Sunday, September 28, 2008

other peoples shoes

a couple of weeks back, Iwrote a post about my mate Ruddo's cathartic boozing evening after his football team was knocked out of the finals race. I got the chance to walk a mile in his shoes on Saturday. I'm a Geelong supporter. After our 24 year premiership drought was broken last year, I guess it was easy to become complacent, and after only losing game for the entire year, success seemed inevitable. Sadly, this was not the case. Our forward line, who until Saturday were hailed as some sort of golden gods, proved to have feet of clay. Almost literally clay in fact. Gumby and his plasticine mates would have kicked more accurately I reckon.

Still the afternoon was enjoyable after a fashion. Enjoyed frosty Becks and BBQ at Andrew and Vicky's and various mates popped over during the day (including a very understanding Ruddo). By the end of the game I'd switched to whiskey and was in dire need of distraction. Luckily there was a good cause on hand.

An old mate Lenny has fallen on hard times and a few stalwarts of the Ballafornian music scene threw together a benefit show to get him sorted with a PC and the like. Len is a very gifted musician and artist who unfortunately suffers from a rare degenerative bone condition. A really tough break for a guy whose explosive natural ability as a drummer brought to mind a young Keith Moon and whose work with the Dead Salesmen in the 90's was absolutely spectacular. An excellent guitarist/bassist and visual artist, its really hard to see him confined to a wheelchair at age 36, and hopefully some technology will give him some new creative outlets that won't place too much stress on his body. A sweet bloke with a personality way too big for his frail frame, it was fantastic to see so many people turn out to support him. Word is a large wedge of cash was raised and the rock action on display was top notch. My recollections are a little hazy after 10pm but Brand X and the Fat Thing played absolutely stonking sets from what I recall and after waiting an hour for a cab I was well pleased to hit the sack.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice one Paddy. Just a note that Lenny's started podcasting and you can see some videos of Lenstock here - http://www.shownoname.blogspot.com/
Top night!

paddy said...

sweet!

Anonymous said...

Nice words Paddy... Top night had by all! Bad luck about the cats I spose...