Friday, December 14, 2007

half life

It looks as if I'm entering my last days as a publican for a while. Some papers (though not all) were signed today. The process, as they say in the newspeak, is in place.

I should feel happier I guess, but around every bureaucratic corner seems to loom another red tape mountain.

The week has been rough. When you go to sell a place you've invested a fair bit of your life into, you expect to go through a bit of soul searching yourself, but what you aren't warned about is the effect it has on your staff. I've seen one go through a two week bender, another deliberately try and torpedo the sale and another hand in his notice effective as of my last day. Touching as it is, the little darlings' emotional pyrotechnics haven't made things too easy at rock central. My tenuous grip on sanity took a fair beating (especially during the booker's fairly naked attempt to scare the buyer off) and tonight I'm sitting at home sweating like a rapist and unable to face an evening with the fair punters of Ballarat town.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

BBQ

One of the joys of the summer season in our fair brown land is BBQ. No more cooking in a hot kitchen all stuffy and steamy, the time has arrived for cooking with the sun on your back, the spicy scented smoke and the compulsory can of beer in hand. I've even taken to doing the saturday morning fry outside. For this replace beer with gatorade if you're feeling a bit tawdry and bask in the double smokyness of barbequed bacon, toast with grill marks on it and crispy bottomed fried eggs.

As part of this embracing of BBQ culture we've found ourselves a butcher. No more crappy cling wrapped carrion from coles and safeway, the local man does great meat and his sausages taste like sausages, not condoms full of plasticine. It also feels good to buy off the little bloke, rather than some faceless conglomerate.

...still waiting

for the sale to go through, My supplies of patience are dwindling but life must continue.

And so it does. The third annual staff party was conducted last sunday and was great craic. We played cricket, ate steak and salad and drank beer and vodka till we were tired. Then we went clubbin'. A surprisingly drama free night it was too, despite the fact the staff must be a bit edgy about the prospect of new ownership. Everyone was in fine spirits sending each other pornographic texts and drinking absinthe. Pretty much everyone was late or didn't show up to something important the next day and I threw up as soon as I got home. A great night.

Went to see a wonderful band from my childhood on Saturday. The Divinyls were a sexy pub rock band if such a thing is possible. Funky rhythm section (of the groove variety, not the million notes a second merchants) a couple sinewy Keith Richards types on guitar (Mark McAtee and old mate Charlie Owen) and the marvellous Ms Chrissie Amphlett on vocals. By turns seductive and abusive, vulnerable and abrasive Amphlett oozes star quality despite her apparently fragile health. Their back catalogue was better than I remembered and even one of the obligatory 'new'songs showed a bit of spark. There is some suggestion Chrissie may have been diagnosed with something pretty serious this week, I hope things work out for her.