Hubris.co.nz

You know, I’d decided that I was going to start this entry out by pondering how the hell people did the Big Day Out without cellphones, but then I was forced to remember. Oh yeah, if you have my number, can you please text me your name (or email me your number?)? Yeah, that’s right, it’s new Sim Card and phone time. Same number though. Stupid fucking D List ‘celebrities’.

But we can scoot backwards in time, to Thursday morning and I’m leaving the backdoor key out for our downstairs neighbour Eve so that she can look after Sebastian that night since Anji had already flown to Auckland for work, and loading my bags into Lisa Fur’s car boot and folding myself into the backseat because Fran was in the front. And then it’s a week later, and I’m switching from present tense into past, because I’m not a choose-your-own adventure book, as much as I’d like to be. A quick study guide to the BDO was playing on the stereo, and there was a monkey to show the country to. Goats were thrown at first sightings of mountains, which resulted in the people in front of us pulling aside to let us pass. The toilets in Tirau are still the best place in the country to stop, and driving into Auckland still sort of feels like a kick in the guts six years later. Lisa’s car made it on one tank of petrol though, which is incredible.

Heather wasn’t home for Fran to be dropped off to, so we headed to the place that Lisa and I were staying, the Comfort Inn on Newton Road. We’d scored ourselves a big two bedroom apartment with parking for only $65 a night each, sweet sweet accomodation candy. Heather showed up and had some beers, and we headed up the road to Gina’s for dinner. If you’re not familiar with Auckland, Gina’s is (in)famous for its ridiculously hot and over-the-top waiters. The food’s pretty good too, but it’s insanely busy, and took a long time, and it was very very crowded. We went back to the apartment and had more wine. I love the litre bottles of Banrock.

The next day it was Friday and therefore bdoing day. Lisa and I went to meet up with Heather and Fran at Roasted, and then I called an incredibly incompetant taxi driver who took half an hour to find us and kept calling me on my cellie. We got there just before Pluto started. I forgot how many people go to the Big Day Out. There were a lot of people there. Pluto were okay. They played some new songs which was nice, and drums were pounded very heartily, but I just don’t know if their heart is in it anymore. Then I put my earplugs back in (hurray for being a grown-up!) and waded through the crowd trying to get out of the stupid (but I’m sure it’s important when the stadium is actually full) D-Barrier. Texts to Lisa found her again, and we went and got our passes for the Immortals Lounge, courtesy of a wonderful friend.

I felt special as we got to ride the big glass elevator up to the sky. We got to use cleanish bathrooms, and the bar queue was short and there was a better selection (but only Lion Red or Steinie, so I saw that it would be a beer-free day for me). The view was very choice. Then it was time to skootch back down to the Green stage for Sleater Kinney. I wish I knew their music better. If ever there was going to be a replacement for Hole in my “strong women make me feel strong” listening, it could very well be them.

Breaks Coop were playing next, and I’m not a repetitive old woman so I decided to run away quickly to a clean bathroom up in the Immortals Lounge again. I checked the time on my cellphone while I was up there, and bought a drink, and then discovered that my phone was gone. Rad. I went through my bag and looked on the floor by the bar. No phone. Excellent. Then Lisa showed up, luckily, and after asking at the bar after my phone, we went down to see the Go! Team. It made me feel very grumpy though, losing phones sucks. I was going to try calling it from Lisa’s phone but realised I’d never hear it.

Then the Go! Team started, and they were fantastic, and I had a boogie, despite my knees being already like “hey lady, remember us? We don’t like this kind of behaviour one little bit”. I wish I could shake my bottom like Ninja. Fuck it – I wish I was Ninja. Their album is definitely going on my ‘to buy’ list.

I can’t remember when it was that the Brunettes started to play, but I took a photo of all the people on stage.

Someone said that there were 20 people in the orchestra (You don’t expect me to actually try and count do you?). Their rider can’t go very far. I wish I’d stayed for them, but I’d already realised that I am much too old for the Big Day Out.

My knees led me over to the fence by the beer area and I sat down for the Magic Numbers and took some Nurofen Plus. Mmm codeieney. But people don’t look at the ground when they’re walking, and they kept kicking or tripping over my legs – despite the fact that there were people sitting all the way along against the fence, and it was just pissing me off too much so I decided to pop up to the Immortals Lounge again. More liquor and more codeine was taken, and I pulled an armchair up to the window at the back of the lounge and settled down for Shihad:

They played their standard fare. If I hadn’t been so doped up, I might have been a little sad that I wasn’t in the mosh, but then again, if I had been, I wouldn’t have been able to see how fantastic the crowd’s arms looked when they did ‘Pacifier’. But I was, so that was okay. When I felt lonely I had another drink. Haha excellent. Then a guy who was Kateb’s brother’s best friend growing up who’s now in a band that I interviewed for Pulp a while ago came over and hugged me, and tried to introduce me to his fiance, but given that she was a friend of Kateb’s at uni, I already knew her. And that was the only people at the Big Day Out who I bumped in to, apart from Jessie. That was strange, cos I am used to seeing so many people I know there, and I was actually a little bit afraid of who I might bump in to.

Franz Ferdinand played, and they were pretty average, and my arm chair was very comfortable. Then Iggy started, and I was like “what the fuck am I doing? This is the Big Day Out and I’m sitting up here like those wankers that I hate at gigs who only go because they get in free, and they don’t even like music”, and plus the BDO book talked about a cocktail bar in Lilyworld, so I went off to find that. Apparently, the cockails are only in Australia. I also couldn’t find the Krishna food stall, so I had a $9 kebab instead because I realised that I’d had one TEN YEARS AGO at my first Big Day Out, and washed it down with a Lion Red, Mate. I contemplated having a dance, but I was too chicken/sober to dance by myself with the models. Did I bitch about the girl carrying the Nova bag yet? I mean, hi, you’re wearing high heels and an expensive looking dress, and you’re stick thin and gorgeous. We get the point. You’re a model. You don’t need to tell us what agency you’re with. If I was to bitch about the other 30,000 people there though it would take far too long. I’m too old and jaded. And I was also kind of lonely. It’s fine to be by yourself at the Big Day Out if it’s your choice, but if you’re just a lost puppy who can’t contact people cos no one has handed your phone in, then it sucks.

I sat at the back of the stadium and took photos of the human lightening people, who could have been a lot more impressive than they actually are:

Then the White Stripes started.

They looked kind of cool, but the sound was craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaappy at the back there, and I couldn’t stomach going up closer.

I went to go and wait at the rendevouz spot that I’d (phew!) arranged with Lisa earlier in the day, and then Jessie was there, and I was like YAY and hugged her and felt a bit like I did that one time at the Gathering when I found Katy and Anji after I’d been lost for a couple of hours and thought tents were frozen bodies from Titanic and that there were Jim Henson creatures walking around me and I’d lost the ability to speak, except, you know, without the acid. And Lisa showed up, and Fran, and we got told off for walking on the road by a policeman, and we took a taxi and we went home, hurray! It was strange to leave a Big Day Out and still be able to walk and not have my ears ringing,and I wasn’t too badly sunburnt except for my nose. I am no longer hardcore. I miss being hardcore.

On Saturday Lisa and I met Heather and Jamie from NZM at Benediction. I’ve decided that avocado on turkish bread is quite possibly one of the best breakfasts ever. Then I made Heather come to St Lukes with me, and I used a Farmers voucher leftover from Xmas to get myself a new phone. Then, of course, I went back to her house to charge my phone and check my email, because that’s the only reason I’m friends with her. I also got to watch Alt TV, and I wet my pants in delight at seeing a Guns’n Roses video that I’d forgotten even existed. Awesome.

I went home and had a bath and tried to nap but it was too hot so I read magazines and texted people back going “who is this?” because of the lack of numbers. Exciting, yes, I know. Luckily my social secretary KateH had booked us all for a dinner at 8pm at Canton. Holy crap I love the food there, it’s soooooo good. And for $16 each, we certainly ate plenty. Then people came back for some more drinks, and someone called me trying to arrange a booty-call for the morning (*) and I was metaphorically speechless.

This is Shirley and KateH and her boyfriend Andrew:

This is Maree, who was up from Hamilton for the weekend:

This is J.C and Nigel, who is doing his best J.D Fortune look, while claiming never to have watched ‘INXS: Rockstar’:
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What’s more interesting than looking at photos of people you don’t know? Relating dialogue from the night? Yeah, so I’ll stop this now. On Sunday Lisa and I drove back down to Wellington. I like visiting my friends in Auckland. I love the Arcade Fire. The end.

Whatever I did on Monday doesn’t actually matter. I’m going to use this entry to write about my weekend. No doubt I’ll go into everything in glorious detail, and if you still want more after that, you could possibly check Jo’s journal, or email and ask me yourself. Loverly. Here we go.

Saturday morning, 9.11am. A train pulls into Ngaio station, and a blonde girl exits from a carriage near the back. A dark haired girl runs down the platform towards her, half skipping in excitement. They hug, and climb into the van driven by the dark haired girl’s mother.

It was like hitch hiking, really. Mum drove us to my aunt Diz’s house, where we went to wake up my cousin Jacinta – Jo got to meet her nose, cos the lazy tart hid under her blankets instead of getting up to be nice to us. Then Diz drove us (us being me and Jo – and that’ll apply throughout the whole entry, probably) out to Paraparaumu Station, cos she was going out to my grandmother’s house anyway, while asking us all sorts of questions about the internet. No, we’re not geeks, honest! At Paraparaumu Station, we waited for Simon to show up in his car car, and Brett to come in on his train train.

We finally got on the road by 11am, and I got shotgun all the way to Hunterville. In Hunterville, we stopped for lunch, and this place that claimed to be a cafe and bar but it so wasn’t. It was a tearoom/pub – and if you don’t know the difference, I’m suprised you’re on the internet. The lady who served us obviously doesn’t get out much because she told me not to break her crystal bottle when she gave me a plastic squeezy of tomato sauce. Jo and I were really tempted to get up and dance to whatever the hidi music they were playing, but we decided to flag because there were no locals there to scare – I can only perform when I have an audience. The good thing about Hunterville is that there’s a little statue of a sheep in one of the streets, so we clambered on that for a photo opportunity. Honestly we’re not sick in the head. Really we’re not.

Jo got shotgun then, and also got to play stereo-nazi. It didn’t really matter what got played, cos I could sing along to almost all of it, except Simon’s thrashindustrial crap. And I tried my best to sing that too. Yeah Soulfly, stacks of talent there. That’s cool though – I’m trying to be more open minded. I pitied Brett heaps, because I do believe he is a homie, and I therefore don’t think he would have liked much of our music at all. Plus he was so quiet compared to me and Jo, and even Simon. It’s so weird having a friend called Jo – if Simon wanted to talk to me he had to say “Jo…Anna”. I’m only Jo to my friends, whereas she’s only Joanna to special people. I spent so much of the trip looking at myself in the rear view mirror. Yes okay, I’m vain. It was just fascinating watching my lips move as I sang. I have a real problem with mirrors, because I get obsessed with my own reflection. Having a black background for this journal (which isn’t done for teenangst reasons, by the way) is a problem too, because I can see myself in the screen and I often stop typing and just stare, or sit puckering my lips. Wow, sharing that is like, really scary, more scary than anything else I could tell you, I think. That’s choice though. Go go Self Disclosure Girl!

We stopped again in Taupo, and walked to a cafe (a real one this time) so I could have coffee. The chick working there reminded me so much of an eighties relic, because of her perm, I think. I can imagine her being a aerobics instructor, in flourscent lycra, shooting up on steroids. But the coffee was good, AND I got a minature chocolate fish with it. We had to sit up by the bar cos that was the smoking area, but the other areas have paper and crayons on their tables. Walking out, I stopped to write my URL down, so we all scribbled ours, and ummmm I think Si and Brett put down porn addresses too. We’re such geeks. The thing is that none of us look like the typical geek. Si’s a retroboi, Brett’s a homie, Jo’s cool and me…. well I looked good too. I guess this is the nineties, and a wide variety of people use the internet now. All I know is that I never would have talked to Brett in school (we were in the same homeroom) because I didn’t think we had anything in common, but he’s actually kinda cool in a mostly quiet way. After taking photos in front of the Super Loos, we sped outta Taupo.

We stopped in Tirau really briefly so Jo and I could be photographed in front of a giant sheep shaped shop, and a dog shaped information centre. Once I’ve got my film developed, we’re going to make a webpage together documenting our trip – that’s assuming I get a scanner for Xmas. After Taupo, Jo was in the back seat, so we both sat there together fully drooling over 3D’s voice. Risingson has got to be THE sexiest song in the universe, along with Inertia Creeps and Karmacoma. I want him bad. If I ever met a guy with a voice like that, he could have me with just one word. We’re both really obsessed with him now, but as it says on Jo’s page, I get to marry him. By Sunday, our obsession had gotten to the stage that by the time Angel was drawing to a close, we’d both be in hysterics of anticipation, threads of saliva dangling out of the corners of our mouths almost.

Simon wanted to go to Te Aroha to pick up some computery things from a guy called James Spooner that he knew off Chat, so we did. However, he only had an ascii map of how to get to the guy’s house, so naturally we got lost. Well, not lost, because it was such a small hole, but we didn’t know where we were supposed to go. Naturally I had to ask for directions because no one else wanted to. The chick in blue blockers that assisted me was spot on, so we ended up at the end of James’s drive. Simon had no sooner driven into the curb (he drives well, but has problems parking) than James – or cmos as I know him from chat – came out with the cds. Talk about Rugger, man! He even had the collar on his rugby shirt turned up. I so didn’t want to meet him, so me and Jo decided to swap names – she was going to be Joanna and I’d be Jo. As we were getting out of the car, I tripped, cos my legs were tired from sitting (that does make sense, if you think about it for a moment) and so I started laughing. We introduced ourselves, but he so didn’t care, cos he was trying to wrangle an invite to the party. She whispered in my ear that he was playing dire straits so we started having hysterics – the boys all told us to calm down, but then I noticed there was a gillete lady sensor blade lying in his driveway and that was just the most bizzare thing ever so we laughed more and more. Mr Spooner was like “have they been drinking already?”. He thought we were literally on the piss, but we knew it was him who was. Driving away, Jo was like “collar down!!!!”. Such a loser was our cmos. He thinks I’m Jo now. I know this cos he told someone else that “wu, twiggy, joanna and some fat bitch” went to his house. I’d be really hurt, but no.

After Te Aroha, Jo and I achieved a great feat – the boys put the Spice Girls on for us. We were so impressed. I was impressed too that I can remember the dance moves for ‘Stop’, which Brad taught me. Four songs into the tape, we hit Paeroa, for the most important of all our touristy photos – in front of the giant L&P bottle. FAAAAAAANTASTIC baby. Then I asked directions from the lad in Mobil as to how to get to Gil’s house, and we found that easily. She gave me a mirror! I love her to bits. It’s a broken record and it’s truely cool. We heard Sublime being played upstairs – apparently that’s a very Paeroa thing, so yeah, we got in touch with the locals and all. Gil crammed into the back seat with me and Jo and of course we used the excuse of doing up our seatbelts to cop a feel. Well, we pretended we were going to, but I figure Gil was traumatised enough as it was. She didn’t know the Spice Girls, or the words to Garageland later either. She did however know a quick back route to Hamilton, so we flew down that, even if Si’s Honda accord isn’t a Holden V8 like she’s used to.

Eventually we got to hamilton and somehow found our way to Andee and Amy’s place. I tried to rush up there before the rest of the car to let them know that Brett and Jo were there too (they didn’t know) but I didn’t really have enough time. It was so sad, because A&A (I’m sure you can figure out who I mean) are moving out of their flat so there were like, boxes everywhere. Seton, their neighbour and one of the main attractions of that flat popped in for a chat, and so he got introduced to everyone. He is SO the man. Such a stud. A&A bitched at each other, and at Si lots. It’s their way of showing affection. I felt bad for gil and jo and brett cos I wasn’t sure how seriously they were taking it, but oh well. I warned Gil and Jo both the weekend would be nuts. Ren showed up, so that was choice cos I love her. Of course her and Andee weren’t coming to the partay, given that they were UNINVITED, but we won’t go there. Jo and I got all girled up – love my lilac eyeshadow long time. Gil was gonna, but then she didn’t. I so love getting dressed up, and I wanted to look good for the crazy party. After a food run to Caltex, where the crazy guy at the counter tried to lock Jo in, we had a couple of drinks (more specifically, I had two midori and lemonades and two shots of bacaardi that Andee gave me) and a bit of a chat. Eight people really filled up their shoebox flat! Then Amy and Ren drove us in their cars to Mark’s place. Us being me, si, jo, gil and brett, since as mentioned before Andee and Ren weren’t invited (not that they would have gone anyways) and Amy didn’t want to go. So yeah. I left my midori at the flat, cos I didn’t want it to all get drunk, so I only took along a bottle of red to share with Jo.

Walking in, the first person I saw was the looser named Tim (Jazz on IRC) who I took a bible to once (long story). EWwwwwww but I was like “Hi Tim” and sailed right past him. Jo knows him from the Undernet, and was waiting to see if he’d recognize her. Gil wasn’t so lucky – he waylaid her as the rest of us breezed into the back yard to talk to Mark. I didn’t realise she was gone – in fact, I forgot all about her – whoops. But eventually she managed to get free, and came outside too. She only stayed for like ten minutes though, cos her friend was having a party up the road, and that was probably less scary. I introduced Jo to everyone as my bitch, which was buckets of fun. I’d be the luckiest lesbian alive if it was true, and if I was – but I’m not. Jo decided to introduce herself to Tim, which was probably a bad idea, given that he spent like the rest of the night following us around after that. We realised that it was going to be a bit of a problem only having the one bottle of red, so I rang up Andee and her and Ren brought me my midori over. I had to wait for them in the driveway, and I was like, dancing all by myself. I thought it was funny.

Tim kept coming over like to talk to us, so Jo and I started hitting on one another, to see if we could drive him away, because he’s very homophobic. However, I think it just attracted him more. We certainly caught the eye of others! We did explain to everyone that we were just fucking with his head, but I think there were a couple of guys there who really wanted to believe I was a lesbian. We said something about snogging, and naturally Hugh was like “yes please”. Oh – apparently it’s not cool to pretend to be bi/lesbian because it undermines the work of the pioneers. I say having that attitude is what sets it back, cos how is pretending to be with Jo any different from pretending to be with a guy? I guess girls are sort of different though. Jo was being really stupid, so she asked me to slap her. I was like “can i really? can I slap you really hard?” and she agreed to it, so I did. The *SMACK* noise of it richocheted around the garden, and heads turned in exclamations of shock. I felt so guilty that I made her slap me back – and fuck it hurt! People were all like “REOW!!!!!!!!”. I do believe they thought we were mad. Hahahahah they probably would have been right.

Yucky Timmy Boy came to sit next to me, and I was so not impressed, so I put my hand on his knee and I was like “so tim, how about it?”. He started to say “yes” so I screamed, and ran away to Mark’s bedroom, where everyone was clustered around this chick called Annmaree. It’s so traj how all the boys want her. I don’t know what they see in her – her personality strikes me as bland, and she looks like Ainslie from Young Entertainers. Plus she doesn’t put out – so I have no idea what’s going on there. Anyways, it’s just sort of disgusting to watch. When Timmy followed us into there, Jo and I hid in Mark’s closet. Looking at the closet again in the morning, I have no idea how the fuck we fitted in there.