Hubris.co.nz

Let me point you towards the Last Supper Club’s bible-quoting yummy sounding menu that’s available at their website. Yesterday it was more elaborate, while the restaurant features a much more simple version. However, today, the real menu is online. We all live happily ever after.

Here’s a hot tip for you – if you are a party of two, don’t make a reservation, because there’s only one table for two and it looks like the card table kids are sent to at Xmas. Instead, you should saunter in early, as this Wellingtonista did, and secure yourself one of the small half-sized booths in the window. Order a bottle of Palliser Autumn 2004 Riesling ($34). Peruse the truncated menu. Wait for your dining companion. Finish your glass of wine. Wait for your dining companion. Order some fries. Be a little peeved when the waiter fills your glass again with that very very tasty wine, because this means that self control is even harder. Wait for your companion…

When your fries ($5) arrive, they will be crispy shoestrings with a scattering of lemon pepper, and teamed with a rather too sweet sweet chilli aioli. You’ll eat half of them before your dining companion finally arrives, but at least you’ll be quick off the mark to tell the waiter that you’d like first the “stack of grilled haloumi with prosciutto, rocket and basil on brushcetta with roma tomatos” ($12), and then the “warm rabbit salad- mustard marinated loin of rabbit, with a rosemary, garlic noodle and mesclun salad drizzled with a balsamic vinaigrette” ($15). You’ll forget that the salad mentions noodles, and they will be a surprise to you later. You’ll probably also instruct your dining companion to order the seafood platter, even though you’re not that big on kai moana, but you know that she’ll dither otherwise. She’ll order it with a side of greens, and you’ll both hope that the greens will come out at the same time as her platter, which should arrive around the same time as your first entree.

The seafood platter will arrive with your haloumi, and it will be large and glorious and good-looking enough that you’ll snaffle up some of raw fish with green chillies, and the chilli and garlic squid which is super tasty but still squid-textured, unfortunately. You’ll avoid the prawns, mussels, salmon dip and fresh anchovies, and wish that you didn’t try the smoked fish cos it’s not to your fancy, but you’ll nevertheless think that it looks like a bloody good time for someone with a taste for the sea, and well priced at $20. Meanwhile your haloumi entree is small, and you’ll devour it quickly and gratefully. When she sees that you’ve now stacking mussel shells on your empty plate, the waitress will offer to send out your rabbit while your dining companion is still pigging her way through the seafood, and you’ll remember to ask for her greens as well. You won’t receive either until after the seafood has been cleared, however, and your dining companion won’t get cutlery until you ask for it, whereupon the waiter will say that it’s policy to eat brocolini with your fingers. You’ll forgive him for this though, because he’s trying very hard to squeeze out a few more drops from the wine bottle. The rabbit will taste like gamey chicken, and the warm surprising pasta a little odd in combination with celery, but it’ll make you happy nevertheless. You’ll each pay $45 and leave with fat tummies.

Because we didn’t want Mum to have to stress out about Xmas preperations the day after her mother died, on Friday 23 December, Karen and I decided we’d shop for all the food. If you were in Wellington, you might also remember that as the day that the skies decided to bust open and leak bucketfuls of water all over the place, along with some spectacular thunder and some average lightning. It did this especially in the time that it took me to walk to the bus stop. Then at the bus stop I had to wait a good half hour at least (where I felt stupid cos people were talking about why the buses weren’t coming, and I was like “maybe the rain interferes with the trolleys” and a guy said that it didn’t, and I was like well whatever buddy, it always does, and then ten minutes later I looked up and saw that he was wearing a stagecoach uniform), so I should have left the house later and not got so wet. As it was, I left my very soaked hoodie at Karen’s house, after I’d squeezed it out a little over the sink, and when we came back from Moore Wilson’s, it had puddled all over the floor like a puppy.

Have you ever been to Moore Wilson’s two days before Xmas? We went to the dry good section first, and it was when we were just queuing up with our trolley that they announced that eftpos was down. We waited and waited for a while, and it just didn’t seem like it was going to get back up again, so Karen went home for her chequebook. Then we went to Fresh, and the queue for the checkouts started at the door, so I stood with a trolley and nibbled the tasty things that the clever staff were bringing around to pacify customers, and Karen loaded us up with goodies. It was a surprisingly good atmosphere, despite the rain, and the waiting, and the crowdedness.

I can’t remember what I did on Xmas Eve, except for watch parts of National Lampoon’s Xmas Vacation for nostalgic value. It was every bit as terrible as I rememberd it being. Perhaps I hung out with Lisa Fur some more? Oh no, wait, that’s right, I was doing the supermarket shopping and loading up on liquor and snacks for Anji’s birthday, and I ran into Cousin Jacinta so I took her home with me, fed her beer in the sun and made her Pad Thai.

When we’d started to discuss Xmas, and what we’d planned to do on it, I’d suggested we have it either here or at Karen’s house, so that Anji could make an easier escape if she felt the need, and so we were going to have it at Karen’s, but when she started to be all “Oh I don’t know if I even want to come to Xmas” I said “well fuck that, let’s just have it at Mum and Neil’s cos that’s where I want to go, since you’re not commiting to it”. She came along anyway, and had been extensively consulted over our plan to just eat tapas all day long. Then our aunt showed up and stayed for three hours bitching away. Yes, her mother had just died. I can understand why she’d want to hang out with Mum, I really can. But she was just so so so nasty that I eventually stood up and yelled “HEY KAREN, LET’s GO OVER HERE AND DO SOMETHIGN ELSE!” and also “HEY, YOU KNOW WHAT’s COOL? MONKEYS”. Eventually we all cornered my dad in the kitchen and asked him to say something to Mum, who did get my aunt to leave. Nevertheless, it was too late, and Anji was already in a sulk about how we weren’t having a “proper meal” so she left, and the atmosphere got a lot lighter. We took turns reading The Pirates! And the adventure with whaling aloud, and ate chocolate fondue. The taxi took a long cold hour to show up, and I spent lots of money texting everyone like crazy after midnight. Well, Murray anyways.

The next day was Anji’s birthday so I got up to eat crossaints with her, but not to learn how to spell them, and gave her the birthday present that I’d really spent far too much money on – a big fake leather box filled with margarita glasses and rimming salt (heh), and Havana Club Blanco, and Jose Cuervo Gold, and canned stawberries and coconut cream and chocolate-covered coffee beans, and fortune cookies, and Scholl’s party feet, and and and umm that was possibly it. A couple of her friends came over and we had a drink or two in the very hot sun, and then she took all the food and liquor up to Richard’s house, and Lisa Fur came over.

On December 27, we had the funeral, which my mother had argued my aunt down about the need for it to be in Paraparaumu where Oma had lived for the last twenty plus years and where my Opa had his funeral. Mum’d asked us at the hospital if one of us would mind saying a few words, and since neither Karen or Anji wanted to, I said I’d be happy to, just like I had at Opa’s seven years ago, only this time I wasn’t going to be wearing an old suit of his. Much like at Opa’s, I hadn’t really prepared for what I was going to say. I knew that I wanted to talk about Oma’s legendary hospitality, and about how dedicated to her grandkids she was, without trying to raise the hackles of either my mother or my aunt, and about the chilli jam she tried to foist onto anyone who ever came to her house. The celebrant spoke about how Oma’s father had taught her to use her pencil box as a way of defending herself when she was young because she was so little, and so later another ex diplomat’s wife got up and said “Dee was the only one of us who used to play the pros at tennis in the Phillipines, and now I know why!”. It was lovely all the people who got up and shared small memories of her. Most of them also included stories about the food she would cook. I started crying when my aunt spoke of how Oma always used to order a speckook (I cannot spell that to save my life, but it’s a Dutch/Indonesian type layer cake, and when I say layer, I mean each layer is crepe thin, and it’s a mix of batter and then spiced batter so it’s all stripey. It’s quite rich so you eat it in thin slices) for all the people she knew back in Holland every Xmas, and how every single one of the people that Diz and Mum contacted to say that Oma had died mentioned that they’d just had their speckook delivered, and also that when they got to Oma’s house to start sorting out her things, they’d found that someone had sent Oma one, and so that was served afterwards. People kept coming up to me to talk about Oma, which was cool, but also it was strange, because they were people I hadn’t met before, and I had to do a lot of smiling and nodding. One woman, who was dressed in a tie-dyed outfit with dolphins on, said that I seemed to be the strongest one, and I was like “huuuuuuuuuuuuh?” and when she left she told us grandkids that there was strength in the circle, and I smiled and nodded. Because I’d ever so cleverly not had breakfast, I was starving by that stage, and the savouries were really not doing it for me. I jumped in the car with KateB’s parents to guide them to Oma’s house, and there we all waited in clumps with Aunt Leonie and Uncle Graeme who are on my dad’s side for someone with a key to show up, and we finally got to have some decent food. Then we were told to go through the house and pick out what we wanted, and jewellery was dolled out and oh my god it was just horribly painful. Not because of the emotion, although there was that too, but it just seemed like my aunt was taking out her rage about her children living far away from her out on me and Anji and Karen. Bleh. And it took sooooooooooooooooooooooooo long, and it was so hot, and fuck, it was just a horrible afternoon. It was nice to celebrate Oma’s life at the funeral service, but did we have to go and pick over the bones so soon?

We took Mum’s car so that we could leave, and headed straight for Burger King. When I got home it was after 7pm, and I knew that both Heather and Jessie were in town, so it was time to go out and have many many MANY drinks.

To be continued. Again.

The next week was spent in visits to the hospital, in which I’d cry almost every single time, so I spent more time fetching coffee from the miles-away main building and hauling it through the long tunnel to the Grace Neil building than I did actually sitting with Oma. She’d had another stroke, and possibly a heart attack, and she’d fractured her ankle and had pneumonia as a result from falling out of bed and being there all night with the window open, so she was unable to talk. Sometimes when we showed up she’d try to sit up, and sometimes she could squeeze our hands, and often she’d give signs that she recognised us – she appeared to laugh when I commented on how soft her hands felt, but the doctors talked to Mum and Diz about palliative care options. Cousin Andrea flew down from Auckland for the day to see Oma, and Cousin Jacinta came over from Sydney. It was no longer a question of if Oma would die, but rather when. Having watched Granny make herself stay alive until her sons came back from overseas to see her last year, I wondered what Oma was staying alive for. Fiesty Dutch lady that she was, every time I thought about how frustrated she would have been at her lack of ability to communicate I had to go and hide in the bathroom. Anji was wonderful, touching me and shielding me and talking to Oma when I could think of little to say.

Meanwhile at work, we’d all shifted in to the offices in the other building, so people were doubling up on computers, or “working from home”. Because of the lack of computer access, I went to see Oma in the mornings and then go to work and cry. Lots of people were stressed out about various things, and it was so hot, and I was really upset about Oma, and at the same time I was paranoid about other things (*), and that made me feel like I did when Granny was dying and I was just worried about the flights I’d booked to Auckland to go and see *IV, and fuck, it just made me feel like such a stupid bitch. I felt useless because I’d cry on the phone to Mum and feel bad about it because she was under enough stress as it was. I felt useless because I couldn’t talk the brave talk like Anji, and I felt stupid for feeling stupid. Plus, with the heat and the increased stress, I stopped going to the gym, and was eating pretty badly too, and that took effect really fast on making my moods even worse.

On Thursday 22 December, we were told that if we’d finished all our work, and if we didn’t mind being on call the next day, we could leave at lunchtime. Me and some of my workmates went to the Brewery Bar for very mediocre food, pinot gris, lots of wind and hot hot sun, where despite the liberal application of olay complete, I got burnt. I hadn’t been to see Oma that morning because Anji was going to take me at in 6pm in after work. I didn’t want to go in by myself because I’m just so bad at hospitals and Oma’d become much more unresponsive. we had a couple of bottles of wine, and then Anita guiltripped Dave into give me a ride home. They stayed for a cup of tea, and Anita and I gossiped, and then they left. I cleaned the house, hung Xmas decorations and lights, and cursed fate for thwarting various stalkerness. All that kind of stupid every day blah blah blah stuff.

Jacinta, if you wanna skip this bit, please do so.

Mum had said she was going to be at the hospital until 6. Anji and I got there around 7pm. Oma looked much worse than she had the day before. Her skin was yellow-tinged, one eye was open, and so was her mouth. After saying hello to her, Anji sent me out of the room. I composed myself, and went back in. We couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not. It really didn’t seem like it. There’s a question I never want to have to wait ten minutes at the nurses’ station to ask again “Is my grandmother still alive?” Of course, I won’t ever have to. Then the nurse got called away while I was talking to her. Finally, another nurse came along, and she went in to check for us,while Anji and I waited in the hall. Oma had passed away. Passed away? She was dead. Ever the considerate hostess, she’d waited until she was alone. Anji called Mum. Helpfully, I’d left my phone at home. Then I cried even more because all I could think was how much it felt like the Buffy episode ‘The Body’, now to the angles that focus on the medical professional’s shoulders, and how I was just in a stupid singlet, and I was all sunburnt and la la la, that’s not what is dignified at times like that, so I put my shrug back on.

The nurses had moved Oma onto her back and closed her eyes, so Anji and I sat down in her room to wait for everyone else. To me, that was the important part, because I was still a little upset that Mum and my aunt had decided that Oma was a lapsed enough Catholic that she probably wouldn’t have wanted the last rites. I’m not a religious person at all, but I guess I lean towards religion around death – like how I loved the presbyterian service at Granny’s funeral, so I had wished that she’d had it, although of course, it wasn’t my choice. But we sat with the body, and while it wasn’t for three days, I think it was wake-enough. Another one of the nurses came in to hug us and apologise for how we’d had to find her like that, which I thought was incredibly sweet. I have so much respect and gratitude to the nursing staff – they all seemed like really great people.

My aunt Diz and uncle John arrived before Mum, and when Diz started crying it set Anji off. Diz was like “Jacinta said that by hook or by crook Oma would get us all together to see us at Xmas” and that seemed entirely appropriate. Mum and Neil showed up, and then Karen, and there was much switching of seats, and fussing around, and there was hugging and joking and laughing. Oma’s death wasn’t sudden, and while she died alone, she had seen and recognised her family around her in the days leading up to her death, and I know that she felt loved. I’m incredibly relieved that she never had to move out of her house into a home, because she didn’t want that, and I’m (selfishly?) relieved that it wasn’t a long drawn out process for her death. She was greatly loved, and she’ll be greatly missed. I feel really stupid (again) because I wish that I had the words to describe her, or to memorialise her. Mum asked one of us to speak at her funeral, so I did, just like I did at Opa’s, but just like at Opa’s, I didn’t write anything down so I can’t share it with you. Instead, to really remember Oma, I think you should just go and click this link, becuase I think this is how she’d like to be remembered – always the ultimate hostess.

Oma, May 20 1920 – December 22 2005.

Six months in a leaky boat

On Friday December 16, we packed up our offices in the morning, computers, phone cords and everything. I therefore had people yelling at me to pack up my phone when I had just received an email from my mother telling me that Oma’d had another stroke and was in the hospital again. I couldn’t reach her on the phone, so on the pretense of untangling computer cords, I crawled under my desk and cried. We lugged some crap around, and went over to the office building. Eventually I skipped out and took a bus back home for a cold shower, and my workmate came and picked me up and we went to her house to get ready for our Loveboat themed Xmas party – and for those of you playing at home, it took us exactly the length of Purple. Now there’s a flashback. Anyways, so we went back to our other work building and had drinks and then sat around on the street for a while, before being loaded up on a bus, driven down to the docks, and then walking a ways to the Sweet Georgia. The bars along the waterfront were loaded with people, and I was dressed like a bride, so I felt a tiny bit silly – although I suppose there were other people who were dressed sillier. But that’s okay, cos we got on the boat and headed out onto the harbour, and there was much food and booze and Titanic impersonations and a little too much sing-alonging. And there were DOLPHINS! A whole pod of them swimming alongside the boat for ages. And then there was anchoring at Soames Island, and ghosty stories, and eventually there was flashage, although not from me, because I was surprisingly soberish. I still went home and cried on Anji’s shoulder though, because I am a fucking idiot. You can see all of the rest of my photos from the Xmas party in this tagged part of my flickr files.

Call me loyal

On Saturday December 17, I went to my cousin Iain’s wedding, or rather the reaffirmation of their vows. It was held at my aunt & uncle’s place in Waikanae, cos they have a massively huge garden, with ponds and geese and bears, oh my. I didn’t see any bears though. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I was making the bears up. It was very very hot in the sun, but everyone looked lovely, as you can see for yourself in this part of flickr. My father tried to make a speech, which was rather embarrassing, and Karen mocked me for running away from the geese, and I kept getting locked in the toilet cos the handle turned funny, and yet it all made me want to get married ASAP please. Cheers. Oh, and Iain, if you’re reading this, Karen Anji and I were the ones who didn’t label the gifts, so the 500 thread count sheets (mmmm) and the greenstone necklace were from us. Thanks for having us, it was grand!

Crowded House

After we got back from Waikane around 11pm that night, I convinced my daddy (since Mum and Anji had gone to Oma’s house to try and catch Oma’s cat to take him to a cattery) to take me home so that I could get changed and then drop me at Kartini’s party in Aro Valley. I took nine minutes getting changed. Don’t ask me why I keep telling you how long it takes me – I just feel like telling you. Don’t mess with my self-disclosing. Kart’s party was at Nial’s house, and there were an awful awful lot of people there crammed on steps and doorways and kitchens and benches. I had a long conversation with a girl who’s in an up-and-coming Wellington band, and she made me feel special when she was like “oh, are you that Joanna – you and Heather are the people whose opinions I listen to there!” and I was like awwwwwww and we talked about what works in music and what doesn’t. I saw the boy who makes my vagina go boing, and it went boing, and there was lots and lots and lots of dancing to records. Mike played hip-hop, and then Kris (who I finally didn’t address as Jess – the name of her dog) played Atomic-y type music, and I laughed and laughed and laughed when she played ‘This Charming Man’ and then ‘Love will tear us apart’ one after another the way that the Atomic DJs always do. And then I saw Ammy! And that was very exciting because of course she left the country in Julyish 2003 and I hadn’t seen her since, and so I had to catch her up on two years in ten minutes. The party was full of creative people, from crew on Kong, to musicians, to people who talked loudly about the short films they were making. It was nice and stimulating – so much so that I was out til well past 4am, which was a capital effort on my part, I thought, considering the amount of sun and bubbly I’d had.

Oma

On Sunday Anji, Karen and I made merry at the Mediteranean Food Warehouse in Newtown, pausing not long enough for me to learn how to spell Meditblahblah but long enough for pizza, and gelato, and the buying of many, many antipasto type things (and your knowledge of Anji buying them will come back into play later)

to be continued

Let’s start out here with some honesty: I am drunk. Like, really drunk. Like, I have to close one eye to focus. It’s not my fault. We were sitting on the Courtenay Place edge of our building and they were all yelling at Jane Yee! and I was like, it’s my fault she journals, and now my glasses are too steamy to write, anddddddddddddddd um, I forget the point, except for HI JANE. Nice dress.

THere was another girl in a low cut red dress, but we were two stories up, and I wasn’t wearing my glasses, and I could still count her rib bones up by her collar bone so really, so not hott. And there were ladies with bad shoes, or a bad colour, or what looked like bridesmaid dresses, or whathaveyou, but like, the celebrities were coming up on Allan, and we were all sitting overlooking Blair, which is where the people with tickets but not fame were coming up.

Ha ha, if I was more sober, I would talk to you ab0ut all the things that I have wanted to mention, like dinner at Floridita’s, which was kickass, or the drinks with people from Wellington who like to drink, and that was great, andI ended up at bars that I hadn’t been places befoer, called Morocco (and yes, that’s right, I will drop my tenses, and that’s fine), and that was nice, and that’s all. I forget my point. There was a lot of politics. Also! There were many (two) earthquakes. Earthquakes are SCARY! I ran to the doorway and cowered in there for a while. Seb was outside, but I bet he’d be all “blah blah, whatevs” cos he is pretty cool.

So many balconies, so much sunshine. Thhis is whatI just msged Lisa with:

Work is SO HOT. So many fans. So much packing up of boxes. I didn’t go to the gym today, and I should have. Monday and Tuesday is not enough Getting high off the heat of exercise is quite amusing though. Today, out on one of the side balconeys, cos we are not clients so we are not good enough, I was using the word ‘moist’, and people around me were like “Omg so not right” but like, I was totally in the right. Ddi mention the ( BYO) liquor? Or the too-much touching of workmates? Or the ha ha Hot-ness? Ha ha, no, I didn’t. So I suppose I shan’t.

And this is what I said since I got home:

Lisa says:
you sat in the sun and drank bubbly near arguing directors on a balconey in the central city and you love A because he makes you think of penises and lambs
Jo Hubris says:
lamb s?
Lisa says:
lambs are cute
Jo Hubris says:
what else?
Lisa says:
it was like an episode of lost that you had to twop and then you got to see murray’s b/f having sibling sex?

To understand that ,you must get that Ian Sommerhalder (SP?) is MurrayN’s fantasy b/f. If you don’t get that, then oh well. I forget my point.

Jo Hubris says:
what else did I ell youZ?
Lisa says:
that ………………………………………………………………………………***
Jo Hubris says:
noooooooooo
Jo Hubris says:
for the gernal public
Jo Hubris says:
what’d I say?
Lisa says:
that you were all blah blah blah like joan rivers if she was relevant
Jo Hubris says:
haahhhaa
Jo Hubris says:
that was me

Let’s post this and move on, okay?

If you’re a former rock star recovering from a heroin addiction, perhaps it’s a logical next step to team up with some other former rock stars to form a rock band. After all, once you?ve sold millions of records, it can’t be easy going back to a day job. Thus, in the tradition of supergroups like Audioslave, A Perfect Circle and The Travelling Wilburys, Velvet Revolver was born.

Velvet Revolver had been a rumour since it was announced that everyone but Axl Rose was quitting Guns’n Roses due to his insistence on pursuing electronica and industrial music. Axl was left with the band name, which he’d been given the rights to after he’d threatened to leave during the Use Your Illusion tour. His new version of GNR, with an ever changing line-up of band members, has spent the last nine years and $12 million on the still unfinished Chinese Democracy album. Meanwhile guitarist Saul Hudson (Slash), drummer Matt Sorum, and bassist Michael McKagan (Duff) all pursued different projects.

Slash was always the most recognisable member of GNR, with his long curly hair and trademark top hat winning over the ladies everywhere. During one tour, he was keeping three or four hotel rooms at a time so he could alternate between groupies. Slash has said that his hair and hat were just a way of hiding from audiences so he wouldn?t have to look at them. At one stage he found himself needing to hide from his own bodyguard ? who, in a move that Slash dubbed “very Single White Female” had started dressing exactly like him.

Slash managed to kick his heroin addiction while he was in GNR, but he wasn’t into clean living, securing a product endorsement deal with Black Death Vodka, the logo of which features a skull in a top hat. Perhaps he needed the vodka to drown the memories of his soloing on two songs from Michael Jackson’s 1992 album Dangerous. Slash’s fans were less confused when he formed the platinum-selling Slash’s Snakepit in 1995, which at times also featured his former bandmate Duff.

Duff had originally moved to L.A in an attempt to escape the copious heroin usage that was part of the punk scene in Seattle that he’d been playing in from 1979-1984. GNR was probably the wrong band for him to have joined if he’d wanted to stay clean. In 1990, Axl announced on stage that he?d be breaking up GNR if certain members of the band didn’t stop “dancing with Mr Brownstone”, so Duff took up drinking instead. After eight years of the GNR lifestyle, Duff was hospitalised in 1994 with pancreatitis, and told that if he didn’t stop drinking right then he would die. Having released his first solo album, Believe in Me, the year before, Duff obviously had something to live for, and so he cleaned up his act to the point where he was able to run a marathon in 2001. Fans had another chance to see him looking half dead, however, when he appeared in the TV show Sliders as a rockstar vampire in 1997. Duff formed and played in various bands, included Loaded and The Neurotic Outsiders, which included members of the Sex Pistols, Duran Duran and Matt Sorum from GNR.

Sorum is probably one of the world’s most famous replacement drummers. Early in his music career he was also widely known as a drummer-for-hire, playing in up to ten bands at a time. One of his first recordings was with Tori Amos, on her (extremely hard to find) glam rock album Y Kant Tori Read. In 1988 he got the job of drumming for British band The Cult after their drummer left, and he joined GNR after Steven Adler was fired for refusing to give up drugs. His first show with the Gunners was in Rio de Janeiro, playing to 140,000 people. After GNR broke up, Sorum had a multitude of gigs, including playing on tracks for Slash and Duff’s other projects, touring with The Cult again, and releasing his own solo album in 2003.

In 2002, Slash, Duff and Sorum played a benefit gig and decided to start a project together, which left a vacancy for a singer. Names like Sebastian Bach (of Skid Row and now TV?s The Gilmore Girls fame) and Travis Meeks (from Days of The New) and at one stage even Courtney Love were bandied about, but they clearly weren?t anything like Axl. How to replace the most arrogant man in rock? With one of the most fucked up ? Scott Weiland from Stone Temple Pilots.

STP was formed in 1990 when Weiland met bassist Robert DeLeo at a Black Flag concert and discovered that they were both dating the same woman. The group rode the grunge wave to stardom in the early nineties. While critics claimed they sounded like the poor man?s Pearl Jam, they sold seven million copies of their debut album Core in 1992, and its 1994 follow-up Purple stayed at #1 in the US for three weeks. A year later, Weiland was arrested for the first time for crack and heroin possession and given one year?s probation. Weiland is a man with many problems. As well as refusing to take medication for his bi polar disorder, because it flattens his personality, Weiland also had to deal with Hustler receiving photos of him and Courtney Love in a compromising position, which luckily publisher Larry Flynt refused to print. STP managed to squeeze out another three albums and a Greatest Hits collection in between his stints in rehab and jail, but Weiland caused problems for the whole band, and by their last tour he was trading punches with other band members on stage.

Despite this, Velvet Revolver was happy to take him on board. “Scott’s whole problem is tangible ? it’s just a drug problem. It’s not something completely insane that we can?t understand,” said Slash. Indeed, the video for Velvet Revolver?s second single ‘Fall To Pieces’ even depicts Weiland overdosing and being rescued by Slash.

Weiland had worked with the band in 2002 on songs for the soundtracks to The Italian Job and Hulk although at the time these songs were supposed to be one-off projects. Then in May 2003 he was arrested yet again for drug possession. Although he was ordered into rehab, a judge allowed him to be released to film a video. A month later, he was announced as the official vocalist of the group.

The final member of Velvet Revolver who isn’t as well known is Dave Kushner ? who actually went to school with Slash, and who played in Duff’s band Loaded, as well as being a session musician for various big names. With Slash’s solos being very flashy, Kushner compliments him perfectly by slipping under the radar.

Live, Velvet Revolver plays not just their new songs from their album Contraband, but also some of GNR’s less Axl-y songs (such as ‘Mr Brownstone’) and a couple of STP hits. The connection between the two bands isn’t so hard to see – Weiland says in the official band biography that STP’s hit ‘Sex Type Thing’ was written based on the low vocal of GNR’s ‘It’s So Easy’. Velvet Revolver quickly moved from playing small clubs to gigs of 15,000 people.
“I call it the Evveil Knievel factor,” Weiland told Newsweek. “He filled stadiums, but not because people wanted to see him make the jump. They wanted to see if he’d crash and burn”.

It doesn’t appear that Velvet Revolver will be crashing and burning any time soon. Hitting 40 has apparently had a mellowing effect on Slash ? during one show in Chicago, the audience started chanting “Fuck Axl Rose!” to which Slash merely replied, “Was that really necessary?”

Pulp

And once again, I think it’s been a while. And once again I’m wondering what I have to tell you that’s new and interesting. I got sucked in to reading old journals again today – that happens way too often, and man, my life was just so much more full of drama. I don’t know if that made me more interesting or not. Looking back, it was intriguing to watch me slide down into darker and darker internal circles – having been through that makes me want to clap my hands together and go “aahhahah it’s not funny because it’s TRUE” when those new depression ads come on, with people talking about how they stopped talking to their friends because they thought that they weren’t interesting enough, and how so therefore their friends stopped calling them and it was all self fulfilling prophecy, etc etc. I really like those ads, I think they get the point across really well, and they have the bonus of being all collector-cardy, like ooh, I can collect the whole set. But I think the point was that I don’t feel like that anymore. There are things I miss about the old me, like the fearlessness that allowed me to speak my mind and take the plunge like giving people the pop quizwhen I wanted to. I wonder if anyone besides me and random search engine guests ever read my archives. I know that if I ever find a site that I really like, I do go back and read it all, like Dooce, or the Julie-Julia Project or whatever. Ha, you can tell that I’ve been doing a lot of style guides for print, can’t you, with the way that I italicised the site names instead of providing links. Well, that or I’m lazy.

What do you want for Xmas? More specifically, what should I buy my family for Xmas? I have some thoughts (SPOILERS! Ha.) – Anji and I have decided what we want to get Cousin Iain & Anny for their wedding present, and she and I also plan on getting Mum some fancy schmancy cushions, and I have two CDs for Karen (Sing-sing (ex-Lush singer) and the new Kate Bush CD), and I want to get Anji a paedo-meter, since she hates children so much (hahah oh the jokes just don’t stop coming), and maybe the Pop Trivia Trivial Pursuit DVD, and I want to get the Who wants to be a millionaire? DVD for Daddy, but beyond that, I dunno. I can tell YOU that I want the Freaks & Geeks box set, and also the Veronica Mars box set as soon as it comes out, cos I’ve stopped TWOPing it cos I’m never actually going to see it, cos I accept that I’ll never actually be home early on a Friday night, especially not with the Xmas season upon us, and the assorted dramas that have happened at work lately. As well as our Xmas party, due to our location we’re going to be having a King Kong party when the movie has its big premiere. Wahoo. Over the holidays our offices are going to be renovated. The girls are moving to the third floor – or um, I suppose that’s actually the second floor, stupid NZ system – and the boys are moving down to where we were. Yes, that’s right, we’re segregated so that there are no interminglings – it’s not that most of the techie staff are male and the project managers are female, oh no. It’s all about stopping the intermingling. One of the guys at work was teasing me and another cow-orker about how we’d gone home in a taxi together on Friday night (oh the scandal of living a block apart!) and said he’d taken a photo of us getting into the cab together. I was like “yeah, the sex I had on Friday night was great – I must have come at least three times” and the other guy was like “huh? I didn’t notice” so I waggled my hand at them, which fits in well with me still thinking “why the hell was I giving a virtual demonstration of my favourite masturbation technique on Friday at Kitty’s?”. Oh the hilarity. I suppose given how much we’d hassled the hassling guy the week before, it was only fair. And in answer to my question about Kitty’s, I suppose it was because I was bought a shot of Green Chatreuse, and my skin started crawling, and I felt really out of it, and was worried that I would end up behaving inappropriately so I nearly went home. But I stayed and talked some more shit and oggled the owner of Boulot some more. Mmmmm proscuitto and rocket pizza. Now that’s what I like to have in my mouth at the end of a long night.

Since I’ve got back into the traditional “this is what I did on Friday, now this is what I did on Saturday” story-telling mode, I will say that on Saturday night the lovely Miss Lisa Fur came and picked me up and took me to her house in Brooklyn where we watched Fast Times at Ridgemont High (“you’re a DICK!”), and the The Office Xmas special. I shed a tear or two. Then on Sunday, Karen came over for a roast and so that she and Anji could finally see the rest of Firefly. I shed a tear or two again.

This bad neighbours TV show just compared willow trees to herpes. Nice. Man, NZ shows are so often so shit – which is why it’s so great that The Insiders[sic] Guide to Love is sooooo good. And on a drama note, Brad was down from Whaka-Carnie this weekend, and so he came over and told me that he got a grant for his trip to Philly – wooo – but he’s also going to organise a School Dance as a fundraiser in February. That’ll be k-rad. I’m suggesting he call it a Prom. Except then I’d need to find a prom dress, and I’m already having enough trouble with how much I’m procrastinating about sorting out my Loveboat costume. A slacker is I. I must say though, that having given up four lunchtimes a week does make it harder to get things done. Except for exercising, of course, which is gradually getting easier. I know I’ve been ranting about this lately, but I’ll put it in again for historic value, so that one day I can look back and laugh like how I laugh when I talk about listening to house music or thinking Pacey was hot (Dawson’s Creek reruns on Sundays! Season one! Excellent!). I am in love with the xtrainer. If I listen to swirly guitar music like the Smashing Pumpkins or The Cure, I can shut my eyes, pretend I’m dancing at a concert and stay on it for twice as long. Hurrah! Ha, I wonder what impression people who are new to Hubris would get from reading that sentence. Yes, once again I am all about how other people see me. That’s cos I’ve been reading about many sessions with Kalpana. Ahh history.