a label!!! feel like it has been a million years in the making and Wacken was so long ago.

Tony (SF4L) went and saw Rose Tattoo the other night and he was talking to Angry about us and he,Angry,said that I am beautiful.Swoon.When your heroes see you back…he also said that he didn’t know what we are doing but that we were great at it…. [hehehe!] It’s going to be soooo good to catch up with those guys when we get home.

The letters that I get asking us to come home, and not just from the original tribe but the new ones as well just melt me. I have never felt worth as much as I am to this thing that we are..

I don’t think that I am going to get any ink while I am here even though I ask for it in every interview. I have drawn up my neckpiece though. Very Paul booth. Saint Tina is going to belt me.

I sang War Pigs under my breath as we approached Birmingham.

Think that we are going to be playing some gigs in Ireland next month as well. It’s so cool. Blackie writes me of a shitty amp and a show in NYC.They have one more week out and then home. Has it really been two months already? I am going to go look at the moon for a second…

Fucking awesome. I thoroughly recommend living in a roof top studio in Hamburg .the banana lounges are the cream on top lemme tell you.

Miss terror wants me home so that she can feed me. I have not lost that much fuckin weight! I wish! Miss Ellie had this fuckin classic poster of a very gaunt Patti smith in her stairwell that I aspire to greatly. If we move back to London I am minding her room for 3 weeks while she is in Italy with her boyfriend enzo who looks so much like Bon Scott that it’s eerie.
All I have to do is take care of her 3 gold fish and deal with shootings at the Brixton mc Donald’s and cold showers…its all do able I believe.

I am down to my last 2 batteries for my Walkman. Jesus wept.This band would have been over years ago if I didn’t listen to this thing almost every waking hour. Think that I am going to have to invest in an I pod sooner or later.

I tried to find a winter jacket today and that put me in a horrific mood.Mikey just got pissy at me, as I have not downloaded the pictures that he wants from Berlin. I just laughed at him.

The thumbprint on Ashley’s forehead is glowing. Have not seen him since we got back. The rhythm section kicked it while I lay in bed cramped and sweaty.

Have not really been writing much on the music front and I know that once Ashley has had enough of getting fucked (quel shudder) he will be back to annoying the crap out of me.

I guess that we will end up in LA doing the do sometime next year. No one I really want to see there .Be nice if Miss Anna lee was still in scum city. Sin is now living in Florida and madly in love. Good for her. It all seems so long ago. I have not really had a life to myself since I left the shed late in 03′ to really throw my lot in with the band and this life.

No wonder we all drive each other mad. But I know that it has been worth it, coming out here and showing that we are in it for the long haul. Next summer is going to be a fucking blast in Europe. You can play 2 festivals a week out here and we have finally made contact with the right crew in the UK.

We are heading back to play mid November if what I am hearing is right. Clubs that are Mecca to my fan ass.that I have been reading about in NME since I was a kid. The Mean fiddler, The Underworld…. And I know that we are going to kill it at all of them.

Bloodstock….
Now here is a fable and a fucking half for you.
We had the honour of being the 1st Australian band to ever play it so I was wrapped.
We did a small warm up show a few days before where Ashley wrote himself off, played like a bag of shit and then abused everyone.
How much he HATES London blah blah blah…
Yet another classic night. He stormed off in the rain….what ever.
The dude just can’t drink. The thing that sticks with me the most is me telling him that he broke a promise and that I cant trust him and that he had the nerve to get angry at me when he is in the wrong.

I am trying to set aside the anger and support him but it gets real fuckin hard. I am no bed of roses either but to loose it on stage is unforgivable in my eyes.

So there we are a few days later all very quite in ellies shit van trying to get out of London…. we know that we are late and its stress city.Mikey lost it…total classic melt down, stomped his sunglasses outside a servo where we stopped to get directions. Carl wrangled it that we went on at 4 30 in the other room and we still packed it out so I was happy.

Ended up in a bar with Thomas Jenson and I was so happy when ash ordered a virgin mary that I had one too.

We sold almost all our merch and I scared a little Finnish boy who was in another band. Met the Guys from terroriser.

The good mood lasted about 48 hours and then back into then mire.

Miss Ellie Skipped a heap of really cool clothes so now I have this classic black woollen punk sweater that I have already destroyed and patched. Not letting the cold piss me off is going to be a real challenge.

Don’t know if I am really up for it to tell you the truth. I imagine playing shows all sweaty in the summer back home and smirk. I am on the other side of the world. Again.

Ross gave us all 20 quid. Have you ever done London on 20 quid for 2 weeks? Thank fuck max is the squatter supreme. I ate better there than I do when I have money. No shit.

I need to be playing all the time…. it does get better with every run we do I am aware of that. You go back to a place and there are 100 heads there instead of the 20 you played to a month before. I love it. Its perfect to me.

I have been slack and not doing my press so tomorrow I will be a good dog and sit at the kogge all day and get it done. Kinda surprised how many journalists are getting into the site and asking intelligent questions. It makes it so much easier.

As Ross has updated uprooted I guess that he may update Whitetrash.
God only knows I got enough of it.

Later
SF4L
Michele.