Cas & Jenny's Great Big Lap of Australia

Thursday, 29 July 2010

This was passed around the other night ...:-)) ahahaha ...hmmmm

HOW TO SING THE BLUES
1. Most Blues begin “woke up this morning.”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in right away:
I got a good woman—with the meanest face in town.

3. Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. Sort of.
I got a good woman—with the meanest face in town.
I got a good woman—with the meanest face in town.
She got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weighs 500 pounds.

4. The Blues are not about limitless choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch; ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars are Chevies, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Other acceptable Blues transportation modes include Greyhound buses and southbound trains. Walkin’ plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUVs. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running.

6. Adults sing the Blues. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. In the Blues, "adulthood" means old enough to get the electric chair when you shoot that man in Memphis.

7. You can have the Blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont, Tucson, or North Dakota are just depression. The best places to have the Blues are still Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City. You cannot have the blues in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg while skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg when your broken-down pickup truck rolled over on it is.

9. The following colors do not belong in the Blues: violet, beige, mauve (unless you’re truly desperate for a rhyme).

9. You can’t have the Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is just plain wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places to have the Blues: the highway, a jailhouse, an empty bed, the bottom of a whiskey glass. Bad places to have the Blues: ashrams, gallery openings, weekends in the Hamptons, golf courses, Tiffany's, and Ivy League institutions.

11. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man—and it’s an old black suit.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues?
Answer “Yes” if:
a. your first name is a southern state—like Georgia
b. you’re blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis.
d. you can’t be satisfied.
e. you're older than dirt
Answer “No” if:
a. you once were blind but now can see.
b. you’re deaf
c. the man in Memphis lived.
d. you have a trust fund or an IRA.
e. you have all your teeth
f. you were once blind but now can see

13. Blues is not about color, it's about bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues; Gary Coleman could. Ugly old white people got a leg up on the blues. Julio Iglesias and Barbra Streisand will never sing the Blues.

14. If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are: wine, whiskey, muddy water, beer, black coffee. Blues beverages are NOT: mixed drinks, kosher wine, sparkling water, Snapple, Starbucks Frappuccino, or Slim Fast. Although Rubber Biscuits and the Wish Sandwich are famous blues snacks, better stick to common blues grub like Greasy Bar-b-que, Fatback and beans, and Government cheeze. Blues food is never: Club sandwich, Sushi, or Crème brule.

15. If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a Blues death. So is substance abuse, the electric chair, or being denied treatment in an emergency room. It is not a Blues death to die during liposuction or from tennis elbow.

16. Excellent names for female Blues singers: Sadie, Big Momma, Bessie, or Fat River Dumpling. Excellent names for male Blues singers: Willie, Joe, Little Willie, Lightning, or Big Willie. Singers with names like Muffy, Sierra, Auburn, Alexis, Gwenyth, Sequoiz, Brittany or Rainbow are not permitted to sing the Blues, no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

17. The Build Your Own Blues Singer Name Starter Kit:
a. Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, Asthmatic)
b. First name (from above lists) or name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi)
c. Last name of a U. S. president (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)
Examples: Blind Lime Jefferson, Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Okay, maybe not "Kiwi"…)

18. I don't care how tragic your life; if you own a computer, you cannot sing the Blues.
You'd best destroy it. Fire, a spilled bottle of Mad Dog, or shotgun.
Maybe your big ass woman just done sit on it. I don't care

19. Hey there, you can READ! This too be a big ol' problem. Most folks singin' the
Blues ain't never had much a chance for education. In the Blues… the three R's stand
for Railroads, Runnin' and Rehab.

20. It gots to be dark to sing the blues, preferably after midnight. Singin' da blues at noon is forbidden.

21. If none of the above works, try one last, pathetic stab at authenticity: name your guitar. Remember, Lucille is taken.

22. Epitaph on a blues musician's tombstone: "I didn't wake up this morning"

Wednesday, 28 July 2010

Hello there ...thanks for dropping in while we were away ... I hope you helped yourselves to some tea & cake. We're back home now after a good catch-up with the Brisbane branch of our family ...& things are moving on the house front, there's been quite a lot of interest in it & repeat visits too ...so we just wait & see ...as you do.

Next week we're planning to explore northern NSW with the caravan ...& Ruby of course, who is dying for some action after spending the past week hibernating in the garage ...to see where we might want to base ourselves eventually. Just going with the flow & bending like the bamboo as we learnt to do in China, which seems so long ago now, like a dream-time story. So does the 2 years around Australia seem like a dream ..... zzzzzz

What else is happening? It's too early to think of packing up to move house, so for me it's getting stuck into jazz vocals. Kate said I have the makings of a Blues singer. Which I thought astonishing, since don't you have to have been divorced 3 or 4 times or be utterly miserable & bitterly cold & soaked through to the marrow in a sleazy gutter, clutching a bottle of bourbon in a paper bag, to truly sing da Blues?

I said 'I have a pretty good life Kate, compared to many, so it wouldn't ring true would it?' And she said 'well you have to be an actress & pretend your man done you wrong even when he never did at all ...or think of some other ghastly life experience ...as long as you don't start bawling half way through the song!'

We-e-ll maybe ...I'm having a couple of lessons next week to learn how to work in with the band & learn their jargon. It's all new territory, I find it all quite mystifying especially how to work the endings ...when singers say 'stretch it out' how do you know how long it will be stretched for ...& will the song ever end? It's a worry mates! 'Night-night now. Dream a little dream of me ...tralalala

Cas is fine, in case you were wondering :-) he leaves me to ramble on here .....on & on & on ...stretching it out ....

Monday, 19 July 2010

We're waking up from winter now ...& it's all happening. The apartment's just gone on the market, we're off to Brisbane for a week from Wednesday & who knows what after that? One never knows when it comes to selling up & moving on, but there's quite a lot of interest in the place already. We'll just have to see what eventuates.

So plans are just plans at the moment & let's see where Destiny takes us. Somewhere warm with parking for the caravan, so we're able to come & go without too much hassle.

Retirement sounds such a dreary word, sounds like old horses put out to wander around the paddock until it's time to go to the ...wherever they send old Dobbins ...the knackery? no? the freezing works? I don't fancy chomping on a tough old nag's leg. Awww they probably shoot the poor things. No no please don't shoot, it's more like New Pastures for us.

Anyway no point in speculating ...whatever will be will be ...watch this space!

Meanwhile Cas is sortling out his bottles at the cellars, we both have lots of singing with Sing Australia ...and online for me with SingSnap & Everyone's A Winner & now singing jazz in a local cafe at a weekly workshop with a live band. Which is fantastic! All the musicians are in their eighties or thereabouts & sound utterly fabulous ...they're all professionals from the 50s & 60s.

Jazz is not Cas's scene so he can stay home next time & not make me laugh during the Blues ...he didn't do it on purpose, just had this tragic look on his face because Stormy Weather is such a sa-a-ad song. Luckily for me the others just thought I was nervous & forgot the words but it wasn't that at all ...it was the look on his face ...hahahaha ...I hang my head in shame!!

Kate, the lady who runs the workshop, is 86 & still has a set of pipes on her you wouldn't believe! She sure can belt out a song!! And she put me through the mill ...I had to first transpose my music because the band likes a 'flat' key ...and make a chart for them ...'OMG' I said 'I don't think this is possible...' having forgotten all the theory I learnt up to age 15 ...which is a long long time ago.

And Kate said 'oh yes you can! Here you go' ...& she scribbled down some samples & away I went. I only made a couple of mistakes which she picked up straight away. The cafe lights are dim & moody & I had to keep taking my glasses on & off ...that's my excuse!

The piano player pulls such faces & goes like the clappers. He's possibly even older than Kate. This jazz business must have anti-ageing properties ...it's obviously something you can do till you drop off the twig, hopefully still chirping. It's great exercise. And you don't have to jog! Bonus!! So I'm all for it!

Well that's about all for now, unless you want to hear about my root canal last Friday ...no?? :-) Au revoir then!!

Saturday, 10 July 2010

Location: Sydney, Australia

In winter hibernation at the moment ...zzzzzzzzzzzz ...not to worry, we'll be waking up soon :-))

Thursday, 01 July 2010

Location: Australia

I can't believe I forgot the camera today & it's almost welded to me. Just as well really, we got more exercise without me holding up the pace taking photos!

So today's walk involved a bus trip into the city first up with the idea of walking back home. About 4 kms not counting the looking-around & so forth once we're in there. You know how it is with all those shops.

So there we were sitting on the bus trundling down George Street when the dumplings got me. Just before Chinatown I had an inexplicable craving for Chinese dumplings ....no I'm absolutely not pregnant! or hormonal ...sheesh!! Hey it was lunch time after all ...so we got off the bus & headed for the dumpling place in Dixon Street.

A fondness for steamed dumplings is just one of the wonderful things we brought back from our year in China. Cas too, he certainly didn't need shoving off the bus!

All we needed was Katherine to complete the memories of Yudu & the 'River Dumplings' & 'Town Dumplings' ...so named because we had no idea what the names of the restaurants were .... so River Dumplings was a fair walk away down by the riverside but definitely worth it ...& Town Dumplings was of course in town!

Those delicious little morsels are perfect fodder for serious walking ... nice & light & tasty & yet mysteriously they stick around long enough to get from A to B ...in our case 4km including some steepish hilly bits around Glebe. I'm still not hungry & it's 5pm! Do you really want to hear all this??

Inspired, I've now fished out my little Chinese cookbooks of real Chinese food ...ohh the nostalgia ...if we eat everything with chopsticks, absolutely everything including soup & eggs & pasta & pizza & wine & beer ... we might lose weight huh?? :-)) Hmmmm. And then I can make the caramel apple pudding I saw in a magazine. Once we're lean mean machines that is! Could be next winter!

Sunday, 20 June 2010

Dear Blog readers. Thank you for your patient twiddling of thumbs whilst waiting for Something Interesting to happen on here instead of all our recent Waffling On & filling up of blog-space with nothing particularly fascinating or newsworthy.

You'll be pleased to hear we have a few short trips lined up soon, which is just as well, because the two of us are like a couple of wild-eyed, snorting horses locked in a horse float going Nowhere. Well, that's an exaggeration but you get the picture.

Home is lovely & it's good to touch base for a while ...but now we've been here a while we've recently started muttering things like ...'why are we waiting??'

So currently we're gazing into the crystal ball & reassessing what's in there ...now where did I put my glasses? Not a real crystal ball, I'm not a gypsy you know ...just an imaginary one :-)

Although ... maybe a crystal ball would be a good investment ...or else I could drink real tea with tea leaves left in the cup to foretell my future ...Cas won't drink unstrained tea so his future would be blank with little specks in it ...or else he would have swallowed it in one big gulp and then gone 'ErrrrK!' and clutched his throat. Which is not a good thing to say about the future ...

So more caravanning is on the cards. First up, a flight to Brisbane next month to visit Lo & Josh & Jaimie ...and then in August we'll hit the road again for a month ...heading up the NSW north coast for the lovely Byron Bay region and inland to some gorgeous National Parks on the NSW/Queensland border. Can't wait!!

Tomorrow we're going to Maitland for Leo's 4th birthday & Nick's somewhat more ancient birthday ...which means since we are his parents we are super-cali-fragilistic-expialidocious-extra- ancient.

More later ...my goodness, can't life change with the speed of a ...ummmm ... ummmm ...a canary caught in a cyclone?

Sunday, 13 June 2010

Winter is hibernation time ...well that's how I feel about it ...the short days & the lo-o-ong nights. Knee-high boots and thick socks & pashminas & knitted jackets that reach mid-thigh ...bliss! Movies on TV ...Milo ...books ...zzzzzzzzzzzzz.

But the River Of Chi is running. I am writing again. Of course one never knows how the writing will go. You can sell some stories as has happened in the past ...& then you will probably be rejected & rejected over & over. As has also happened.

So even if you have succeeded in the past there is no guarantee. The stories just have to keep on keeping on. And you have to get out there ...even if it's ffffffreeezing ...& observe. And write. Ha! And keep on writing. That's the reality of writing.

Well that's the writing taken care of. Now it's the singing. Well I think I will volunteer the music ...it will keep me happy & fulfilled & hopefully make other people happy. And that's what it's all about really. Sharing the good stuff. Rising above the wintery chills. So that's what I will do. Unless I change my mind of course!

It's funny how life teaches you ...I was saying to the lady who works in my fave vintage clothes shoppe ...I should really get a job ...and she says do you have your own home? And I said yes. And she said well you are OK you have enough ...but she is not in that position & so she is forced to keep on working. Whereas we ...well we are lucky ...if necessary we can always sell up & downsize (is that still a buzz-word?) & continue to do whatever we want. Not that we aren't doing that at the moment. Just saying. Count your blessings was the message.

So winter has its compensations. While Cas was playing with the wine bottles in the Cellars today I had lunch all alone in a buzzy local cafe. I had baked eggs with tomato & goat's cheese & chorizo ...& a chai latte. Oh yum! And read the Sunday papers. And all around was a happy vibe. And I really love that about living close to the city. The City Buzz ...well all of you Sing Snap people know about that!

Keep warm & well. I have just about shaken off this winter lurkie thingy but not quite ...it's going though!

Saturday, 05 June 2010

Location: Sydney, Australia

The rain & winter kicked in last week with a stiff reminder that we haven't had a winter for 3 years. We've both had colds ...sniff snort blecccch ...Cas is better now, and mine is going ...hoooray!! I have been stuck up here like Rapunzel for days, which is too long for an impatient butterfly type of person. I obviously learnt nothing of Patience from our time in China, it's the virtue most prized there! For very good reasons :-)

A perfect time for singing the Blues I was thinking, misty & murky & sodden & cold & atmospheric ...I was just thinking along the lines of 'Stormy Weather' ... when suddenly the rain has disappeared & the sky is now a strange blue colour that we haven't see all week. So now maybe I will cheer up & sing 'Blue Skies' & hang out the washing in the sunlight instead of stuffing it in the dryer ...and kill any remaining cold germs that might be lurking ...stone dead!! Out damned virus!

So since I'm feeling more energetic (such a weather bird!) I am feng-shui-ing the house while Cas is at work. Feng Shui sounds better than Housework, the thought of which will make me flee to the shops & cafes. But Feng shui is OK ...it suggests that I am taking calm control over my life instead of burying it under mounds of clutter & such. Hey that could be a good name for a second-hand shop ...Clutter & Such. Ha ha. and everything will be as if a breath of fresh air has just blown through ...that's the Chi you know ...Life Force. And gads I need to force something through my jaded post-viral existence right NOW!!

Back later ...I let you know what the river of Chi has accomplished :-) Well anything's better than nothing!