It’s not unusual for me to get a bit nostalgic at this time of year, as my mind replays festive seasons, and in particular, New Years Eves of the past.

In bygone years, celebrating the last night of the year, and the start of a new year has meant a lot to me. Some of those occasions marked the start of an exciting year, or the end of a shitty one, but I’d say that on all but one occasion I looked to the year ahead with a fair bit of optimism. It was that sense of looking forward that typically coloured my New Year’s Eve celebrations.

I think my earliest recollection was of warm nights spent in the backyard pool, while mum and dad enjoyed a few quiet beers with friends and neighbours. I’m pretty sure that while my sis and I were kids my folks never did the grandiose NYE party thang, but I could be wrong. It wasn’t until I turned 16 that I had wen to my first “real” New Year’s Party.

Kroll had thrown a birthday party a few months earlier that rocked, and this instantly earned him the reputation as party host extraordinaire. His folks were pretty well off, and his house was perfectly set up for a teen party worthy of a John Hughs movie, complete with ping-pong and pool tables, a large in-ground pool, and two dimly lit sitting rooms with couches for making out. When NYE rolled around, Kroll’s house was THE place to be that year – and everyone who was anyone turned up. I recall I was having a pretty good time, and possibly even chatting up a girly at one stage – until the Bundy kicked in big time. Shortly after I was hurling chunks all over the Lazy Susan and my cool new jacket, wishing I could stop the back yard from rotating.

The next year I held my own NYE show, and pulled most of the “good” crowd from Kroll’s the year before. This was the first time I realised what being a host was all about – spending the evening pouring endless snacks into bowls, manning the BBQ, fetching drinks, and telling drunk people where the toilet was. Not to mention stone cold sober! I took the next year off, and headed for the South Coast with Subman and his brother – to the coolest surf club disco come party of the year. I’ll always have fond recollections of that night, and I’ve written about both it, and the girl already.

That’s not to say all my New Year’s eve’s were memorable, or particularly good. Some in fact, were deathly dull. Up there among those vying for the title were one spent wandering the streets of a seaside suburb, a group of 20 or so revellers being led by one really wasted girl who believed she knew of “a house where there’s a really great party”. Needless to say, three hours later as the clock struck midnight we were lost and sobering up, as she quietly fell asleep in the gutter. There was another one with what unexpectedly turned out to be a bunch of tea-totaling born again Happy Clappers. They say you don’t need alcohol to have fun. I say to those people, “you weren’t there”. There were also a couple of “just quiet” ones in there, neither particularly bad or good – just forgettable.

On the flipside, Millenium New Year’s eve in Rome was anything but forgettable. They say that on that night there were 17million people in the Papal city, and I reckon I saw every one of them. As the 60-person wide human tidal wave carried us along the Via dei Condotti, and firecrackers exploded just above our heads and under our feet every few seconds, all I could think about was a bomb going off - and the deadly stampede that would follow. Spooked and nervous, we got the bus outta there at 9pm and filed into the worst traffic jam I will probably ever see. Two and a half hours later we made it back to our hotel on the outskirts of Rome, and saw out 1999 with a small gathering in the safety of our room. Others never made it back until 5pm on New Year’s day, after a freezing night spent trying to sleep at the Roma stazione. They wished they came with us.

Another memorable occasion was the afternoon a huge, threatening, dark cloud rolled in across the city. Normally it would be pretty cool to feel the air charging up, watch the lightning flash and feel the deep, low rumble of a brewing thunderstorm over the ocean – unless you were on a sailboat with a 30ft aluminium mast. I eventually got ashore without getting struck by lightning, but only after dropping all the sails just as a 50knot gale struck. The storm continued for hours, but I celebrated my cheating death with several cold beverages at a medium sized party that evening. I spent the year after in a port town, and at the stroke of midnight all the ships in the harbour sounded their fog-horns.

Filed under “memorable but good” are a small number of NYE festivities. One spent on a remote island, where I got invited to a small gathering as I filled up the car with fuel at one of only a handful of petrol stations. The shindig turned out to be at a resort owned by an ex-Qantas pilot with a penchant for frocking up, and a Margarita fueled night of fun and revelry ensued. Another was spent in a remote country town, which somehow managed to draw thousands of people on New Year’s Eve that year. They closed off the main street and set up trestle tables outside the one and only pub, and parked a low-loader and live band at the end of it. I met people that had travelled there from all over the Australia that night… it was totally unexpected!

There was also one memorable night some years ago when I “officially” got together with the girl I’d later marry, so in essence, NYE is also an anniversary for me. Although this year was very quiet for numerous reasons, I still like to think there are memorable “last night of the year”s off in the future – and I look forward to those.

For now though, I look forward to 2009 and hope that all it brings is good – not just for me, but for those I care about.

Happy New Year everyone. =)

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It’s funny how particular sights and sounds can invoke just one memory, or event.

A very rare sound for me is that of the latin american percussion instrument, the guiro. You play the guiro by running a small stick up and down a serated edge of a tubular shaped, hand carved piece of timber. This not unpleasant sound can frequently be heard in Tango and Bossonova rhythms, as that brrr-chicka-brrr-chicka that gets hips gently swaying.

Whenever I hear a guiro , I am immediately thrust back to my school days, and music class. I remember picking up a fish shaped guiro the first time, and scraping the stick along it and improvising a bongo accompaniment with my voice. I thought it sounded soooo groovy! Unfortunately, like so many other pursuits that *might* have just captured the average teenager’s imagination, the school curriculum seemed intent on annhialating any enthusiasm I might have harboured. It pretty much did that for everyone.

I remember everyone in class being assigned an instrument, and of course, this had to be done most carefully. There were often students who, either through outside tutoring, or natural ability, had achieved some level of mastery of an instrument. But for the most part, these careworn noisemakers were in the hands of the talentless and the disinterested. Often instruments were assigned on who could do the least damage - the quiet, mousey girl was given the base guitar, the high-pitched voiced geeky boy the drum kit. Certain instruments were also reserved for the “special” students, and in our case, our special needs student was given the Triangle. I am sure he would have much preferred to go nuts on the giant gong, but poor “Kevin” was kept well away from noisy or sharp objects.

I am sure you can just imagine the terrifying cacophony that ensued when some poor, misguided music teacher ( who, let’s face it, are all stoners ) come conductor issued the instruction to play. Some utterly terrible tunes spring to mind - Little Brown Jug, Tom Dooley, and perhaps the most shocking, Up there Cazaley! We played, or should I say, massacred, each and every one of these tunes… and dare I say, several more I no longer recall. We did it with flutes. We did it with Castanets. We did it with Glockenspiels.

It was enough to put anyone off music for life, and it’s amazing that I ever picked up a musical instrument again. But eventually I did, and I even managed to make them sound something less than awful. Well… some of them…

Still… I haven’t played a Guiro since, but I must confess at under $40 on ebay… I’m sorely tempted…

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Described as ‘the chewy chocolate bar that you really have to get your teeth into’, Drifter was first released by Nestlé in 1980. Drifter was comprised of a ‘crisp wafer dipped in chewy caramel and covered in REAL milk chocolate’, if calling anything produced by Nestlé “real” is not asking too much.

I remember the TV ad from sometime in the 80’s, featuring all the classic clichés like sunsets, nice cars and girls, set to the Doby Gray hit tune Drift Away. The ad lifts the section of the song starting with:

Day after day I’m more confused
So I look for the light in the pouring rain

After the intro, the ad switched to the usual slo-mo footage of the wafers getting smothered in molten chocolate, accompanied by a voice over describing the composition of the snacky delight. Then the backing track faded back up to the chorus:

Oh, give me the beat, boys, and free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock and roll and drift away

Upon whence the TV ad’s protagonist, if memory serves, proceeded to “drift away” himself, presumably into the sunset with a satisfied, smug, chocolatey look on his face.

For some trivia, each bar takes almost 90 minutes to manufacture from start to finish, and at it’s height, Drifter outsold the massively popular Picnic and Timeout.

I have searched high and low for the original 80’s TV ad, but so far have been unsuccessful. In spite of this, its sugary dagginess will live on in my memory forever.

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At the risk of sounding like I only have one beginning to the fabulously unpopular Generalboy remembers series, possibly the most hyped up band of my generation was Nirvana.

I remember seeing the video clip for Smells like Teen Spirit the first time, and just going “what the fuck just happened? Those cheerleader chicks had the nastiest tatts I’ve ever seen!”. I’ll be honest and say the visuals captured a lot more of my attention than the music, and that feeling stayed with me.

The publicity machine went into overdrive when Nirvana toured Australia, and I remember Nevermind was blaring from every bloody music store you walked past. It got the the point where if I heard “Polly wants a cracker” one more time I was gonna go shopping for flame throwers. It was on high rotation at all the parties all my friends had, and they all looked so disappointed when they all ran out and bought tickets to Nirvana’s one and only Tinytown concert, and I just shrugged my shoulders.

In hindsight, maybe I wish I’d gone. At that time in my life I was very much over everything commercial and overhyped… in fact… I failed to see how anything that popular could be any good. It had been at least 5 years since I intentionally tuned in to commercial radio, and three or four since I’d seen a movie that cost more than $50,000 to make and came from anywhere near a suburb ending with “wood”. I was deeply suspicious of the whole Nirvana phenomenon - it seemed awfully contrived to me.

I guess moreso, I had been listening to bands like them before them, and had already been a fan of one of Nirvana’s biggest influences, The Pixies, for two or three years. Crucify me at the mere suggestion… but I still think their entire body of work sounds better with the passing of time than Nirvana’s. I cannot deny Nirvana’s contribution to the musical potpourri of my generation, but I think I am big and dumb enough to convey the sheer indifference I feel toward them.

The sad part is, I don’t hate them. I’ll even bang out a few of their riffs on the old six string when I want to piss off the neighbours. But if you ever see me drunkenly mouthing along to the Unplugged CD, please… kill me…

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Without doubt, the most hyped up astronomical event of the 1980’s was the passing of Halley’s Comet.

Comet Halley orbits us every 75 years, previously appearing in 1910 and first noted as early as 240BC. The 1910 visit was well documented and seen the world over - and the first such event ever photographed. As with any large scale cosmic event there were scaremongers - some predicting the comet would strike the earth and wipe out mankind; another theory suggested Potassium Cyanide gas contained in the comet’s tail would poison every living thing as the planet passed through it. No such events occurred, and instead, observers were rewarded with a night time spectacle beyond compare. Comet Halley is often confused with The Great Comet that arrived 4 months earlier in January, which was so bright that it was actually visible to the naked eye in broad daylight.

Scheduled to pass closest to Earth in February 1986, the Halley’s Comet money machine started ticking over at least a year in advance - with all manner of plans to cash in on this “once in a lifetime” event. One such caper were so-called Halley’s Comet flights - run by major airlines around the world. My parents bought tickets for one of these for my sister and I, and in early February of that year we climbed aboard the first Ansett comet observation flight.

Taxiing out the atmosphere aboard was festive, with mums and dads served airline wine in plastic cups, and kids scoffing down chips and twisties once we were in the air and levelled out. There were also a few reporters and TV cameras on board to capture the event, and I remember seeing them filming down the aisles before we took off. I waved. I remember they took us out over the sea and away from the light pollution of the city, making two passes in each direction - giving passengers on either side of the aircraft a view. They turned out all the lights so it was dark and we could see better.

Sadly, there wasn’t all that much to see. When Comet Halley made its closest pass to Earth on Febrary 9 it was little more than a faint speck to the naked eye, it’s tail a fluffy and miniscule imitation of its former self. The tail spanned several degrees of arc in the 1910 encounter… but in 1986, it was no more than the width of a pencil held at arm’s length. The news did their best to hype it up, but in all honesty… Halley’s comet in 1986 was just piss weak.

Just as the May 1910 approach had already been upstaged by the Great Daylight Comet in January, Comet Halley was also upstaged by the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster that happened just three weeks earlier. And 21 years later, it would be far surpassed the utterly spectacular passing of Comet McNaught in February 2007. Comet McNaught has been named “The Great Comet” of 2007, and it is generally believed by astronomers that it will never return.

For me, that makes it unforgettable; and a true once-in-a-lifetime experience.

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and old friend…

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I’d wager there wouldn’t be too many gen-x Aussie kids who don’t remember wandering home from school, plopping themselves down on the couch in front of the telly with a loaf of unopened, soft white Vienna bread and a glass of Milo ( 50% milk… 50% Milo, with the spoon left in ). And chances are that while you gobbled down those doughy little rolls of squishy bread, and snorted the chocolaty goodness of Milo, you watched Simon Townsend’s Wonderworld on Channel 10.

Wonderworld was sort of a first of its kind in Australia - sort of like a less daggy Behind the News for kids. The show was split into 4 segments on different topics that changed each week - anything from sciencey stuff to animal stuff, to music, or maybe something from another country. Each segment had a reporter, and each one had a specialty area. Simon Townsend was the creator and host, aided by his faithful companion Woodrow ( a gigantic, drooling Bloodhound, who died in 1985 following an accident in which he attempted to jump from the open door of a Helicopter as it took off ), and later, a sulphur crested cockatoo. Simon himself had this odd, but endearing way of speaking, punctuating occasional giggles and pauses with inexplicable tangents. Comedian Paul Hogan lampooned this in a sketch from his show An Evening with Hoges, and while the impersonation was reasonably funny, Hoges’ best work was well behind him by this stage; the rest of the sketch is cringeworthy.

Wonderworld was a springboard for comedian Jonathan Coleman ( as seen on Spicks and Specks tonight ), ABC journo and more recently, ebay mouthpiece Angela Catterns, as well as Sheridan Jobbins who co-produced (with Amanda Keller) the iconic 80’s Live it Up video for Mental As Anything. All worked as reporters on the show, but perhaps its longest serving was one-time 80’s pop princess Edith Bliss, who had a hit with If it’s love you want, and drove teenage boys to distraction with her blonde perm and smoldering eyes.

In 1992 the Nine Network re-launched the show ( removing Simon Townsend from the name ), among the team of new reporters was a 21 year old journalism graduate named Catriona Rowntree, who had only just landed the evening timeslot on ABC youth radio station JJJ. The show rated well, and it ran for another three years… but it just wasn’t the same.

You might be surprised to know that Simon himself is still out there, in fact, he even has his own blog. If you have a moment, check out his story about the accidental and rather infamous airing of the blue version of The Cheese Sketch from Monty Python. It’s actually quite a good read.

He’s still a funny bloke.

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• the dusky smell the sleep out in the rear of our house

• running around the backyard holding dad’s model Spitfire above my head, making engine sounds

• the very specific aroma of the wood fires in our street, and the smoke haze hanging low in the cold night air

• digging holes in the sand and big, dead jellyfish washed up on the beach

• mum pushing me underwater and letting me float back up, and how the water in Port Philip bay tasted

• eating a big meat pie with lots of sauce in the dimly lit kitchen

• playing with my freind Ross from two doors up

• lying back, and looking up at timber power poles, power lines, and tram overhead lines from the back seat of a moving car

• grey skies, and the cold wind off the bay blowing straight down our street

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I don’t know how, or why it came to me, but a conversation in the last few days suddenly brought back recollections of a radio public service announcement from years ago. This guy with a sort of drawling american accent would relate some cautionary tale, and then conclude the lesson with , Father Harry, God Squad. It usually had classic rock as the backing track, to bolster street cred.

It’s weird… because I long held onto a vision of The God Squad as some sort of born again Christian Bikie Gang ( interesting footnote… their scripture reading evenings would be outlawed under legislation currently being tabled in TinyTown Parliament regarding outlaw motorcycle gangs ) that roamed the land on Harley Davidsons, turning wayward kids onto Jebus via the mystical and emotive throbbing of a gigantic v-twin engine. How wrong I was!

If it’s at all possible, the God Squad were somehow lamer than even I had previously thought. For starters, there seemed to be no “squad” as such. If there was, surely we would have heard readings from Father Baz, and Father Barney, and not just Father Harry. I held out some hope that perhaps Father Harry was a lone campaigner, tearing across the midwestern prarie plains on an apocalyptic sounding hog, the wind whistling through his generous beard, donned in black leather and a bandanna. But sadly, Father Harry was just this guy, and the “squad” were a mere afterthought. I must admit feeling a bit cheated believing otherwise for all those years. Had I known Father Harry looked like this, I would have been even less impressed.

But I do recall my friends and I always used to imitate the radio ads, making up our own ridiculous and inappropriate parables for cheap laughs. We conjured all the wit of fifteen year old boys with chestnuts like “buy some drugs - get stoned; Father Harry, God Squad”, or “Jesus watched you wanking - go to hell; Father Harry, God Squad”. You have to imagine it with the accent, of course.

I did manage to track down Father Harry via the magic of the interweb, and it turns out he has since been made a Monsignor, real name Harry Schlitt. I also believe the 800 odd recordings, all around a minute in length, are still in wide circulation in the Southern States of the USA.

Here is a sample of Father Harry’s work, and while I have no idea what the moral of the story is, the image of the guy’s frozen hand falling off is priceless!

Enjoy.

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After a few weeks off we made a trip to the city armed with 3 jigglers each. We headed back to Tilt, our old haunt, keen to play a brand new game we’d heard about. As we strolled past the scurity gaurd he looked us up and down… and I became suddenly and inexplicably overcome with a bad feeling. As we neared the back of the large pinball room I could see several large signs had been erected around the room. I walked up closer to one and read the large red print - “PLAYERS ATTEMPTING TO GAIN CREDITS ON THESE MACHINES ILLEGALLY WILL BE PROSECUTED”. I gulped as my fingers gently massaged the jiggler in my right pocket, rolling my thumb over the knot in the fishing line. I reached for the coins in my left pocket, and placed them on the glass of the nearest pinnie.

Feeling nervous, I decided to play using real money… the old fashioned way. Morris though, was far more cavallier. He snorted at the signs, and chastised me with “Booork Boooork Boooork” noises and chicken gestures. I hated it when he did that. After a quick scan of the room, he pulled out the jiggler and lowered it carefully into the coin slot. I watched as the credit counter rolled over quicky to 20 credits, before he withdrew the coin and calmly slipped it back into his pocket - slipping me a sly sideways look as he did so. He played two games and everything seemed fine, and I began to relax… when I noticed the large silhouette of the security guard approaching. He moved slowly in our general direction, ambling and looking around the room. I tried subtley to watch him over my shoulder while remaining nonchalant, switching from looking over my right shoulder to the left as he strolled menacingly behind me. I watched him slowly get closer to Morris… who was completely immersed in his game and oblvious. I looked long and hard at the bin full of Hungry Jack’s paper cups in the corner, and seriously considered dumping my three jigglers in it as soon as was humanly possible.

Something seemed to catch the guard’s attention over toward the “smack the shark” games, and I released the air I’d held in my lungs for what seemed like 5 minutes as he wandered purposefully off. But he’d rattled me… and I was not prepared to risk the jiggler that day. I soon ran out of change, and shuffled up to the machine Morris was playing. “I’m out of cash” I announced. His eyes remained fixed on the game. “We’re never out of cash. Did you lose all three or something?” he asked, assuming I’d had a triple jiggler malfunction. “No!” I replied, frowning. “That gaurd… I reckon he’s onto us”. Morris looked around as he trapped the ball in the crook of his left flipper. “What gaurd?” he mocked. I was more annoyed now. “He walked right behind you! I saw him… he looked you up and down. I reckon he knows.” Morris narrowed his eyes, and in his most cocksure voice, said, “knows what? He doesn’t know shit!”

At that moment I realised just how blase Morris had become, and it unnerved me. I’d seen bravado like this in films… those Vietnam War ones where one minute the company are marching and singing along to a transistor radio, and the very next they are shot into small pieces by the Vietcong. For a second I pictured his body dancing like some demented puppet as the enemy pumped him full of lead, and then him falling to the ground underneath a canopy of dense jungle. “I’m going” I told him, expecting him to tell me to wait until he’d finished this game. But I forgot I was dealing with another addict… and that reason and sense were not factors in the equation anymore. His eyes remained locked on the ball in play. “Sure” he replied tersely. “I’ll catch a later train”. I took a step back and watched for a moment, then leaned back toward him and stage whispered in his ear. “yeah well don’t get fucken caught” I snipped, and then turned and walked out.

On the train going home I was mad. Mad at Morris for chastising me. Mad at the security gaurd for ruining my day. Mad that I’d spent all my money, and didn’t even have enough left to buy a can of Coke. I pulled out one of the jigglers from my hip pocket and dangled it in front of my nose, the gentle rocking of the train forcing it to swing back and forth slowly. I thought of all the hours I spent collecting bottles, and drilling holes in coins, and slapping flippers and waiting to hear the addictive “crack” of a free game. I pulled down the window, and tossed the jiggler out of it. I imagined it landing perfectly on the farthest most of the southbound tracks - only to be flattened by the next train. I smiled at the thought.

Later that evening as the sun was setting, I rode my bike past Morris’ house, expecting to see his bike parked out the front - but it was nowhere to be seen. I was still pretty mad at him, but I went and rapped on the front door. His sister answered, and whined “Morris isn’t here”. I asked if she knew where he was. “Went to town to play pinball” she scowled. “I know” I offered, “we went togther”. She shrugged her shoulders and let the screen door slam shut, and began walking off down the long hall. “Don’t know… don’t care” she said in amocking, sing-song tone not unlike her brother.

I wheeled my bike away and began to fret. It was hours after I’d left him… I am sure he wouldn’t have played that long. Maybe he stopped at Hungry’s for a burger… still… for an hour? I doubted it. I started to grind my teeth. And soon the visions came again. Morris would be standing there, bumping the pinnie and slapping the flippers, 2,000 credits clocked up coutesy of the jiggler. He’s feel the large hairy hand on his shoulder and turn to see the angry face of the huge security gaurd, a cigarette and long sausage of ash hanging from his lower lip. “Let’s go for a walk kid” he’d sneer, and Morris would suddenly put on his innocent face, and start whimpering , “what? what? what have I done?”. The gaurd would take him to a small, dimly room out the back. He’d force Morris to turn out his pockets. The three jigglers would fall to the ground in slo-mo, the guard’s gaze following them all the way down. He’d look back up at Morris, who’s bottom lip would now be quivering in fear. Then he’d reach for the telephone book he kept in the back room, for special occasions such as this. 20 minutes later Morris would stagger out onto the street, split lip, black eye and spitting out blood. And he’d blame me.

A moment later I heard the squeal of caliper bicycle brakes echo down the street. I turned to see Morris stopped inched behind me. I stood slack jawed for a second, looking for the black eye… the bloodied shirt… for any evidence of the beating I was so certain he’d been given. There was nothing. “What are you staring at piker?” he mocked me again. I still couldn’t speak. “Should have stayed piker… I got the high score on Meteor”, and as he said it he mimed slapping the flippers, biting his lower lip in mock concetration. “But… the guard” I mumbled. “I thought….”. Morris just stared at me, then shook his head. “You’re gutto! I told ya… he didn’t know shit! I played for two hours after you went!”. Just then Morris’ mum called out the front door. “Morris! Get inside… dinner is on the table”. He spun round and jumped on his bike, standing on opne pedal and pushing with the other. He stepped off in the driveway, and looked back up the street at me. “Hiiiiiigh scoooooore” he sung. “Geeeeeb issssss guuuuut-toooooo”. Then he disappeared inside.

I stopped going to town after that. From pretty much that day on the pinnies just stopped doing it for me, and I could not muster any great enthusisam for them. I’d have the odd game now and then, for old time sake, but I could take it or leave it. I realised the spell was broken. Morris continued going into town and “jiggling”, and getting high scores, and bragging about it to me… until one day the gaurd really did catch him at it. He didn’t get beaten to a bloody pulp as I’d imagined, but his mum and dad did get a phone call… and he sure was grounded for a long time after. Enough to break his habit… almost.

Years on I sometimes come across a lonely pinnie in a fish and chip shop, and I’ll give it a longing glance. Sometimes I even shuffle in my pocket, and imagine one of the coins in there has piece of string tied to it.

Now and then, I wonder if it still works.

I secretly hope it does.

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