Hell, I could possibly be a nightmare or fall into the cliché category of a love/hate relationship when it comes to sharing the same roof over your head with me.

I am actually quite reserved when I live at home and tend to stick to myself; until alcohol is consumed or there’s a good film playing in the lounge room.

I start off clean but then get messy if the house chores aren’t shared equally.  I think a lot of people are kind of like that. Let’s not get into details of what it’s like living with me. Let’s instead share experiences I’ve had living with around 100 people in the last 3 years. I’ve talked about the crack head in Mexico before, talked about living in a house where we were involved in the porn industry and written in detail about how some housemates are absolutely terrible to live with; not that I have had that problem for a while. Instead I will talk about how shit I could possibly be to live with.

If you’re slightly anal, uptight or snappy then I’m probably shit to be around. I have been known to be quite the smart arse but it seems to double around people who hold those annoying qualities. Not too long ago I lived with a person who was exactly that and the more she would get uptight the more I would have to stir.

Frustratingly to her she was putting fuel on the fire.  My friends told their mother that their sister was dating ‘Bulldog’. He loved cars, didn’t have a job and was mostly a mother’s worst nightmare and a good reason why a Dad would want to lock their daughter away. It was all in good fun but the joke stuck with me for a long time and I had to use it on someone eventually. One afternoon I wrote a comment on her facebook page that read “Hey Jane, my mate Bulldog is staying over for a week or so. Hope that’s OK!”

Jane quickly replied “Um, who the fuck is Bulldog?” but I assured her it was just a friend. In perfect timing a friend of mine asked if I wanted to go through some drugs that he had picked up from a local retirement home. There wasn’t much there other than Paracetamol but it was all individually packaged in a clear bag that was almost as big as a pillow case. To the untrained eye it looked like a bag of illicit goodies that only a bloke like Bulldog distribute. Of course we had already had people join in on the joke who convinced Jane that they had heard of the notorious Bulldog before. “He can’t stay at my house man. Remember what happened last time” Mitch said to stir the pot even more. By this time Jane was getting pretty furious but she was at work so she bitched there to let off a bit of steam.

Jane didn’t come home that night but she did text me. “Don’t eat any of the chip packets on the bench, they’re for a road trip with my friends” she bluntly texted me. So while my friends and I were all around drinking a few beers we decided to eat them. They weren’t that great anyway. As I had more alcohol the thought of pissing Jane off was too pleasing and I couldn’t stop trying to think of more ways that Bulldog could really piss her off while he was visiting. I felt bad about the little packets of crisps so I got some drugs from that bag, placed two inside with a Wheat-Bix bar and loosely blu-tacked them together. The thought of her friends getting a little bit hungry on a road trip, and then opening a bag filled with headache tablets and breakfast cereal was amazing at the time – maybe I went a little bit far. But I couldn’t stop there. I went into her room and got her lamp from beside the bed and drunkenly waltzed downstairs. “We better make Bulldog a room in the garage” I shouted to my friends. And I did. I got one of her sheets to use as a separator – just so his room looked a bit more comfortable. I then carefully placed a single mattress on the floor, covered it with empty beer bottles and a few dirty plates.

We needed to power the lamp so I ran an extension cord from the garage through the lounge room, the living room and then into the laundry. I got a bucket and filled it with water and placed that in the sink along with the power cord. I’m not sure why I did that but I thought only a dickhead like Bulldog would do such a thing. The attention to detail had to be perfect. We had a half-eaten sausage roll with ketchup smeared along a plate, some dirty magazines and a few tissues to set the mood. If Bulldog was real I hoped that he would be comfortable and feel at home.

Come to think of it this was a pretty dickhead move but it was all in good fun. I’d love to tell you more about some crazy people I’ve lived with but it would be too similar to He Died With a Falafel in his Hand.  Also I’m not exactly sure why I’ve decided to post this a few weeks before I move into my new Melbourne home, but lucky for me they’re not that uptight.

Please note that I am extremely tired doing visas for some Hip Hop dudes coming to Australia and couldn’t be bothered spell checking. Actually most of you know by now that I can’t really spell – I flunked English all through school.

So anyway I just wanted to tell a short story because I haven’t updated the blog for a long time. I’m having a few legal things I want to get rid of with the Bam blog. Also my Outback Australia blog is almost finished. I was so inspired by Rhys Day and I really want to start documenting and getting filming some scenes. We just need another campervan, some money and time. Does anyone want to sell a campervan?

Follow me if you want -
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Stay tuned for a tour announcement soon!  I’m finally getting back into work. Also I’m helping to promote these two amazing tours in Queensland (Killing Joke and MDC), so if you’re into the bands help me share the flyers.

Hope you’re all very well.
XO

My friends and I relaxing. You should too.

About a month before that gig the police called me and told me they wanted to shut down the gig, so I quickly talked my way into meeting them at the venue. At the time I was living in Brisbane (in a street called Arthur Terrace!) and putting gigs on in Toowoomba, so I’d be travelling up at least twice a week trying to organize the shows. I met up with the police in the venue to try and talk them into letting me keep the gig going – but they didn’t budge. “You can understand why I don’t want a band like this coming into my town” said one officer as he reminded me of rough events that unfolded in Brisbane months earlier. He explained that if I wanted the gig to keep going then I’d have to hire police officers which would set me back $90 an hour, each! Because Parkway Drive’s management pay for the production and give the local promoter $1 per head, they needed to keep costs down as much as possible and paying for cops would have made the gig not worthwhile. They also capped the event at 300 payers, which means after all of this I’d still only get $300 for months of work and talking authority into letting the gig run.

I talked to a guy in charge of Youth events for the council and tried to get him to cover the costs of police or security but he said there was no money. “Fuck that” I thought. I emailed the Mayor of Toowoomba at the time, Dianne Thorley, and told her the situation. Within one day she emailed that guy and told him to give me the money I needed to make the event happen – and ‘til this day I don’t think I ever got it. I told Graham that the council would cover the police before the council even knew I was putting the gig on. It was just one of many risks I took in this business to try and get better at a job I loved doing.

When the event finally took place the police walked around bored, the security guards had nothing to do and the only time there was an emergency was when a girl passed out in the band room. She ended up fine. After months of putting on this gig I sat at the door behind the desk, and was relieved that the gig was finally coming to an end. I remember this distinctly; a young blonde girl walked passed and held out her hand to me. I didn’t know what she was giving me, but I held my hand back out and she dropped a candy wrapper in my hand and continued to walk off. After all that work I did for her entertainment I wanted to tell her to get fucked, and if it happened now I probably would.

I don’t think it’s hard talking a band into touring if that’s what you want to do. I managed to green-light Bad Brains into touring Australia and almost sell out 3 shows with no more than 50 emails over the space of a few months. I have finally gotten over that tour cancelling due to health reasons, and if I look back it probably would have been a disaster anyway. I had no fucking idea what I was doing and how much I was taking on.

I’ve been in contact with the biggest artists in the world, and knew in the back of my mind that there was no way I could pull it off – even though I loved dreaming and toying with the idea.

Years ago I offered Busta Rhymes money to come to Australia and within a few weeks was sent a binder to secure the services. I had no fucking idea what I was doing or how much he was even worth. I was learning all these lessons from bad luck, experience and a select few mentors I’ve met down the track. Looking back I’m sure they were only interested because of the ridiculous price I thought he would have been worth at the time.

You would think I had learnt my lesson in talking with acts that I couldn’t handle, and trying to put on major events when I lacked money or experience to even do it. But it didn’t stop there.  A few successful gigs in my state of Queensland made me think I could reach for anything I fucking wanted. Why not try one of the biggest in the world? Who would be considered to be part of the biggest musical act in the world? The Beatles of course.

Dear Glenn,

Many thanks for your e-mail.

Currently, there are no plans for Paul to undertake dates in Australia – it is very tricky with his current schedule, and made even trickier by several recording commitments he has this year.  Additionally, he is writing the music for a ballet which will be premiered in New York City on the 22nd September.

We would be happy if you wanted to provide us with your best financial offer, which Barrie could then discuss with Paul should the appropriate moment arise.

Best wishes,
Rachel

So I tried for Busta Rhymes and had to run for the hills when my dearth of cash was realised. I had nothing to write back or back up to when I got as close as I possibly could to Paul McCartney. After all these years and booking hundreds of bands in hundreds of cities would Bam Margera be my biggest achievement? I’m not even proud of working on that one. 

I’ve probably travelled over 50,000kms collectively between ground and air this year alone and it has given me time to think. Is this what I really want out of life? Why the fuck am I sucking so many people’s dicks with very little return? But this last week has brought me back to reality a little bit and made me realise all the amazing things that I’ve gotten out of the industry. I tattooed my arm with the names of readers of my blog today, thanks to Brock Myles in Toowoomba. I didn’t even know until now that venue managers, publicist’s, band members and music lovers have donated me money to travel Australia and do nothing but think, write and enjoy myself. I am truly grateful for everyone I’ve met and kept as friends along the way, and won’t be going anywhere.

After a few beers the other night at an art show I overheard someone refer to me as the “drunk promoter”. And while I was a little bit offended, I slowly realized how drunk I was and thought that they had every reason to say that. Mark from Guttermouth even referred to me once as “Boozy The Promoter”. I stumbled out of the show the other night, into my camper van and just thought “fuck it, I may as well roll with it”. Last week I started a new email address – glenn@thedrunkpromoter.com and will be slowly announcing stuff over the next year. I may as well have some edge over those suits that are actually making money – I’m enjoying myself and love looking back at my fuck ups. Now I just have to work out a way to pay that prostitute back the money she lent me to put on the biggest flop tour of 2011. I’ll explain more another time. For now I’ll just dream and get drunk with my friends in the process. I’m not that good at advice, but like… don’t give up… or something.

Thanks for all the people who donated towards Uluru. I can’t wait to do a write up about it. Until then here is a picture of all the names, in my hand writing…

Everyone’s name tattooed on my arm. Thanks xo

If you read my blogs you’ll find out that I’ve almost been raped, I’m drunk all the time, I regret things that I say and I’m a little too open about my own use of drugs.

Very relaxed with my mate Mitch!

I’ve been getting some very common questions about the Bam tour lately. Brad, a reader of my blog, asked “… does Bam’s family do anything about him consuming so much drugs?”.

I think spending a good month with Bam in 2013 and a little bit under a week in 2010 was enough for me to get to know him a little bit, and I consider myself a pretty good judge of character. I am very certain that his family and close friends care about him a lot and are worried in their own right, but I can’t speak for them as I’m not around it as much and don’t know him as well. I can tell you that he is rather stubborn and tends to hang around toxic people who use his fame to benefit themselves, but behind all that he has extremely caring friends, family and fans who are constantly worried about him. I started this blog to vent and ended up realizing the power Bam has had on so many people around the world, so I’d like to put a positive spin on the tour even though it’s hard sifting through all the bullshit that happened. I want to know why people like Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O and others who have had a huge influence on his life aren’t stepping up and trying to help. I don’t know them, I don’t know that they haven’t already but I do know that they should be doing it publically starting from now on. It’s easy to hate on me for being open and telling too much, but if the people involved are travelling the world and being dicks in public then I think it’s better that I say it rather than believing hearsay on a forum.

Rhys standing up for himself and almost leaving the tour was a turning point for me as well, and after Chad left I was almost at boiling point. When I gave up on the tour and started to have fun was when I started liking Bam a lot more. I was the one that convinced him to do the 25i drug the night before we all left Cairns, albeit being in no state to give sound advice. I’m not very spiritual or anything but the drug did have a powerful effect on me where I could feel bad energy. Being in the room with Bam was actually good energy and I really wanted him to be in the same place as me – and after 2 minutes he was convinced. Whatever we did that night we were all in it together.

I want to repeat a story I was told that night but I don’t think I would do it justice, and perhaps a lot of people already know it. In a vague nutshell; one night Louie and Bam were having a great time in the middle of America, I think with some weird trailer park folk or something – though I’m not entirely sure on the location. At one point of the night Bam started flipping out and when they woke up in the morning they had hundreds of text messages from Bam’s friends and family informing them of Ryan’s death. The drug we all took heightened everyone’s emotions, and after I was told that story I pretty much broke down and cried. I don’t think I should be retelling a story so powerful and dramatic as I wasn’t there, but it made me think more about what Bam was actually like as a person deep down behind all the bullshit. “Bam likes it when you just treat him like a normal person and not worry about him too much” Louie explained when I started worrying about Bam’s reaction to the drug. It seemed like he was in such a dark place and I felt scared and half responsible that I was bringing out a side of him that not many people had seen.

Bam wanted this tour to keep on going. “He loves it, but we hate the tour” April wrote in one concerned email. There were talks of Asia and a friend of mine had already started booking the Europe tour. “I’m not ready to go home” he would tell me constantly while on the road. “My home is wherever Nikki is. Let’s do it. Let’s keep going”. I guess Nikki would have a lot on her plate dealing with dating Bam. One girl in Cairns wouldn’t leave me alone after the show because she wanted to fuck Bam. “Just let me in his room. I’ve been saving myself for him”. She was convinced that she had to fuck Bam that night and didn’t give a fuck that his girlfriend was also in the room with him.

I hear that the first part of the American tour was low key compared Australia, and I’m worried that’s because the company he had here. He has his brother on the road with him and his family close by, and I have no idea who he hangs around these days over there. I did hear that a club owner got Novak heroin, which I can’t fucking believe. After all the public problems, a New York best seller, jail time and other fuck ups someone goes and puts in his hands. That right there is a stupid way to try and get someone’s attention.

This is my 2^nd last blog post about this tour before I wrap it up for good and move on.

I didn’t expect that many people to read my blogs when I wrote about all of this, but the feedback has been overwhelming. I’ve had friends, ex-managers, family members all email me and ask questions and talk about the tour and I’ve even made friends along the way. It has been amazing. I’m currently in Airlie Beach finishing up a few blogs about my travels around Australia which has been largely funded by my readers. If you want to spare a dollar and want a post card from my adventure please click here. I’m getting everyone’s name tattooed on my next week so I’ll never forget.

I have to thank Bam for allowing me to have a great opportunity, and allowing me to be a part of something that I’ll never forget – even though there were many bad experiences. Without all the shit I wouldn’t be here right now writing about it. I’ve been told I could write about anything I wanted, and then once I started putting it up I started getting asked to take it down. I’m on the fence now with whether I should post the next one or just wait til the dust settles a bit. More importantly I’d like Bam take it easy for a while, step back and realise who actually cares about him as a person.

For my American mates I am coming to visit in September. If you have a spare couch please get in contact with me, and we’ll hang out!

Follow me on Twitter (@glennstewarts) or Instagram (@glennstewart).

I had a phone call the other day to take my blog offline, and I did. That won’t happen again though I promise. My friend Dane once took me out to coffee, sat me down and didn’t hold anything back. “You were a fucking dickhead the other night” he said. At first I was quite taken back and a little bit insulted, but afterwards I thought about it and realized that I was acting like a wanker. Should Dane have told me I was acting like a wanker or should he have just told other people behind my back? Even though Dane has many of his own problems, I still respect him for saying that to me. And I also have comfort to tell him if he’s ever acting like a wanker. If there’s one thing I know about being alone on the open road it’s that all the bitchiness just gets left behind. Instead of being in a group and complaining about the faults of people, I’m in a smaller group learning more about the world and what others have to offer.

The other day we had very little money so Tom, my travel buddy, and I attempted to busk in the streets of Alice Springs. An old Aboriginal man walked over to us and gestured that he’d like to play the guitar. The guy couldn’t speak a word of English and he was quite homeless looking, even though he sported a rad 80s, bleached blonde mullet. We sat down with him for an hour while more of his indigenous friends were surrounding us and watching, and this is the kind of stuff that puts a smile on my face. The guy probably gets to play the guitar once a year and still only remembers one song. His shy voice could hardly be heard over his delicate strumming. And when the indigenous people who surrounded us shook our hands they were so delicate and nervous. I wish I could remember his name, but because he didn’t speak English he never got a chance to tell us. And while I left Alice Springs, one of the best places I’ve been to in a long time, I kept thinking about what a great experience it was that wouldn’t have happened without being involved with a train-wreck of a tour. Instead of wanting to look for my work or get straight back into touring, I just wanted to be free from negativity and think about what I had just been through. Being surrounded by curious and happy aboriginals in Alice Springs made me realise exactly why I love music and what it should mean. Short dresses, coke, booze and sex is something we’ve brought in to music over the years and it has been glorified. Sure it can be fun, but the more I step away from it, the more I realise how contrived it can be – and I’ve been in a box seat looking in for the past 10 years.

I wish I knew his name…

A girl at one of the shows came straight into my room after a show one night, and the next night went straight into another room the night after – without a blink of an eye. She was the type of groupie I see that works her way up the ladder until she has reached her goal. It’s pretty sad but it happens all the time in this industry. I took a year break and met so many more real friends being away from the scene. I met new people, rekindled old friendships or became better friends with people around me that I had known existed for years. A friend of mine once explained that even though the Global Financial Crisis was terrible, they had the best Christmas because people weren’t trying to buy expensive gifts and flaunt anything in front of other family members – they just talked and shared food and stories. When I look back now at New Noise Agency, an agency that almost made it, I probably had my head up my arse a little bit. When I lost it all for a while all I had was me that people could like and not a business where people would really be able to get anything from me rather than my personality and extremely good cooking. When I accepted to book this tour, sort all the visas out and tour manage the band it all came back to me about which parts I hated about this way of life. Things are going to be a LOT different on my next tour, that’s for sure.

So going back to the start; why did I smoke crack? Perhaps I’m a little impressionable myself and wanted to just have fun with everyone. Maybe I thought Bam would respect me more if I took some with him and showed him that I liked to party. Maybe it was because we had no beer in the room mixed with all of the above. When I was a 12 year old kid I collected stamps, listened to music and walked through the bush with my aboriginal friend Tony. We both lived so far away from any civilization; no school, no town water, no internet, no shops and if the wind blew more than 5 knots our power would go off for days. I left home when I was 15 and lived in this fucked old house in Toowoomba. Inside the house lived a drunk, 100 cockroaches and a weird dude who also moved out at the same age. For a while we were friends with a guy from Finland who would buy us cases of beer every weekend with money his Mum would send over. While I was there I got my lip pierced and mum cried in the car after she picked me up from a party. I was at a low point in my life then and didn’t have anyone around me to look up to. All I had was my friends, caring family and an expensive stamp collection that I ended up selling to move away from Mexico. That’s another story though.

Personally I think that Bam has many great qualities that many should look up to, unfortunately for me those qualities are clouded by substance abuse and ‘yes men’ applauding every move he makes – no matter how shit they are. It would probably take a small island away from everyone for him to realise who his real friends are and who’s just sucking his dick for the fame. And if he already realizes who they are then I don’t know why he wants to surround himself by those people. Alex and I are from small, shitty towns two hours west of Brisbane and we’ve managed to travel the world because of music – so anything is possible. We just need to work out how to manage other, more important parts of our life better – friendships, family, income and healthier bodies. I’ve got half of it right so far!

Tom and I took nearly $3500 between us on a trip around Australia and have now got $25 left until the banks open tomorrow. Even then we’re not sure exactly how much we’ve got between us, but we’re still having fun wondering. At the moment we’re stuck 9 hours away from Airlie Beach where I plan on finishing the blog before I start heading south towards my home in Brisbane. If you’d like to donate towards our trip please click here or go to the donate page on my blog.

I am going to have a talk with a lawyer soon about what I should/shouldn’t post up about the blog – but I don’t think it’s worth even doing if I can’t completely express myself and tell everything. If you have any questions about this tour or anything at all please email me. I’m still around 9 hours from Airlie Beach with only 4 hours of fuel left.

Got a spare one dollar? Help us out here – http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Still it wasn’t surprising that people were banned – nothing surprised me anymore. Leon had rejoined the tour which was great because I hated trying to get Bam to interviews/appearances. He picked us up in this ridiculous fucking car that kind of looked like his regular Mini, but without doors and not much of a roof. Kind of like a faster version of a golf buggy. Whatever it was it was bloody stupid but fun. I finally got into the venue where the security greeted Leon, Rhys and myself before showing us to an outdoor hut where they had made the back-room. The venue reminded me of one of those concerts on a Girls Gone Wild DVD – or a Snoop Dogg video clip. It was a stage on a beach, and looking out to the crowd were bros and big ‘ol titties in everyone’s face. Sorry I had to say Big ‘ol Titties, but it seemed like an apt thing to say given the nature of the crowd. The sound was kind of terrible because the speakers weren’t lifted up from the ground, but I’ve hardly made any readers by talking about the technical aspect of a live concert. When I checked the entire venue properly I got approached by an old friend named Tiff who seemed a bit pissed off. “Two of the guys (from Bam’s entourage) just came into our room, called us names and told us to give them blowjobs” she yelled. I knew exactly who it would have been too. They had been doing it on the whole tour.

http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

I remember touring this guy who had written a book. We were in a busy hotel room and this girl seemed like she was pretty interested in staying and having some adult fun, but she wasn’t paying any attention to the other guy. He leant over, with his breath smelling like he had been drinking for days, and whispered “let’s go into the room and have a threesome with her”. This is not an uncommon thing to happen on tour. If you know my history of bands I have worked with I can pretty much guarantee that at least one member from a band has tried to have a threesome. Anyway, we got into the room, sat on the bed and waited for the girl to come into our room. Just before she does he points down at his bag and says “quick get the book out and put it on the bed” – as if there was no way she could resist fucking a published author. Although I do admit if I see a cute girl and she wants to hear a song I know how to play on guitar I get a little bit excited. Is that the same thing though? I don’t know that many songs so it really hasn’t even worked in my favour. Although I did kiss a girl once after playing country songs all night! Fuck I have to stop talking about myself and move on.

Leon and I driving to Townsville to reach the Ferry

In my opinion it was probably the worst sounding show but one of the most fun – but like I said I didn’t care too much by this point. Matty J seemed really disappointed after this show and he wanted to talk to me. I tried to give some words of encouragement. “Man there was barely 200 people here and they were all on holiday, I doubt they’ll tell the world how shit this show was” I said as he leaned against a fence. It gave him some comfort but I think he was having mixed thoughts about everything. He had broken up with his longtime girlfriend, he wasn’t sure what cKy were doing even though he mentioned they had really promising new recordings and he still hadn’t been paid for the show. He agreed with an amount over the phone with Bam to continue the tour but after he sold a guitar the money was taken. I’m sure they sorted all of that out and I want to move on completely about the money side of things, but whatever it was or whether it was a mixed feeling about everything – Matty was pretty depressed this night.

I still hadn’t seen the place where we were staying but after the show we all went there and it was amazing. It was easily the nicest place we stayed in and luckily for me it was treated with lots of respect. The only annoying thing about Magnetic Island is that everything shuts after 12, and there is nowhere to get food at all. I was so fucking hungry. Louie showed me a secret room where we could hideaway and get a good night sleep away from all the drunks, but Alex and Novak also wanted to room to do whatever they hell they wanted to do. After a few arguments Louie and I decided to go into another room and lock the door. He was starting to get over it all as well and just wanted sleep and to relax in a place he hadn’t been to before. One of the best things I got from this tour was a new friendship with Louie and one that will get even better once we don’t have so much other weight on our backs. We’re even talking about road trips together in different countries. We just got along so well and had a lot in common when it came to arts and culture. This blog isn’t about our Bromance though.

Bam & Novak chilling out in Magnetic Island

Everyone seemed a little pissed off when we were in the hotel room because there were 20 people and they were all dudes. “Let’s get some fucking chicks” I kept hearing all night. Fuck that! Let’s get some sleep. The next day we had to drive to Cairns and it was a long drive. Because Alex and Novak weren’t allowed on the ferry I thought it’d be a good idea to have myself drive part of the crew up and Leon drive the rest after they somehow got to the island. But Bam was adamant they we all had to stick together, so he got a speedboat for Novak and Alex to get onto as soon as possible. We all met up at the Casino and Matty convinced Bam to sit down with Alex, myself and him so we could talk about money. When I told them the situation he couldn’t believe it until I explained properly about how much was going to waste. Bam quickly went into business mode and things seemed to be a little bit better once he realized what was happening. He even went up to Novak – “Don’t ask Glenn for anything, it’s not his job. You owe me money from the tour, you’re not getting anything more” he yelled. Novak basically looked down at the ground like a puppy dog and said “OK”. Things now seemed to be cleared up slightly on that side of things but I knew it was still a mess. No other business, tour manager or anyone with a brain would touch a tour like this if they knew what was in store. They took so long drinking and doing nothing at the Townsville Casino. All day I kept trying to tell people we had to go but they weren’t interested in moving too fast even though it was late afternoon and the next show was that night – 4 hours away.  On the drive down I got a text from the venue manager that said “where are you guys? We’re not allowed to make noise after 10pm”. By this time it was 7.30PM and we were still 3 hours away. I organized this show one week into the tour so didn’t have time to check the playing times, but we usually started at 10.30pm, not had to clear out by then.

That night the weirdest thing happened – the guy who was supposed to look after the accommodation told us that he had lost the key and to just kick the door down to the room. This didn’t make sense! It turns out the guy was high as fuck on acid and had no idea what was going on. Bam went along the hallway to a room he thought was mine and kicked down the door. Unfortunatley it was the venue manager’s room and he wasn’t too fucking happy. He jumped out of bed, went over to the guy on acid and pushed him to the ground. For this whole tour we’ve been kicked out of every fucking hotel, now we can’t get in because the guy with the keys is on acid?

I love Cairns.

I’m almost in Airlie Beach where I will finish off these blogs completely over the next week. Please stay tuned because there are still 4 left!

So, we didn’t realise that fuel would take so much money from us. We’re getting about 300kms out of a tank that costs $100 to full because of the stupid prices in the outback, but it has been fucking amazing. If you want to donate $1 please check out the funding website, if you chuck in more than $5 you’ll get a handwritten postcard from myself. I’ve nearly written 50 already! If you want to know more about my outback trip please check out my other blogs. http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Sorry these have been a little short on detail. I’m about to finish this off completely and get advice from a lawyer with what I can actually put up.

To follow more of my journey go to:
Instagram (@glennstewart)
Twitter (@glennstewarts)

Met her at the show. One of many attractive people in Perth.

Tom and I hanging out at Uluru, Northern Territory.

I have seen some amazing things on this trip, and I don’t like using that word lightly. Too many people throw that around to sum up something in one word. The hospitality on our first night in Byron Bay, fishing off the cliffs of Seal Rock’s and drinking with my friends in Newtown are all going to stay with me forever, but so are the bad moments.

Coober Pedy is a town in the middle of Australia and it’s easily the most depressing place I have ever been to. Old miners still have dynamite they use on a regular basis and if you cross them in the wrong way they’ll use it. Not long ago a pizza shop got blown up with a few sticks of old dynamite and one crazy mother fucker. The whole place is dusty, dirty and has this apocalyptic feel all around it. Motels, houses and businesses are underground and the streets are full of homeless people who were born there and will probably die there. Isn’t that terrible? I know there are places all around the world that are populated by the less fortunate, but I get the sense that the gap between rich and poor here is extremely wide. The poor aboriginal people in this town just sat down in the little shade they had while watching tourists get their petrol quick, then get the fuck out of there – including us. While I was getting ice one of the homeless people started walking towards the van. “Look! A camper van!” she yelled as she was crossing the road. The other person sitting down was trying to get her to stop. “No! No! No!” he yelled out. The whole vibe of the town wasn’t good. I imagine murders, suicide and rape would be common in a town like this – and possibly not too much of it would be recorded. Falling down an unused mining shaft in the middle of the outback would be like getting an eraser and wiping you off a sheet of paper. We can all complain about the way these people act, but that’s what they’re born into. You give them money and they’ll drink it because society has already turned their backs and I’m quite sure they wouldn’t have a promising resume for potential employers. I just wish I had a way to help them or make them happy – but I don’t. All I can do is write about my experience with it and move on, hoping that it gets better for all the poor people in Coober Pedy through more awareness. I’d love to go out there and document it with Rhys Day so we could show you exactly what they’re going through, but we don’t have the resources to get there at this stage and I’m not sure it would help. We quickly stopped off at a small mountain town called Burra to ask for some local knowledge. We walked into the local hotel and like most of this trip the advice has been racist. “You don’t want to stay in Port Augusta. There are too many of our indigenous friends there” the young barman said without a care in the world. I can understand that I’ve grown up somewhere a lot different but it’s not going to help the problem if your advice is to run away from it.

Coober Pedy, SA

I have an opportunity to help out poor communities in Asia, something I’ve always felt very strongly about. Perhaps it might be better to learn more about the problems we have here first and do my best to help out that situation. I doubt that I’ll ever know the whole problem, or even get to the surface of it but I’d love to die knowing that I attempted trying to do something. I spoke with Rhys on the phone this morning from Uluru just because I needed to speak to someone with great creative energy because we’re interested in doing something together in the future.

I loved Uluru and the atmosphere around the place is like nothing else I have ever experienced, but the surrounding areas were contrived to say the least. I was disappointed the camping grounds had Coca-Cola umbrellas surrounding the resort style pool.  I didn’t like the fact they make tourists pay over 2 dollars per litre for fuel, $80 for a carton of beer, $25 per person for entry to Uluru, $36 for two people to camp overnight – otherwise known as parking the night, as we just had a camper van. I hate to sound like the crazy old guy from Jurassic Park, but everyone should be able to experience Uluru – and if it wasn’t for the people who read my blog then I would never be able to get here – and neither would most of my friends. I understand that it’s remote, but the amount of people that venture out this way does not add up the ridiculous prices. I only hope that every money generated from the corporate surroundings of Uluru goes straight back into the hands of its people – wisely of course. I’m hoping it’s not a fat white dude in Sydney raking all this money in from the cashed up tourists.

An old broken fence at Lake Hart, South Australia

Apart from Uluru, another memorable part of the trip was Lake Hart – a huge salt late in South Australia. We got the skateboard out of the van and glided across the hard salt while the sun was coming down. It was something that I will never forget and something I’d love to do again. I skated across it and forgot about all the dramas and shit that was going on in my life. It was amazing. The sun was setting, a train was approaching and I was skating in the middle of Australia on salt. I even collected some if you’d like to buy some off me! We stayed there the night, drank with German’s then left in the morning with Band Of Horses aptly blasting our stereo with ‘The Great Salt Lake’. Sometimes the drives can get boring but the experiences I’m getting when I’ve reached the destination are amazing.

Tom skating on Lake Hart, South Australia

Between Tom and I it cost us all of our money getting to Uluru. Yeah we didn’t prepare that well; we probably shouldn’t have stayed in Sydney overnight, and we probably shouldn’t have bought a VB every 300kms when we stopped at an outback roadhouse. These are all things I will learn for next time!

I’m glad I’m doing this right now, I’m glad it has made me think more about the problems in our own country and I’m happy I got to mention my favourite movie – Jurassic Park. If I could mention that documentary in every single blog I’d  probably die content. From now on we’re pretty much on our own we’re hoping to raise enough money to keep driving. Every time I post something about money people start to get worried, and I honestly don’t want you to. We’re two white guys driving around a very big country; I think we’ll be ok no matter what happens. If you do have a spare dollar to contribute that would be amazing but don’t worry about us – it’s all part of the adventure. Click Here to donate and I’ll sen you a post card. I’m sending so many on Monday! - http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

I’m going to try and finish my Bam Margera blog’s over the next 2 weeks – and I’m hoping that it will draw an end to that whole chapter in my life. I’m grateful that people have found me through his networks, and appreciate I had to go through hell to be able to write about it – but it’s not something I want to base my life around. I feel pretty strongly against some of the actions that happened on that tour, and I know Rhys would feel the same way – he was there for all of it. It’s not going to be pretty that’s for sure. I’m pretty certain 80% of my readers won’t care about posts like this but I like writing it anyway.

Trying to wear these footy shorts all over the country. Uluru, Northern Territory

I’m currently on this awesome hippy-esque commune about 10 minutes outside of Alice Springs! The menu has changed up a little bit over the last few days. We made burritos, pasta and stew for our last dinners, but tuna and noodles it will be over the next few days. We’re going to do our best busking tonight so we can have a bloody beer. Thanks again for reading! I will try and get another post out in the next few days. A lot of readers have been asking me questions so I will try and answer them in one big post. Again, I can’t thank you guys enough for bringing me here.

Where to next? I’m not sure. It’s so hard updating blogs in the Outback. I haven’t used proper Internet in over a month. But after one night staying in Alice Springs, I’m looking forward to writing a lot more about the place.

My home in Alice Springs, Northern Territory

Our days off in Brisbane were terrible because the band had too much time on their hands. People with personalities that big can’t just relax for a few days, and the rainy weather was not helping anyone’s moods. A total of 3 hotel rooms were used during their days off in Brisbane. $5500 worth of damage to one hotel, Novak shitting on a balcony underneath their 2nd, Chad fighting with Bam constantly, Matty still deciding if he was going to stay or not, Alex almost getting forced to leave Brisbane by his parents and me losing it at Novak was a rough couple of days to say the least. Add a few cops, drug addicts, dealers, torrential rain and groupies and you’ve got a rough few days off. It felt weird leaving the airport without Chad but I think he made the right decision to leave in the end. “I said some stuff to Chad that I’d never say” said an exhausted Louie. The amount of ups and downs from everyone had well and truly taken their course, and while I was in my hometown I couldn’t be bothered dealing with their shit anymore. I was in my own comfort zone, albeit unorganized due to all the other shit I was dealing with. I remember the day I was leaving getting a phone call from BC of Dune Rats wanting me to call a venue because his car was towed away, but my mind was completely elsewhere. Any tasks, catch-ups or relaxing drinks didn’t happen properly on my time off in Brisbane.

Leon had organized Mini Coopers to be taken up to our Northern Queensland shows, which would have been a great drive for us. At one point Chad and I were going to drive up together and iron out all of the damages, costs and profits the tour had generated. Because Leon had quit after the Gold Coast show the Mini’s were given back, and in the meantime our travel agent wouldn’t let anything else with Bam’s name be associated with them. We chose to fly to Airlie instead, but things were going to have to be pretty DIY from now on because we were running out of money and companies who didn’t want to attach their name to us. I used money from my student payment to pay for 3 of the flights – which was later paid back. I called Tim from The Downunder Bar in Airlie Beach and asked if he could pick us up, even if it was just in two cars. I should have just done the DIY thing for the whole trip if I had known how they were going to treat hotels. It seems like the worse the hotel was the better they would treat it. At the same time I loved Bam’s somewhat punk attitude towards everything. When I was lodging his visa’s he just took a photo of his passport with someone else’s phone and sent it through a text message to me.

I had hit a point where I started not to care and just wanted to have fun with the group. On the plane to Airlie Beach we got some complimentary beers from Qantas and I drank them fast. Everyone was in good spirits. I walked over to Novak’s seat, held my hand out to shake his hand and apologise. He shook my hand back – “That hurt man, I thought we were cool”. Alex must have explained to Novak how unrealistic it was for us to keep paying for hotel damages.

I talked to Bam’s girlfriend, Nikki, a fair bit on this flight and she seemed way more down to earth – actually everyone did. The guys that ran Downunder Bar picked us up from the Airport to take us back to the hostel. The beach towns are always the easiest to deal with when booking a show, probably because I’m just as laid back as most of the coastal people are – at least I normally am. The bar manager, Tim, was more than happy to help with my request. I don’t think I had mentioned the full story to him, but all the venues followed the news all the way up the coast as he left a “trail of destruction” – according to one publication. Luckily up North they were mostly excited about having us up there, not worried like most of the other venues.

We all met up with Tim and his friend at the airport, and they drove us to the beautiful Airlie Beach – a place that’s worth visiting. It definitely has a little bit of a drunk culture by night, but the great views of the boats and sea far outweigh the drunken idiots – which were us that night. They seemed a bit worried that Chad had left the group. This is how it worked: Matty J played lead guitar, and the other crew apart from me played bass. Rhys, Louie and our Roadie Justin all jumped on and played a few different songs each, unfortunately the set was a bit short that night. Chad had been fighting with Louie all tour about being lazy and being on holiday, so when Louie got up on stage we had set up a tropical oasis for him – well, a deck chair, some palm trees we found and a beach ball. Tim also made a Cocktail for Louie to sip on while he rested and played bass. I think it was Bam’s idea to make that happen and it actually turned out to be pretty funny and relaxed. There was one problem though. “Glenn, the set has only gone for 35 minutes…” said a worried Tim. I could understand his concern but unfortunately that’s all the band could play. Airlie seemed a lot looser than any other show; topless girls, loose dudes and lots of groupies. By this time I was drunk Glenn who didn’t care too much about the show or what was going to happen. I was well and truly over trying to make anything work on stage, so just left it up to the local crew and the band. Lucky for me the venue were one of the best to deal with and really made us feel welcome, and I think that could show in Bam’s attitude. They didn’t care about how much we slept in or how much we drank – granted we did sell the venue out. Still the hospitality at this venue was easily one of the best on the whole tour, and I hope that I could work with them again at some point. I also met a really nice gal who let me vent my tour to her, and she’s going to teach me how to snowboard on my next tour – one of the best things I got out of the tour aside from the other great people I’ve met along the way writing this blog. Thanks for letting me vent!

Now I was faced with a problem of not being able to get to Magnetic Island the next night, which is just off the coast from Townsville. It’s about a 4 hour drive North of Airlie, and my clock said 11am. It was a fucking hot tropical heat that day (I tried to convert it Celsius/Fahrenheit but my internet is not working at the time of writing this so let’s just say it was fucking hot). I walked up and down the main street that was under construction with some type of road work. I couldn’t find any van big enough to take the whole crew and all of their luggage. I had a look at the 8-seater Tim had booked the night before and it was our only option. I got Rhys to come with me to get the keys to the van and take it to the hostel so we could put all their luggage in. While I spent half an hour dragging their luggage from the hostel to the car and trying to fit it in they were all at the bar drinking beers – of course. I was gross, sweaty and needed a shower desperately; the heat was killing my fair Scottish skin. When we got around to the car park I got out and told the guys that we should get on the road because we had to catch a ferry to get over to the Island in time for the show. Bam turned around to a drunk Alex. “How far is it to Magnetic Island?” he asked. “About 3 hours” Alex replied in his cool voice. He looked at Alex for about 5 seconds and replied “Seaplane”. So after all the trouble of putting the stupid luggage into the car they were now going to take a Seaplane to the island to make the 6pm ferry. That was nice for them, only we still had the car for our 3 shows up North, so someone had to drive it. Rhys and I nominated ourselves to drive up while the rest unnecessarily caught the plane up North. Rhys and I were a little bit shit with Townsville traffic so when we arrived at the port the Ferry had just taken off and left Rhys and I behind. When we finally arrived on a later ferry the guy working on the plane said “Those guys on before are not allowed on the ferry tomorrow, what they did was dangerous”. God fucking damn it! We still have one more show to go after Magnetic Island!

So I am currently writing this next to a bushfire somewhere in Outback New South Wales. We’re next to a beautiful lake cooking food with an open fire. Life couldn’t be better! We’re a little bit broke, but our plan is to go to Uluru and finish this blog. If you’d like to help donate and get a postcard please go to http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Follow my Instagram (@glennstewart) for frequent picture updates. Also I have Twitter that I don’t use too much (twitter.com/glennstewarts).

I’m not sure where I am, but if you want a postcard let me know.

Also this was posted on an iPhone, so it’s probably full of mistakes!

The next morning we drove out of Byron Bay with the original plan to head straight to a tiny fishing village called Seal Rocks but this changed after an hour or so on the road. We stopped off at a sugar cane field to take some scenic photos and make some lunch. This was our first use of our plates, cutlery and general DIY eating on the road, and it was off to a good start. On the lunch menu today we had Tuna Sandwiches with Tomato, Pepper and Salt mixed down with tap water from Byron Bay. Now we’re doing things Outback style! We washed up, got back in the van and checked our Instagram’s (@glennstewart | @tomsbored) which I had tagged as ‘Yamba’ because I couldn’t pronounce the name of the Sugar Cane location. I got a message from an old Brisbane friend named Rosie – “you’re in Yamba? Come and visit!”. Tom and I have a “why fucking not?” attitude on this trip, so we detoured to about 14kms to Yamba – an underrated beach town around 2 hours South of Byron Bay. This place had a really good atmosphere; hot people, surfers, nice café’s and plenty of old charm still left in it. The Cinema looked like a house that could barely fit a wide screen TV, and we spent a good hour looking for a proper Skateboard shop as the one Tom brought with us had snapped shortly before. We met up with Rosie at Pacific Hotel which was quite sterile inside, but the view was amazing. Having a beer and watching the ocean from the top of the mountain was peaceful and relaxing. Having grown up in Yamba, Rosie had a lot of local knowledge to share with us about the towns people and her parents. She has just finished training how to take care of Wildlife – hoping to look after Flying Foxes. “You can’t really look after wild animals, even when they are young. They get to a certain age and start to turn on you, whereas Flying Foxes love getting taken care of and love pats and getting cuddled” she explained. Coming from a surfing and fishing background she started listing off the spots the locals all love around the area. She mentioned a cool surfing reserve called Angourie, so we finished our beers and headed a few kilometers up the coast. This spot attracts some of the best in the world like Kelly Slater and that other bloke with blonde hair. Apparently it has unique breaks – something I know almost nothing about. I can’t actually swim past my knees because of an irrational fear of Sharks, so surfing has never been on my To-Do list. My travel buddy Tom is a keen Surfer and Skateboarder so we’ll be making the most out of our Coastal Journey (kinda) towards Uluru.

Angourie was breathtaking and if you didn’t think so then you probably don’t have a soul, or you’re one boring mother fucker. The rock pools, the beach the rain forest is something we should definitely all be proud of in Australia. Who needs a theme park when you can jump off a 20-foot rock into deep, dark water full of Eels, have a BBQ and drink some beers? Just make sure you clean your fucking mess.

I was too pussy to jump in… taken @ Angourie, NSW Australia

After we took some happy snaps and wondered why we didn’t bring our swimming shorts, we ventured back to the car and drove to the Yamba Skate Park – which looked brand new. We both wore our ‘party’ shirts to the park, and one of the locals approached us – “are you guys from the Gold Coast?” he asked politely. It was a confident local who was pretty polite because he seemed to like us. He asked if we were partying tonight in Yamba but we explained that we’re on our way to Coffs Harbour to drink there. The locals were curious about our Wicker Camper so we showed them around our “new house” and gave them the tour of our deck. We started taking photos of them on our Van so one of them attempted a trick while jumping off the top and surprisingly didn’t break his legs – the fucker jumped really high.

Locals @ Yamba, NSW Australia

We left Yamba on a natural high because of the good vibe it had. I’m not sure if I’d stay there for a long periods of time, but an overnight stay there on the way through is highly recommended. Our next stop is home to Oscar Dickhead Russel Crowe – Coffs Harbour. We went to the local shopping centre and shopped at this weird grocery store called Aldi. This is one weird fucking German store, and as most of you know German’s are quite cheap and dorky – so it makes sense why they started this store. It’s like they’ve half made a grocery store but couldn’t be fucked packing stuff to present it. Want a basket? “Fuck no!”… plastic bags? “Nah, we’ll give you an old box we don’t need anymore”. Everything looked like your normal brands but instead of your standard Chocolate Coated muslie bars from our friends at uncle Toby’s they had Hillcrest “Choc Squiggles”. I actually think that Chocolate Squiggles is quite an unflattering term, but at $1.30 for the box you can’t really complain, and they actually ended up tasting pretty good. I might have one now! (yum…).

We made some more sandwiches from the back of the van before heading into the main shopping center to buy guitar strings, socks (we both forgot them) and a 4L box of goon (for my friends outside of Australia that is a big box of Cask Wine). We got out of the shopping centre and headed towards the car. Tom asked me for the car keys and I thought he was bullshitting. “I thought you had them” he said with a smirk. I completely forgot that he had actually given me the keys to lock my door earlier. So he thought I was bullshitting, and I thought he might have been having a go as well until we realized that we both had no idea where the keys were. All the shops were shutting when we left the centre so we both ran in quickly. “I’m going to check the chemist” I yelled at Tom. He replied quickly “I’ll check the bottle shop!”. We both met in the middle with no luck and the last place left to ask was Woolworths – the massive grocery store. We headed towards a girl named Ripley, which I had a conversation with earlier about her name. She was actually named after the Alien movies, her Dad’s favourite which I think some people wouldn’t like but I thought it was pretty rad. One of the older ladies in the store smiled at Tom “are you looking for keys” she said. I had actually left them on a chair ourside the shopping centre, and someone was handed them into the store – Thank fuck!

We headed to an old friend of mine who I had met years ago when I put some bands through Coffs Harbour. At first I just asked her if it was cool if we parked at the front of the house, but after a few wines I asked if we could just crash at her house. “There’s the couch and you can use my bed too” she offered. After about 3 hours of drinking, talking about mutual friends and  catching up we ran out of wine. She insisted that she hadn’t drank that much and offered to buy more at the local RSL, so we all drove around 4 minutes down the wet roads of Coffs Harbour. On the way back, in the rain, the girl we were staying with was driving way over the speed limit and the more we tried to tell her to slow down the more stubborn she would get. “I know these roads more than anyone I’m not going to crash” she insisted. As we around quite a sharp corner she almost hit the curb with the wheel right before I grabbed the wheel and turned it slightly to the right. Tom and I agree that if I hadn’t have done that we would have swerved off the road and into a tree. Just ask him!

We got home slightly shaken, which made us slightly sober up so we got stuck into more wine. After another hour or so of playing with her pets (3 cats and a puppy) and chatting away we decided to go to bed. She said I could sleep in her room which made me think I was about to get lucky, which I am. I am a lucky person sometimes. I don’t want to get down and dirty with all my words, so you’ll just have to use your imagination – oh, I was really drunk too so it probably wasn’t good for the other party. Right after we finished (well, at least I finished) she acted like a lot of blokes do – “don’t worry about all the cuddling bullshit” she said. I woke up the next morning and wondered if I just got used for sex. What a lucky bloke I am!

Tom and I had showers at her house while she was dropping her brother somewhere. Just before she left Tom had let the dog out of the house, but luckily she’s used to it so she didn’t seem to mind. We didn’t want to kill someone’s pet after they were nice enough to let us sleep at their house the night. We actually know complete fuck all about cars, and she seemed to have lots of them parked in the front of her house. “Do you know how to check water and oil and all that shit” Tom asked. So not only did we get a roof over our heads, some wine, food and one of us got a little bit of sex – we had our water and oil checked for free. What a great way to start out trip throughout Australia. The scenery so far on this drive is amazing and if you’re not into it you’re a huge arsehole.

Just before we arrived in Seal Rocks we got some fishing equipment about 45 minutes north in a town called Forster. The guy at the local fishing supplies spot told us of a camping ground that allows you to build a small fire, just 5 minutes from the main beach of Seal Rocks – a place called Treachery Beach.  We drove out of Forster south for about 30 minutes before turning off to our main destination. Quickly you hit a bumpy dirt road with trees surrounding everything while you wind your way around the literal beaten track. Around 15 minutes you start to see the water, and then you hit Seal Rocks and you suddenly snap into holiday mode – peaceful without a care in the world. Our phone’s don’t work out here very well but we’re mostly happy about because a night off from reality can’t be a bad thing. We were in awe driving through the fishing village but we decided to take the fisherman dude in Forster’s advice – have an open fireplace and relax.

Trying to fish @ Seal Rocks, NSW Australia

We got towards the beach and I ran into an old friend who I hadn’t seen in years. Her boyfriend seemed kind of nervous, but we later found out it was because he was walking her to the lighthouse to propose to her. She said yes. After we briefly chatted we headed towards the camping ground and we were met by a young, carefree looking blonde dude who kind on looked like Jax from Sons of Anarchy. I can picture a bunch of girls asking me where the hell this camping ground is so they can get a piece of Jax! Actually why don’t we just call him Jax for this story? So Jax told us it was $14 per person, per night and said that he would show us a good spot in the camping ground. He rode is 4-wheeler over to a shed, gave us some firewood and proceeded to head down towards the bushy area near the bottom of the park situated next to a creek surrounded by beautiful trees. As he drove off I noticed there was a dog sitting next to a tree near our Wicked Camper, but then I noticed another, then another. “Is that a fucking Dingo?” I asked Tom. Jax drove back over to give us some fishing tips, and also to confirm there were Dingo’s all over this place. “Don’t worry I shot all the bad ones” he said with a smirk. “They’re only howling like that because they’re on heat” he said just before taking off down the track towards the other camping grounds. So now we’re not sure if Dingo’s being on heat would be a good thing or not. We walked through shrub to the one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen, and with one hand you can count the number of people who were there. We tried to go fishing but didn’t catch a thing, now I’m sitting around the fire finishing off this blog.

We kind of underestimated the costs of fuel and sundries on this trip, so if you have a spare dollar feel free to donate here - http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

On the road you can get sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll without all the bullshit in between so my advice is to get some time off work, rent out a van and just travel in any direction without too much of a plan in between. The people you meet, and the sceneries you take in will never be forgotten so I can’t stress enough that everyone should do this.

Tom’s cutting bait to try and find food for the night. Taken @ Seal Rocks, NSW Australia

We decided we love it here so much that we’re going to stay another night.

I have updated my list of incentives for my fundraising! I made it more “sexier” because my friend Hanney suggested it. Also, I am collecting some items from the tour that I will be selling. I am so close to my target, and it’s only 2 weeks away that I leave! You don’t need paypal to make a contribution, just a credit card. And it can be as little as $1.
http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

I have had the privilege of knowing Alex for over half a decade and he has always been a charming guy who takes a lot of pride in anything he touches. He’s a guy who will want to help everyone and do everything he can to make people have a good time and enjoy themselves. One of our friends had recently became single “come on tour and have fun with us man” he’d say, without thinking about anything else. This also caused problems with budgets, door lists and handshake deals with friends bands. “you should just drive for us on tour” he’d offer in one of his many intoxicated states. I have a very ‘why not?’ attitude when I’m drunk so I usually go along with anything – plus it wasn’t my tour to really make final decisions. This is exactly why any tour I ever organize I’ll need to have control of the final decision or allow someone else more experienced to make it.

Alex ready to party… always.

Alex’s good points by far outweigh his shitty ones, which is why I’ll always consider him a best friend. He has opened a lot of doors for people but I’m just worried he’ll slam them shut if he was to continue on a certain track. He has to stop wanting every piece of the pie and just let others better suited take their own slice, and allow him to have his big chunk of what he’s good at – being a drummer, musician and entertainer. “write about anything you want man, just don’t make me look like a dick” Alex asked on a trip we did together from our home town of Toowoomba to Brisbane. That’s an easy request for me to deliver because I know him more than a lot of people and know that he’s far from a dick – he’s just somewhat impressionable though. But so are a lot of people – including myself. I’m worried he’s impressed by the wrong people though. The Alex I know would never ‘Bend his Dick Around his Ass so he could fuck himself’ in one million years. There’s a cliché saying about something being so shit it’s funny, but then there’s something that’s so shit that it is what it is… an absolute teaming pile of shit – like Bam’s dup step song. People are sometimes afraid of getting judged if they do something creative and serious, so they turn to something dirty and stupid with a “it’s just a joke man / it’s supposed to be stupid” attitude. I believe Bam is in this category but I’m not sure if he could write a great song or not. I know that I was surprised at how good he was at painting – pleasantly surprised. The paintings he created while ruining the Brisbane hotel room were great, unfortunately he fucked them all up by putting images of porno magazines on them – stupid.

After causing chaos, making headlines and a lot of antics being shown to thousands of people on the internet everyone started to worry, and no one more than Alex’s friends and family – his sister especially. “I’ve known Alex longer than anyone and he has never not returned a phone call or got in contact with me just to tell me he’s ok” Alex’s sister told me with tears in her eyes one night. We both did out schooling in a fairly small town; Alex went to a private school I went to a public school.

Alex played one of the first ever gigs I have organized on a Boat Cruise on the Brisbane River in an old Toowoomba band called Wrathriel. He then joined a local Metalcore band called Hereafter, and took over management of that band pretty much straight away. I hadn’t known him that well apart from a few local gigs and after parties. I had been putting on local gigs in our hometown and Gold Coast, and a few in Brisbane here and there so Alex thought I’d be a good person to chat with to help his band out. He called me up and asked if he could bring over a case of beer and have a chat. Alex and I clicked straight away and it was on this night where our rollercoaster life would begin. There’s fun to be had when Alex is around but the man hits his own walls too. I remember once we were on a plane with so much stress about cancelled tours and debt, he turned to me and said “don’t you wish the plane would just crash sometimes?”. At the time I agreed, we’re  just fortunate enough to have caring family and friends to pull us out of the hole we got ourselves in.

Alex had lost his phone at the start of the tour and naturally his parents started to worry and they started to follow his footsteps online, which was the only way they could. Unfortunately seeing your normally sane, polite and caring son and brother getting his dick tasered on stage was something no parent wants to see on the internet. They had every right to worry because the amount alcohol and substance abuse was clearly having a physical and visual effect on everyone involved with the tour.

The night after the Brisbane show Alex’s parents requested I meet them at the Pancake Manor in Brisbane City to ask me what the fuck was going on. I hadn’t seen Alex’s Dad face to face for a year or so after the collapse of our business New Noise Agency, and I don’t think Alex had told him that I was involved with the Bam Margera tour. His Dad is a stern man; straight to business and very intimidating, but also an extremely proud father – as he should be. His Mum, Dad and Sister sat with me at Midnight before our afternoon departure from Brisbane to discuss what was going on with this tour and Alex – the first time they have ever approached me about something like this. I got the ball rolling – “this tour is fucked, and I’ve never been involved with anything like it. It’s a mess and I’m thinking about quitting” I told his concerned family.  I tried to explain it was a collection of people making this tour hard, but tried my hardest not to talk about the drug use – even though the questions were clearly coming. And it came – “Tell me the honest truth, and don’t bullshit me” Alex’s Dad asked, looking straight into my eyes. If I said ‘No’ he’ll know I’m bullshitting, if I say ‘Yes’ I’ll have to then explain what type and how much we’re all doing, and who’s doing it. A moment hit me where I thought to myself “I’m not a bad influence on these guys, they’re doing it to themselves. Why fucking lie?” – I knew his Dad would see right through me if I was to bullshit him. I just looked back and confirmed everything, but gave as little detail as possible. I told him about Ridalin, weed, the amount of alcohol but said that I wasn’t sure if or how much coke was being used on tour. I told him that it was hard to get in Australia, but you could still get it. So in my opinion I told a white lie but after the tour I had ways of opening up to Alex’s family and just telling them everything, but I’ll get to that later.

They were angry, sad and worried that their Son and family name were possibly been talked about in a bad light in our small town, and they were of course worried about his health. Alex might have a ‘rockstar’ look going on now that makes girls weak at the knees – but he used to be dashing. The drugs aren’t doing any favours on Alex and he knows it more than anyone else. I tried my hardest to paint Alex in a good light but he had already put the spotlight on himself publically. They drove me home and I went to bed to get my limited sleep. In the morning Matty J and Chad were in my house moping around ready to go home. Chad had quit the tour the night before because Bam was treating him like shit through most of the tour, and I don’t think he was really into the “artistic” side of Fuckface Unstoppable. I think he mainly did it to prove a point to Bam that he wasn’t going to be treated like he was, and because he saw how loose the tour was getting. I want to sit on the fence with why Chad quit the tour, but in my next blog I’ll jump on a side and tell you why I think it went down. I’m not going to be making any friends though, that’s for sure.

While Matty was wondering if he should quit the tour or continue I got a phone call from Novak, in a state that you could probably guess yourself – fucked. “Why the hell does Bam keep using his credit card to pay for hotel rooms?” he yelled at me, after they were checking out of a Brisbane City Hotel, because of being kicked out of the last two. “You guys keep damaging the rooms and fucking things up, so I keep having to use money from merch and ticket sales to pay for the damage!” I yelled back, furiously. He cut me off and shouted “well don’t hire guys from Jackass if you don’t know what to expect”. After buying these fuckers flights with my own money, from student payments mind you, and losing the publicist, travel agent, hotels and numerous businesses and people yelling at me because of their actions – I had had enough. I put the phone closer to my ear – “FUCK YOU! I quit”. I then hung up the phone and went into the lounge room to explain to Chad and Matty what had happened. While I was doing that the phone kept ringing, and I had no intentions of answering because I knew it would be Novak. After a while I answer and it was Alex on the phone asking me to stay on the tour. I told him about all the bridges these fuckers were burning for me and that I wanted out. After 10 minutes he apologized with Bam, and they convinced me to stay on board. The only thing that was making me want to go was the fact I hadn’t been to Cairns before, so I may as well stick at it. Matty was almost going to quit as well, so the tour would have completely fucked up. Chad ended up staying in Brisbane and catching a flight back home early to see his girlfriend.  About 20 minutes before I went to the airport with Matty to meet up with the rest of the guys I got a phone call from Alex’s dad. “Mate, can you tell me the flight time this morning? We’re not going to let Alex on that plane” he said.  I told him what time the flight would be departing and which airline, which he was very thankful for. “I will use physical force if I have to, and call the police. But he’s not getting on that plane” he sternly said. I didn’t know what else to do. I met up with his Dad at the airport and he politely said that he didn’t want to make a scene, so get Alex to meet him about 50 meters away, in front of the next airline check in point. I didn’t know if it was even worth checking in to go to Airlie Beach by this point because if Alex couldn’t get on the plane we’d be down a drummer and a guitarist. That would make things pretty fucking hard.

Road Trippin’

The drunk group stumbled through the automatic doors and approached me before they went to the counter. I grabbed Alex and told him that we needed to talk, and it was important. Everyone seemed a lot happier and kinder towards me, I think because I threatned to quit. I’m not sure what they were thinking when I grabbed Alex, but I finally got him away. “What’s wrong man?” Alex asked. “This is important man you better be prepared” I told him back. He walked the 50 meters and from behind the pole Alex’s Dad showed his face, looked Alex right in the eyes and said “you’re not getting on that fucking plane”. If there’s one person Alex listens to… it’s his Dad.

I have updated my list of incentives for my fundraising! I made it more “sexier” because my friend Hanney suggested it. Also, I am collecting some items from the tour that I will be selling. I am so close to my target, and it’s only 2 weeks away that I leave! You don’t need paypal to make a contribution, just a credit card. And it can be as little as $1.
http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Mark Adkins goes face to face with a fan at the Rosemount in Perth 2010

People who force themselves sexually or harmfully on people and/or animals are massive dickheads who need to be punished appropriately; the people in this story I don’t think need to be dealt with by the law. I also think it’s not a funny subject, even though I uncomfortably brought it up in a stand-up comedy routine about 4 years ago – my most awkward moment ever…  for my friends. Hopefully this will be the last time I ever bring the subject to your attention ever again.

In 2009 I toured a Californian pop-punk act called Guttermouth – a band I loved when I was 14. I had well and truly grown out of the immature style of punk rock; now I don’t have as many pimples and I love my parents dearly. When I was a teenager though everyone could go and get fucked! I skated, drank cask wine (still do), always skipped school and left home when I was 15. Having music and rock festivals changed who I was immediately and helped me turn into a better person. Actually, I think I was a fucking idiot until I was about 23 or 24. I definitely wouldn’t hang around 21 year old Glenn Stewart, and would still only want to see him once a week a few years after. Now I have more of a goal and purpose in life I would probably have me over for dinner every night. What the fuck am I even talking about? Moving on…

Guttermouth at The Hifi, Brisbane 2009.

I was nervous meeting a band I’ve known about for a decade. I saw them playing Livid Festival as a kid, an event that inspired me to do exactly what I’m doing ‘til this day. I think it was because Guttermouth had pissed off a lot of promoters in the past, but for some reason they chose to have their tour booked through myself – someone they had never heard of before. I was so nervous and excited the day before they came out to Australia. I was hoping they’d be easier than the bands I had dealt with in the past – including Australian acts I had booked in my home town in Toowoomba. The afternoon before the tour I get a text message from Ryan Farrell, who was drumming at the time before Alex took over in 2010. I had never received a text message from an international number before, so I was a bit confused and also slightly drunk because of the anticipation. “Glenn call quick it’s an emergency” the message read. Visibly worried and stressed I walk over to Alex, who I was living with at the time, and told him about the message. After that I called Ryan and prepared myself for the worst. “Mark didn’t show up to the airport and no one can get a hold of him” he said from LAX, moments before they were supposed to be checking in. “He has been missing for a couple of days and I’m actually starting to worry” he continued to let me know, hoping I’d have answers. So they’re supposed to fly to Brisbane for a show on the weekend, but the lead singer is nowhere to be found…great. What do you do when you’re faced with such a situation? If you’re me you go to West End, the once hipster part of Brisbane, and start drinking more. Probably not the smartest of moves but for a borderline alcoholic it was the logical first step. Alex and I drank and tried calling the USA for hours waiting for a solution or this to resolve itself. The members who actually showed up at the airport all went home and tried calling Mark to see where he was. Mark’s phone was engaged all night then around 2am in the morning I called and it finally started ringing. He answered quickly and before I got a chance to speak he said “I am so fucking sorry man. FUCK! I thought it was the next day I was flying out. I am so fucking sorry!”.

I was so happy to hear he was safe. He literally just met a girl, went to the mountains and turned his phone off for the week. Mark is notorious for disappearing for weeks or months at a time. It’s probably easier to catch him in a bar in Tijuana, Mexico then to go over to his modest house in San Juan Capistrano, California. I now know that when you do get a hold of him you have to squeeze every bit of information out of him as there’s a chance you won’t be in contact with him again for weeks. He leads a good life though – getting paid a bunch of money on tour, then disappearing and getting away from everyone. His success has bought him a house but when Guttermouth aren’t playing music they’re all working and laboring for their keep. Mark’s actual trade is a hose and sprinkler repairman, so next time they’re over he might be more handy around the house than you think. Speaking about being handy around the house; Dave Luckett, the guitarist, was so drunk and feeling bad about bringing a prostitute back to our house that he decided to clean it from top to bottom. “He always does this when he’s high or drunk” Mark told me while Dave was preparing to mop our whole house once.

Anyway to cut a long-winded story short; I spent the entire night rebooking the flights. It turns out that Mark missing the flight cancelled all of the domestic flights within Australia, so we had to rebook all those as well. Lots of time and $2000 later we sorted out the flights and Guttermouth arrived in Australia for one of the best tours of my life. We all got along so well and comparing Guttermouth to my tour before with Leftover Crack is like night and day – they couldn’t be any different. On one of the last nights in Adelaide we went to a gay and lesbian bar to drink and celebrate the completion of the tour. This strange older chick with thick glasses seemed to be hanging around and trying to kiss Ryan all night, but she hardly said anything. She was just plain weird. She wasn’t ugly but you wouldn’t put her on your “to do” list either – if that makes sense. If she was a pizza you’d be dished up with an order of plain cheese without any herbs or add-ons to make the flavour better. After hours of drinking and trying illicit drugs for the first time I went back to the hotel and heard Ryan kicking this girl out. I was so tired and drunk from the tour so I decided to take a valium. Within an hour or so I hear a knock at my door and when it opened the weird girl from the bar was standing there wanting to come inside my room. “do you mind if I join you?” she said, as she approached the bed. I had taken way too much Valium, had been drinking way too much all tour and had hit that big wall that always gets built at the end of a long tour. “aah, that’s fine…” I slurred uncomfortably. She immediately grabbed my head and started kissing me while I was half-asleep, completely confused and quite uncomfortable. She began to undo my belt, pull down my jeans and start kissing me passionately but I didn’t want it. “Hey I’m sorry I’ve just taken a bunch of Valium and I’m passing out” I told her. She stopped grabbing my pants, laid down beside me and started pulling my shirt. As I was falling into more sleep I kept trying to wake up to stop her pulling my shirt. She pulled harder and harder and insisted I lay on top of her. “I just want your body weight. I’ll do the rest” she demanded. With lots of hesitation I laid on top of her while she roughly went away at it with herself. When she finished, whatever it was she was doing down there, she got up to put her pants on, kissed me on the cheek and left the hotel.

The next night I felt like a cheap rag doll and probably had my first “groupie” experience. We all needed cleansing the next day and night so we spent it at a Bowling Alley eating free hotdogs, hanging out and getting stoned behind the pins with the guy who managed the place. That was a nice, humble way to end a crazy fucking experience with a band I once loved musically but now love as friends.

Rape is probably a bad way to explain what happened to me that night, but I was surely not able or wanting to be with anyone either. I guess I can look back and just know that once I was unwillingly used for my bodyweight.

My next blog in this Guttermouth series will be about the time I drunkenly asked a Muslim girl in Singapore to marry me, and she ended up at the airport the next day. I wasn’t sure if anyone would care about this post as it’s not Bam related, but I’m finishing that series of blogs in Outback Australia on the 8th of April. If you want to chip in for fuel please go to http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Guttermouth at Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle 2010

One thing that annoyed me a lot with Bam was the attitude, inexperience and lack of respect he had for how a gig is supposed to run. Just because we all got there at 9pm doesn’t mean he can go on stage just because he’s “ready to rock right now”. FUCK! The venue manager found a support band and my good friends in Brisbane based Hound opened the night. Novak’s little Pill Collins skit before the set started was such a pain in the arse to organize. The show probably seemed amateur because it was all drunkenly organized and planned while the tour was happening – no one knew what the fuck was going to happen before the tour started. But getting Novak to be on stage in time for the song to start was a nightmare nearly every night because he was so slow or not ready when he said he was going to be ready. The band kicked in almost exactly the same time as the Ecstasy kicked in. When it kicks in I always open my eyes open, take a step back and say “woah…” – every fucking time. I guess I was kind of talkative, but also forgot I had been a little bit in the public eye for the last few weeks – so a bunch of people were talking to me who I didn’t know – and I was more than fucking happy to talk. While I was high my good mate Chris turned to me while they were playing, with a smirk on his face and said “there not as bad as I thought” before walking away to drink with his friends. While this was all happening I realized that when I rushed out of the taxi earlier I had left my bag in there – which had keys to a Mini Cooper and the hotel keys.  I called the taxi company and hoped that my keys would eventually be found, but I just had to put it in the “well there’s nothing I can do about it now” basket.

While the show was happening I could see Bam getting irritated and uncomfortable at a punter who was continuously giving him the finger. I was so high I had no idea what was happening, and I was also verging on not giving a fuck what was happening. What happened next reminded me of one of my first ever tours with New York’s Leftover Crack. It was a small venue in Sydney that was completely sold out, with no backstage area and nowhere to move. An audience member kept knocking Stza’s (Vocals) mic over and when warned “I’ll kick you in the fucking face if you do that again!” it wasn’t enough to make the punter stop. Stza moved the guitar to his side and kicked the punk square in the face with his boot, and between the booing and jeering the show went on – awkwardly. But as far as I’m concerned it’s part of what makes a good punk rock show, even though I try not to condone violence at all. This was similar with the kid who was continually harassing Bam throughout the start of the set. I’m not going to say that he deserved getting physically punched in the face with Bam’s fist but the dumb kid should have seen it coming. If you’re going to act like a complete idiot in front of a crowd and someone like that you have to expect your penalty – because I don’t condone violence or people acting like dickheads and disrespecting the band.

That night we partied at the Hotel, and we partied hard. Chad and Matty were telling me to have a break while I was in my home town, and not worry about anything. “Just take it easy dude, you’ve done enough. We can handle ourselves while we’re here” Chad was saying to comfort me that day. So I did exactly that – I partied until I fell asleep. The problem was that I forgot to charge my phone, and even though everyone knew about the City Beach appearance, having the publicist quit and my phone switched off made us miss the appearance. I SLEPT IN AND FORGOT TO WAKE THEM ALL UP! FUCK!!! By the time I woke up it was too late and City Beach had told everyone where the hotel room was and I had just remembered that my bag was lost in the taxi the night before. I had a whole apartment to myself so I was just walking around naked, being stressed out and ready to shower. I had one of those cliché movie moments in the shower while I wondered what I was going to do. You know those scenes in movies when the guy or girl gets home, goes in the shower, puts their hand on the shower wall and looks down at the ground while the water drips down your head? That was my moment – and it was beautiful. I deserved that moment of peace while taking that shower.

I have updated my list of incentives for my fundraising! I made it more “sexier” because my friend Hanney suggested it. Also, I am collecting some items from the tour that I will be selling. I am so close to my target, and it’s only 2 weeks away that I leave! You don’t need paypal to make a contribution, just a credit card. And it can be as little as $1.
http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

After my shower I just walked around naked getting ready to sort the mess out. I noticed that an unknown number was trying to call, so I answered and it was the taxi driver from the night before. THANK FUCK! He asked me to meet him downstairs to collect my bag. While I was there I noticed a group of people waiting in the car park – of all different demographics; a mother, a few young dudes and chicks and some hot babes looking confused and lost. The hotel receptionist said people were asking for Bam, so I knew why they were here. I talked to them for a little while, apologized and told them what had happened. They were pretty cool about it and seemed pretty patient and happy waiting to see if Bam would come out of the hotel room. I started walking away, still feeling pretty bad about what happened with the City Beach signing. I thought “fuck it” and turned around to walk back towards them. I asked if all 8 or 9 of them would like to come up to my room and wait so I could get them to personally meet Bam in his hotel room. They seemed excited but also in my hung-over and stressed state I’m not sure if they believed that I actually had anything to do with Bam. We had no show on that night, and I had already fucked up the City Beach thing so I just started drinking bourbon (gross) while they waited around my hotel room. I kind of took fancy to one of the girls but wasn’t sure if she had her boyfriend with her in the group. It turns out they didn’t all know eachother, which I guess is when I attempted to flirt with the hot 22 year old  babe who didn’t know anyone else in the group – who will be called Lucy for this story. I asked Louie to come up and have a chat, and while he waited in my room I went down to see Bam to see if he’d be keen on seeing the fans. When I walked in paint and beer bottles were everywhere. I told him the situation with City Beach and the fans in my room and without any hesitation he said “Bring them up!”. I was happy to deliver the news to the fans waiting in my room ready to see Bam. The smiles and appreciation was so evident from everyone, which made me smile knowing that I could make a few people happy given I’d technically pissed off a lot of people waiting around ready to meet him earlier. I know it wasn’t completely my fault that he didn’t show up to that signing but it’s on record now that I take a lot of responsibility for that happening.

“I can’t believe this is happening” said one of the excited girls in the group. Lucy seemed cool as fuck and really happy that it was happening as well. When we entered the room, full of beer bottles, paint, Novak fucked up on the couch and Nikki walking around half-naked with a VB in her hand. Bam was so pre-occupied with painting but he always is happy to take photos and sign things for people. Picture magazine had given us a lot of porn magazines, so Bam started gluing them on all of his paintings. Louie leaned towards me “man I’m not sure it’s a good idea if that young girl is here while he’s this drunk” he whispered. While I started having a “don’t care” attitude towards the whole tour, I still completely agreed with Louie. I walked over to her Mum and asked if it was ok to have her here while Bam was so fucked up and drunk. “she’s used to drunk people” she said, while being excited meeting Bam. That was enough for me to not care and continue chatting with Lucy – and my moves were working! Bam had made me remember a code word or line while the people were in the room, so they knew when they had to leave. He was happy with them being there the whole time though because they never got annoying, they seemed quiet, overwhelmed and disbelief that they were watching Bam paint and being so up close and personal. When they were all ready to leave I said something to Lucy which I would never in a million years have the confidence to say. “do you have a spare 10 minutes” I asked, while she was holding my hand. We went up to my room and the rest of that part is history. Will I see her again? I hope so!

I was wearing a plain grey shirt and while Bam was painting he came over to me and said “you need some colour”. He got his paint brushes and painted me all over my shirt, my face and neck. I didn’t give a fuck because by this time the whole room was covered in paint. Does anyone want to buy that shirt? It’s a “Bam Original” and I need some money for my trip to Uluru. Just an idea!

The night got darker, and we were all getting drunker. The next thing is what annoyed me the most – the drug dealers started coming. This pretty girl introduced the group to the worst dealer on this whole tour and someone I didn’t trust. As the night got later things started getting out of control. A member of the group had lied to Bam about the type of drugs he had taken, and when Bam asked the dealer what he had given his friend. The heavily tattooed, new Zealand dealer replied with “um, oxycodone”. Bam flipped out and asked Rhys to stop filming anything – the first time he had requested something to not be put on record. He was furious. It wasn’t just because he lied to Bam’s face, but because he cared about the health of his friend. Out of respect for Bam I won’t go into too much detail about the events that unfolded, because they were very heated. If they give me permission to write it in my book one day I will, but until then you’ll just have to know that Bam was furious about the drug choice his friend took, and the dishonesty.

I was so exhausted I ended up going to bed. The next morning I get a phone call from the receptionist telling me to come downstairs and meet the hotel manager. “Here we go” I thought. I went down and into the office of the hotel to a tall, businesslike dude who told me to take a seat. “You guys woke up people last night. We have a guy walking around the hotel with his pants half down asking everyone for drugs, and numous other complaints. Give me one good reason I should let you stay…” he said. I tried to explain that this had been a hectic tour and I pleaded for him to let us stay another night or two and I’d do my best to keep the noise down. After I convinced him he said that it would be ok as long as he could look at the state of the rooms without any warning. I knew then and there it was most likely that we would be getting kicked out. The hotel manager, a receptionist and myself went up the apartment but I knew it was pointless. When they opened the door to Bam’s room and saw the state of the room, the receptionist in an Irish voice yelled “well this is just great isn’t it!”. We were instructed that we had 20 minutes to leave the hotel, and that the police were getting called in. Bam was trying his hardest to argue that he would hire his own cleaners, but they weren’t having a bar of it.

It seemed like 15 police officers then came to the hotel lobby and insisted on talking to me. One of the cops dragged me over and said “any damage to the hotel goes directly on to you. You’ll be going to jail before anyone else”. When I walked into the hotel room with the cops there were traces of white powder on the kitchen bench, and bowls with weed residue in the bottom. The cops were noting all this down while I was busy wondering what the fuck I do here…

I have updated my list of incentives for my fundraising! I made it more “sexier” because my friend Hanney suggested it. Also, I am collecting some items from the tour that I will be selling. I am so close to my target, and it’s only 2 weeks away that I leave! You don’t need paypal to make a contribution, just a credit card. And it can be as little as $1.
http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Leon openly admitted that he had no idea how the music industry worked, and part of me was worried that he was going on tour. I knew what to expect; sleepless nights, lots of drugs, immature men, drinking, women and sex. I knew that the initial lifestyle would start to become draining after the first few days, and I imagined this to be a demanding tour – but it was worse. The police, angry venue managers, furious receptionists and disappointed fans made this a tour that we’d all like to move on from – most of us anyway.

“I like drama! If your girlfriend was here I’d fuck her in front of you just to create drama” a mumbling Bam said at 5am in the morning in Melbourne. And that’s exactly what he did. A night away from Bam was like taking a break from the tour. Not just because of Bam though, but the crew that would follow him around and try to make an impression on him. I can tell you now that he mostly doesn’t give a shit about the people who bend over backwards trying to impress him for the night. It annoyed me that it was around but it was more frustrating when drug dealers were handing over pills making my job at least 20 times harder.

Gold Coast was the lowest point of the whole tour for everyone involved. As I said in the last blog things started to get heated between Leon and Novak. “You shouldn’t have booked this shitty show” Novak said to a now furious Leon. I remember Novak questioning why the promotional flyers said ‘meet and greets’ but that’s exactly how it was sold to us – by Alex. “Bam hates this shit why does it say that he’s doing it everywhere?” Novak asked. The truth is no one really knew anything about the show except maybe Alex. I only found out on the 3^rd day of the tour that Alex had never actually played with Chad or Matty before and hardly ever lived with Bam. Leon and I were told that he would be walking around at the shows meeting people and that he would love it, so that’s how we sold it to the venues. It turns out that Alex was completely wrong and didn’t back Leon up when Novak was refusing to get out of the car. “I only got out of prison a few months ago! That room makes me feel like fucking prison!” yelled Novak.

This was almost my breaking point. I kept asking Novak nicely to just get out of the car and make my job easier, but when he told me he threw the car keys away I just wanted to disappear. Novak eventually just pulled me over to his face and whispered “I’m just kidding man, I’ve got them. I just wanted to annoy that pussy”. I was fucking relieved that he had the keys but I needed to calm Leon down. My friend Brie tried talking to Novak while I spoke with Leon calmly while it was raining on both of us. He just wouldn’t budge and my patience just left. For the first time in a long time I just flipped out and yelled at Leon. “FUCK! It’s just a fucking car man! You’re going to lose friendships over a fucking car?!!” I yelled right into his face. “It’s not just about the car. It’s about Alex making me look like a piece of shit in front of everyone! He has to admit he fucked this up!” Leon shouted back. None of us could calm him down, and Rhys filming this all happen was making things worse. Although I’d still like to see that footage! It turns out that Novak told Leon “Bam’s my best friend and if you don’t have his interest at heart, I don’t have yours so fuck you!”

When Leon finally got the keys back he came over to me, with his eyes still wide open and said “I’m quitting the tour, taking the cars and never working with Alex again”. Leon had organized Mini Coopers for us to travel to all of our Queensland shows, which would be around 9 hours of driving over a 4 day break. That same day our travel agent pulled out of everything we had booked because of the hotel and van damages – so we were on our own now. I had to rebook all of the accommodation for the rest of the trip and find rental vans that could fit us all in – but that’s another story for later. With Leon gone I just wanted a drink and to try my best to relax, but it was impossible. Things started heating up between the main support band and my tour party. I’m not sure exactly what Alex said to Nick, the support guitarist, but it was enough to annoy him and not help him out with technical difficulties. What was told to me was that the support band were coming on the tour for free, supplying all of the gear and also being guitar/drum techs every night. Now when something goes wrong and there’s no one up there but me on stage, all I do is fiddle with knobs and pretend I know what to do. I have no fucking idea how to fix any problems on stage, so if you saw me up there trying to help chances are I was doing nothing at all. It reminds me of when I check fruit at my local grocery store – I just give it a little squeeze but I have no idea if it’s good or not. In other words I’m useless when it comes to technical difficulties or the quality of fruit and vegetables. I’m getting a bit off track here but I’m not sure whether Alex fucked up the communication with the band or the band just couldn’t be bothered doing the tech duties on stage. I’m guessing that they were never supposed to do it in the first place, but Alex told me different. “Fuck Alex!” Nick shouted before swigging a bottle of Jack Daniels. I think by this point the band reached their boiling point and couldn’t be bothered with all the antics and the way they were getting treated – and to be honest they were getting treated like shit throughout the whole tour.

This was a bad night for everyone involved that we still haven’t been fully paid for. When the show finally finished we were all instructed to get into a stretch Hummer – fucking stupid. I hate this fake, American, Jersey Shore bullshit. I wondered why we were getting a free Stretch Hummer in the first place, but we soon found out. “People organize signings and stuff behind Bam’s back all the time” Louie warned me the day before. That’s exactly what happened with the Hummer. It stopped outside of a nightclub called Melba’s because someone had hooked it up with the manager of that bar saying they could bring Bam in. We just wanted to go to a shitty dive bar and drink, but these guys organized their own after party on the sly. All night clubs are the same when you’re on tour with Bam; free drinks and pretty girls throwing themselves at Bam and parts of his crew. Bam can drink for free everywhere, and he has a lot of money so no one is ever offering a unique experience. My only regret of this night is not partying and relaxing with my own friends who had travelled from Brisbane to see me.

I ended up sleeping in a bed with 3 girls that night, and still didn’t get laid (because they were just mates).  When I got back to the hotel the next morning I was faced with the drama of rental companies not allowing me to hire a 12-seater van because of the damage done to hotels and previous rentals. I ordered a transfer from Gold Coast to Brisbane, a 45 minute drive, and all day it was torrential rain. The roads were starting to get flooded and our moods were all dampened by the shitty weather. We only just made a signing at City Beach that day. After I ordered a transfer I managed to squeeze 6 people into a Mini-Cooper that Leon hadn’t picked up yet and drive it through Pacific Fair Shopping Centre in the pouring rain. We just made the signing! While Chad, Novak and Bam were busy signing autographs Nikki was organising someone from across the road to come over and pierce Bam’s nose. I wandered off to buy shavers and got a phone call saying that the bus that was transferring us to Brisbane had crashed. For a moment there I was fucking stressed, tired and almost out of ideas but luckily Alex had ordered another bus to take us.

We left the shopping centre and headed back to the hotel to pick up the rest of the tour party. On the way down someone brought up the fact the support band weren’t being helpful, or didn’t seem to want to be there. Bam laughed “Novak call them up and fire them!”. I pretended that my phone didn’t work because I didn’t want them really doing it. Rhys has footage of the phone call and it will probably show how uncomfortable I was with what was about to happen. They used Alex’s girlfriend’s phone so that Novak could make the call.

Everyone sat around Novak with grins on their face trying to hold back their laughter. Louie, Alice and I kind of smirked but clearly felt uncomfortable while this was all taking place. Novak got Aaron on the phone “Aaron you and your shitty band are kicked off the fucking tour! Your shitty band is nothing and you’re kicked off the fucking tour. You can either… No wait mother fucker! I’m talking! You can either A. Kill yourself 2. Kill yourself 3. Take your shit and get off the fucking tour! But Sara [Fabel] can stay”

Novak wouldn’t let Aaron talk but I knew that Aaron would have been telling him to fuck off. I doubt the band wanted to be a part of the tour by this stage. I can’t blame them.

The rain kept getting heavier and heavier as we were making our way to Brisbane. I finally found a hotel called Aurora Towers in Brisbane City that would take us in, so we all checked in there and settled in a little bit. My good friends Casey and Emma live in the same hotel so I chilled with them for a while before getting a phone call saying that the support band had taken all of the backline (drums, amps, guitar heads etc). Soon after I get a call from my friend Rory saying that one of their band members is stuck in Beenleigh and the roads are flooded in, so they can’t play the show. So now we’re down two support bands for the night, and no fucking gear. Thank god the venue has its own gear otherwise we would have been screwed that night.

So we’re halfway through the tour and have lost our travel agent, our publicist, the support band and all the gear for the rest of the tour. I haven’t even gotten to the part where I told Novak to fuck off and threatened to quit the tour.

I am over 50% off my goal to go to Uluru and finish off this series of blogs. My good mate Mitch convinced me to do this, and I honestly didn’t think it would work. I am beyond grateful for the support so far! If you have a spare $1 or would like a postcard sent to you from my journeys please go to http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Follow me on Twitter (@glennstewarts) or follow me on facebook for more updates on my Uluru Outback Adventure.

Concentrating on Jenga!

I’d never been in a position before where almost the whole band had disappeared without anyway to contact them. In fact I thought it was a pretty shitty thing for Alex to just wonder off with his new best friends without letting any of us know. Alex has wholeheartedly apoligised for the mistakes and people he let down during that tour but his presense and drunken antics made everyone’s life so much harder. The thing is none of us would be here without him – so I tried my best to be civil and calm whenever his actions fucked up numerous days on the tour. To be honest he should have taken a step back from negotiating, booking and the admin side of things and let Leon and I do the rest – that would have made things run a lot smoother. He’s such a charismatic and great guy most of the time, but I think he should focus on his talents of drumming and entertaining – which he says he’s going to do.

The sound guy and local rep for the Gold Coast had been calling me all day wondering where the hell the guys were. He needed to know because a Limo was ordered to pick us up from the Gold Coast Airport and take us to the hotel. Meanwhile the venue manager of Parkwood Tavern just sent me the following email:

As discussed before any other promotion involving Bam on the Gold Coast and Parkwood Tavern will be paying the same as that venue. So my question to you is, did Sin City pay 15k too???? No, they did not!!!!! And neither will Parkwood Tavern!!!!!!!

We will be having a meeting on Saturday to discuss what Sin City got charged an what we’re being charged. I look forward to hearing your response.

I don’t have to point out that this will affect you gaining further work from Parkwood Tavern

David Furlong

Now here I am with a lost band and an irate venue manager threatening to not pay us and in future emails tell us he’s not interested in other acts I had in mind for the same venue. I certainly didn’t tell him that I couldn’t find Bam and the rest of the guys. Here’s the fucking thing though – what is Sin City? I have no fucking idea about this club! I’ve never been to this club or any club of this nature. I’ve never spoken with anyone that is involved with this club at all and I know for a fact that Alex’s drunk arse wouldn’t have a clue about it either. No one did! I replied quickly and told him that I had no idea what it was about and that we had no plans at all to go to some dance club. All he wrote back was an email saying that “Sin City can now pay for our accommodation”.

The venue manager wouldn’t budge at all no matter how much I tried to explain that none of us had anything at all to do with the appearance at Sin City – stubborn fucker. He just continued to cut payment, not pay for accommodation and pull out of other bands we wanted to book at his venue – which to be honest would mean he would lose out, not us. By this stage I never wanted to work with that venue ever again because he showed absolutely no respect to me at all.

Finally Alex called. What a fucking relief! “Hi mate we’re going to stay in Sydney for another night and we’ll fly in tomorrow. Let’s just meet at the Gold Coast”. As you can probably guess I was really concerned and reminded him that the show started at 12pm the next day. I hear Alex take his ear away from the phone for a moment, then drunken mumbles in the background slurring instructions to be relayed to me. He puts the phone back to his ear “we’ll just take a helicopter tomorrow morning”.  I wasn’t surprised that they’d try and organize something so elaborate to transport a bunch of poisoned characters, but I also thought it might be good if they made an entrance people would remember given the venue manager was being so fucking negative. “What? It better not be coming out of my fucking payment” Chad said as he was sitting down waiting for our flight to leave.  He was right to question everything because money was getting spent hard and fast. Drugs, damaged hotel rooms, new hotel rooms and transporting 10 people is not fucking cheap.

I decided it was best to take all of their luggage, take the crew we had and just fly to Gold Coast and meet them the next day. Having one night away from Bam and his crew was well deserved for the people who had been waiting around all day doing nothing. The local rep, Brent, met us at the airport and introduced us to the limo driver who was taking us to the hotel. A few weeks beforehand Brent broke his back in a motorcycle accident but still powered on to help us with the show. He even built a half-pipe for some pro-skaters to use on the day – unfortunately there was torrential rain throughout our whole South Queensland leg of the tour so we never used it. I’m thinking of holding a party with a skate ramp, sausages and live bands – but that’s a different story. I would like to say that a big thanks to Brent and his team for treating us well and making sure we were looked after while we were on the coast. I am a little embarrassed getting into Limo’s because it’s simply not me, but that’s just how some of the Gold Coast is. Surfers Paradise especially is a plastic tourist town with a fake feeling of Americana trying to take over a once awesome place to visit. Hustling, fake tits, orange tans, steroids and bad music fill the streets at night – and by day slightly disappointed tourists take a few photos while never-ending construction noises drown out the sound of congested streets. Suburbs around Gold Coast are not without their charm though. I think I’ll move there eventually.

It rained hard and all night and the weather always dictates my moods. There’s only a short while I can put up with wet socks, soggy clothes and stupid puddles before I get angry and would prefer a cheeseburger followed by a shower. After we all got ready for a night out with the responsible members of the tour party we seemed to have just hit a wall. The Surfers Paradise Beer Garden walked us through a back room and gave us anything we wanted. They treated us really well but we were all so fucking ruined from the previous week that it was probably a better idea to go to bed. Eventually we just ordered a taxi home and called it a night. Maybe Matty was right about us being the boring people. But I didn’t care; this caged party animal was ready to attempt much needed sleep before the expected drama was put on my lap tomorrow.

Chad, Matty and I arrived at the venue around lunch time ready to start setting up merchandise and touching base with management and sound people. The rain completely stopped any chance of skate demos and sunshine BBQs, which may have been better for the venue because none of the city would be enjoying their Saturday on the beach. It was an Aussie celebration called Australia Day as well, so we were expecting this one to be the biggest and best event – but it was far from it. There were 7 bands in total with a tiny backstage area.  Queensland is also where Alex and myself are from so we had a lot of friends there supporting us and wanting to help out. This is one of the hardest parts of my job – not wanting friends to be backstage. I simply don’t have it in me to tell my friends to piss off and give me some space because they know I’m not that guy. Realistically though it was needed. “Can you get all these people away from this room” Chad asked while trying to tune his guitar. Every time a few people would leave more would come back in. I just couldn’t control the area well enough, and there was no other place we could go. It was a fucking cupboard.

The girls who promoted Contour at Gold Coast

The band finally arrives at 2pm and fans quickly gather around the side entrance to catch a glimpse of the man they came to see. One by one they walk in, sign autographs and get a few photos before entering the tiny little room which brought out everyone’s claustrophobia – Novak’s especially. The constant rain and fear of confined spaces seemed to have sparked Novak’s memories of prison. By the time Novak completely went insane Bam had already left with a small group of people back to the hotel room to do some art work. I borrowed Leon’s car keys to let Novak put his bags and jacket into his car and Novak asked if he could just chill in Leon’s car to get away from everyone. So I handed him the keys and went back towards the merch desk. “We have been waiting here for fucking hours” a large Irish women was yelling at me. I tried to apologise but she just kept repeating herself over and over again. I tried everything in my power to make her happy and explain the situation without making Bam look bad, but she didn’t care. I just looked at her, put both of my hands up to surrender and just told her to fuck off – something I normally wouldn’t do. I walked away, opened up a beer and smashed it down fast.

I started chatting outside to a friend and then Leon pulled me aside and said he needed to talk with me. “Why the fuck is Novak smoking in my car?”. I completely forgot that I had let Novak in there and it was the last thing on my mind. I tried to explain to Leon that I had a lot going on but he refused to understand and told me that if there’s any damage caused to the car then Alex or myself would have to pay for it. I walked over to Novak and tried to get him to get out of the car, but unfortunately I made the mistake of telling him that I’d have to pay for any damage caused if he didn’t get out. “Tell that fucking pussy to come over and tell me that himself!” Novak shouted. Leon quickly walked over and said “All I asked you to do is get the fuck out of my car! You have your feet up and you’re smoking in it!” Leon shouted back.

This will all make sense later on down the track but at the time I had no idea why Leon cared so much about his car. “You don’t want to lose your friends over something materialistic like this” I tried to explain to Leon. He was fuming like I had never seen him before. I was actually taken back and a little bit shaken by the pure anger in his eyes. I just didn’t get it. He yelled at Rhys to stop filming and fuck off but Rhys wouldn’t leave, which of course added more fuel to the fire. People were trying to talk to all parties to try and make sense of what was happening but no one could understand. Leon isn’t like this, why is he acting like this now? Keep in mind while all this was happening it was now dark, stormy and everyone was already tired and exhausted. “Get him out of my fucking car now!” he demanded after I tried to smooth things over. I walked over to Novak and asked him to leave nicely. “Just do it for me man. Where are the keys?”. He looked at me with a smirk and said “I threw them!”

I wandered around the car park in the rain looking for the keys and just had no luck locating them under cars or around Leon’s car. When I asked which direction he threw them in Novak looked at me with his cheeky blue eyes, pointed to the sky and slurred “to the moon!”.

Leon quit the tour that night and drove back to Brisbane leaving me confused about what the hell had happened. This was completely out of character and it will be explained in the next blog. After he left I just sat in a van by myself, put my head down and just wondered what the hell was going to happen next. Sara Fabel saw that I was stressed sitting in the van so gave me a valium to calm my shaken nerves. By this point I had really started wondering if I should be on this tour. The venue still refuses to pay us and we lost a lot of money even coming to Gold Coast but again I’ll explain more about that later on.

At the end of this month I will be driving around Australia and tying this whole adventure up so I can move on to new and smoother projects. I’m fundraising to do it, and the funds left over will be going to some type of charity. I really appreciate all the kind support people have already shown me and can’t wait to send you postcards from around this beautiful country. If you want to chuck in $1, please go to this website – http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

Leon is someone a lot of people should thank for even getting this off the ground. Without his hard work and sacrifices this tour wouldn’t have happened.

My wicked camper I’ve been travelling around in

Bam and Alex drunk again on VB

At around 8am in the morning on the 24^th of January, in Sydney, I get a phone call from our publicist saying that we need to get a new support band because Bam was fuming. “Aaron threw a radio in the Triple J toilets and then drew dicks over posters of Kyle and Jackie-O – and they’re blaming Bam and his entourage for it” Leon yelled at me while I was half asleep. The band supplied all of the gear for Fuckface Unstoppable who should have been ready to load in the venue just after lunch. Chad, Matty and I called for a taxi to meet up with the guys. “Where were they?” You ask. They were at a fucking bar of course – just to continue the hundreds of hours of binge drinking. As soon as I get into the bar I was asked to hand over $1200 to this drug dealer for coke. That seemed to be the only thing that was concerning them at that point of time. While Chad and Matty were talking Bam into letting the support band stay on tour, so we didn’t have to buy more music gear, Novak and Alex were hurrying me to get $1200 to the dodgy drug dealer. I am still half asleep and have no idea what the support band had done, whether or not I had to find a new one, or whether I had to make contacts to get some guitar amps, drums and all the other shit we need to make this band play. The money I had on me wasn’t mine so all I could do is agree with the higher powers, take money out of merchandise and jot it down on my iPad the amount that was given. The drug dealer and I head to the bathrooms and I go into a stall and count out the money for the charming addicts in the bar.

While Bam, Chad and Matty were writing versus to a new song they were writing, I took Nikki up to the Picture Magazine office so she could get ready for her and Bam’s photoshoot. The office is pretty much what you expect – a bunch of guys tweaking photo’s with porn all over the walls and novelty sex toys on desks. They gave me my own desk for the morning and a breakfast VB (Australia’s best beer) to get my day officially started.  I made a few heated and productive phone calls to try and smooth out the rest of the tour, but mostly just relax until the crew all come in ready for their photoshoot. Towards the end of the shoot Bam picks up a game called ‘Anal Ring Toss’, which I guess is pretty self-explanatory. You put the dildo in the lucky person’s bum and throw a ring over it. The more rings the better I guess. I actually had to Google Anal Sex Toys to remember what the name of the toy was. I’m so glad I don’t have a girlfriend at the moment going through my search history. That’d be a hard one to explain. I guess I’d just have to go for it and hope she’s open minded. Whoops I’m off track!

“Put this dildo in your ass” Bam instructed Alex. He agreed but had second thoughts as soon as the toy was opened. Without any hesitation what-so-ever, a near naked Novak waltzed on over and insisted they spit on the toy. “Lube it up” he said while spitting and rubbing the toy. To be honest I put my head to the ground because I couldn’t watch it, but from what I could tell from the laughter the dildo was a good fit.

During all this Chad, one of the only band members who wasn’t high on coke throughout the tour, told me that he had convinced Bam to keep the support band on but they were not allowed in his sight, because they embarrassed him on national radio – twice. So I phoned the band and made sure that everything was all good to go and the show would indeed go on. And it did.

The night started off pretty relaxed and the venue treated us pretty well at the time. They had heard about all the stuff that went down at other shows and seemed to just laugh about it. They delivered some meals, the show had sold a lot of tickets and everything seemed to be running fine. That was before Fuckface Unstoppable had started though.

All night Alex was asking me to call the drug dealer and ask where he was but he hadn’t picked up the phone and it eventually was just switched off. So there’s a drug dealer going around Sydney that has $1200 from merchandise, and holy fuck I could really use that right now. I don’t know what happened exactly because I tried really hard to keep out of the drug dealings, but they had to pay another $1200 for more cocaine. For those who don’t live in Australia it’s $300+ per gram – not kidding. It barely ever works! I’d rather slam down a bottle of wine really fast to get a drunk sugar high. My next action was one of the biggest mistakes on the whole tour; I snorted some lines of coke, and this coke worked. This was a bad idea because it made my stress levels go into overdrive and not concentrate on getting the band prepared for the show.

I was in the back room trying to pay back the guy who printed our merch, but also explain why I don’t have the full amount – because it went up almost everyone’s nose. After I paid him what I could Novak stumbled out for backstage to do his now signature Phil Collins rendition of In The Air Tonight, by Pil Collins. Prior to the show my friend Jaz and Nikki got a bunch of girls from the crowd to come up and dance while the band played their set. They were all hot so I didn’t see any problem with that. Just before they took to the stage Bam asked me to get more alcohol, which is a pretty normal thing for a band to say. Unfortunately the bar managers who were once nice to us turned into complete arseholes within the space of 15 minutes. One of the managers grabbed me demanded “Novak has to put clothes on, no alcohol is allowed on stage and the girls have to off straight away!”. I told him that it was a rock ‘n roll show and the girls did absolutely nothing wrong by being up there. Bam needs alcohol to play as well or he has no confidence singing. Neither would I!

I yelled at the bar manager “Don’t fucking book guys from jackass if you want us to act like princesses on stage! It’s a fucking punk rock show and you knew it!”. Keep in mind that I was somewhat buzzing on coke and freaking the fuck out about all the demands the management were asking me. I disagreed with all the things they were asking though so I just walked around and eventually just hid behind Chad’s amp. Fuck them. Just as I thought and just as any common gig goer would expect – nothing really went down at all. All the drama was created by them. Here’s a fucking tip – Don’t book guys from Jackass if you want it to flow like a Justin Bieber concert. The band finally left the stage and were prepared to come out and play more songs but the security literally locked the door behind us so we couldn’t get out onto the stage. We were all locked out and wondering what the fuck was happening, until eventually they unlocked it all so we could get the gear off the stage. They wanted us out of the building as quickly as fucking possible and were getting very vocal about it.

After the gig I wanted to take a break from everyone so a few friends and I went down to the beach and drank a cheap cask of wine. I went back to the hotel room after a couple of hours to a raging party that had just got shut down. We ended up going to another hotel room with more space. During that time someone pissed in Novak’s mouth, Bam called the cops on himself and the copious amount of drugs. I just sat there quiet in a corner while people were walking past, laughing, trying to impress Bam and not giving a fuck about my existence – they had no idea who I was and they didn’t care. And I don’t care either because I love my space and love observing these idiots who think they’re experiencing a “rock star” lifestyle to talk about it at their day jobs and social networking accounts the moment they get a chance. In my opinion it’s such fake bullshit and I’ve learned to avoid it as much as possible.

Hours and hours of noise complaints resulted in different hotel rooms getting used, but moments after we entered we were all booted out again. I just found somewhere to chill and not really talk to anyone. My mind was off. Around 4am in the morning I got a phone call from Leon saying that Rhys has packed up and is leaving the tour. Rhys Day was supposed to be filming the whole tour for us, and I couldn’t understand why he would want to leave such an amazing opportunity. “I love you Glenn but I’m fucking going home!”. I couldn’t believe it. He rushed out of the room and headed towards the exit of the hotel. “Everything I film for those fuck heads is completely against my morals! I’m sick of being asked to film orgies and people fucking. It’s not what I do!”. I agreed with him. I mean, what the fuck were they going to do with footage of Bam fucking Nikki on a Ferris Wheel they shot in Geelong? Why the fuck would anyone want to see footage of people fucking band members on camera? This wasn’t what the tour was about and I wholeheartedly agreed with him and just told him not to. “Don’t do it, it’s not needed. Just say no” I said. After a few chats and cuddles Rhys finally agreed to stay on and he went to bed for a good rest. I was so fucking tired. I went to a friend’s room, drank some Jack Daniels and finally fell asleep.

I headed to the lobby the next morning to discover today’s new drama – the band got kicked out of hotel number 2. The receptionist explained that Bam, Novak, Nikki and Alex were escorted off the premises by police officers. They then attempted to catch an early flight to Gold Coast but were escorted out of the airport for being completely intoxicated. All this happened while I was having a deserved sleep. Alex, Bam, Nikki and Novak don’t have phones by this point because they’re lost or broke and they never check their emails; I couldn’t reach them at all. The only thing we could do was go to the airport and hope they arrive before the 3pm check in time – which seems pretty fucking reasonable. We waited for hours and they still hadn’t contacted us. I called every hotel and bar around the airport, and I posted on my social networking hoping that people had spotted a celebrity goose with his little ducklings.

As a tour manager it’s pretty hard to tell people you’ve lost the band and they’re nowhere to be found.

The next show was the worst fucking show I’ve ever experienced in my life – Gold Coast.

These chicks were so helpful at the airport. I’ll always take Virgin now.

Sorry these blogs are few and far between. I’m trying to sort my own shit out, have family dramas of my own and I have lost a bit of money because of this tour. If all of you guys donated me $1 I’d go to the middle of Australia by myself and finish it completely, so I may as well try. Click on this link if you have a spare dollar! http://gogetfunding.com/project/the-best-worst-tour-of-my-life

I’m happy to answer any questions that need answering, but these blogs I have to do in my own time. I really fucking appreciate all the nice words some of you have been sending me. It definitely helps!

Novak

What pissed me off on this tour was the scatter and lack of respect for show times or lobby calls. If a tour party is that big then it’s extremely hard to get everyone in one place. If I tell everyone to meet at 11am down in the hotel lobby then probably only 4 out of the tour party of 10 will show up. If Chad and Matty J were in the lobby waiting too long they will get up and go for food – naturally you get bored and hungry. So once they’ve left for 10 minutes Bam and the rest of the crew will finally get there, and then get impatient while they wait for Chad and Matty J, so they will go off to do their own thing, and then 10 minutes later Chad and Matty J will come back, and then it happens over and over again – big cycle of waiting and waiting. I’ve been on tours and managed numerous times before and normally if you say a time then that’s what time everyone will be there, and the stragglers will get in trouble or sometimes left behind. One tour we literally forgot about the merch guy before we realized after 30 minutes of driving.

The lack of respect for deadlines, lobby calls and being somewhere on time actually ended up possibly saving our lives. We ended up staying in Geelong an extra night because the initial show had sold out, so Alex and Bam had planned a stunt in their spare time. They asked on all their social network websites if anyone had a motorbike that they didn’t want anymore, and within an hour or less my good friend Gillian had organized one. “What we’re going to do is have you get angry that we’re late for a show, so we’re going to ride the motorbike into the ocean, and catch the Seaplane to the next venue”. We didn’t actually have to go anywhere for the next show we just thought it would make great footage when the DVD is eventually released. Bam decided that he didn’t want to wear what he had on and get it wet, which is fair enough as it would have been pretty annoying. So he and Alex spent a good hour getting stupid clothes ready for the stunt, while the rest of us waited at the bar near by the ocean. Chad was the only person who wasn’t with us at this point. Meanwhile the pilot must have lost his patience and let other people board the plane. Finally Alex and Bam were back in stupid fluro yellow wet suits and were happy waiting and getting drunk while the other people were flying in the air. While this was all happening I was trying to book an extra show onto the end of the tour – which ended up being Cairns. So I had my own problems while trying to babysit, drink and make sure everyone was happy.  A few news reporters came down to interview Bam, Novak and Alex who had warned the press they were attempting a stunt the night before. Most of us were just drinking and eating by the pier when I notice that Gillian, who’s a Geelong local, was somewhat distressed on the phone. “Glenn the plane has crashed” she said quietly. I was shocked and quickly asked as many questions as I could, but at the time there were no answers.  Someone says that they think Sara Fabel and Aaron H were supposed to be on a plane, so I tried calling and calling. Both of their phones were off so I feared the worst. The whole tour party, fans and the press all ran to the water to see if they could find out what was going on. I panicked and felt terrible fearing people, possibly friends were on the plane. When I walked back towards the bar I see Sara and Aaron and am immediately relieved that they’re OK. I’m still concerned that people who were actually involved lost their lives, but luckily everyone had escaped relatively unharmed. Ten minutes is a long time wondering if your friends are safe, it was possibly the longest ten minutes I’ve ever had.

A seaplane crash-lands at Cunningham Pier. Picture: Courtesy of Channel Nine Twitter

READ THE NEWS STORY HERE

We all were shaken up. “We should have been on that plane” Bam said with his mouth open and somewhat confused and distressed. Rhys, Alex, Louie, Matty J, Bam, Nikki and myself were going to be on that seaplane – but due to how unorganized and selfish he was we missed that flight. I got back to the hotel and had five missed calls from different family members. I quickly called my little sister Hannah back. “Oh my god! Are you OK? My friends said you were in a plane crash?!” she yelled at me on the phone. “What? No! we weren’t in the plane” I said. Next thing I know we’re headlining news around the country fearing that “Bam’s Entourage” were in an accident. Chad asked me to call Bam’s mum April so she didn’t read news the wrong way. I am still somewhat in shock, so having that mixed with my Australian accent confused April so I quickly put the phone back on to Chad. “She doesn’t understand my accent and I don’t want her to get too worried” I told Chad before handing him the phone.

The Geelong after-party

That night we had sold out the show and I pretty much celebrated that we were all in good health. I had a brief meeting with Chad in one of the rooms backstage about finance, but apart from that my night was pretty loose. One of the reporters (out of many) was a very proper, almost stuck up white collar worker by day. By night she was fucking wild. “Meet me in the girls bathroom in 5 minutes” the reporter whispered into my ear while grabbing my arse. An angel by day, the devilish girl from the press almost made me lose all concentration on what I was supposed to be doing – tour managing the band. I had all intentions of meeting her in the bathroom until someone from downstairs informed me that one of our tires had been slashed by an irate fan on Bam. The venue manager was one of the nicest guys on the whole tour, and offered to get it fixed and drop it to our hotel before our 90 minute drive to the Melbourne airport the next morning. What a legend! I gave the manager the keys and eventually got everyone back to the hotel where a group of people were partying in the lobby. The hotel was also really nice to let us drink all night at the bar, and not worry about the amount of fans sticking around drinking with us all. Usually they’d just get angry and kick us and everyone out. I was more relaxed knowing that the keys were in safe hands and the venue manager had organized the mechanic to get the tire changed. Let’s just say that the rest of the nights fine details will be ‘off the record’.

My phone starts ringing at 10am in the morning and it’s the venue manager telling me that Alex got angry at him and forced to him to hand the keys back over after I had left the venue. What the fuck was Alex thinking? So now we have 2.5 hours to get to the Airport which is 1.5 hours away, but our Van is back at the venue with a slashed tire. I called the venue manager who came straight over to the hotel and drove me to the van. Because we left it overnight there was  lot more damage done do it, which turned out was the idiot guy who dealt marijuana to people the night before. The car now has two tires slashed, a key scratch, “bam is a fag” written in Nikko pen, and rotten egg all over it. Fuck! Meanwhile my Mum is trying to call, my friends back home are wondering how the hell I am because I haven’t answered text messages, Chad and Matty J are missing, Bam is wanting his expensive ring fixed and I’m stressing a lot hoping that everyone can make their flight to Sydney.

Louie, Sara & myself backstage in Geelong

The lovely mechanics and amazing venue manager at Barwon Club helped get the van fixed within 10 minutes, and our driver quickly drove over to the hotel ready to pick the guys up. Finally the guys all get in the van, we pick up Bam’s ring and we find Matty J and Chad walking up the street after purchasing items at a $2 shop down the road.

When we arrive at the airport Nikki and Bam spend ages going through their things trying to find something. Alex and the driver return the damaged car while Chad, Matty J and a couple of others make their scheduled flight. I found out that our travel agent had booked everyone’s flight except mine, so I had to borrow Alex’s credit card to quickly purchase another flight through Virgin. Alex loses his passport for the 10^th time, Bam and Nikki went to the airport bar and I just go to a bathroom, stare at a mirror and wonder what the hell is going to happen next.

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Introduction
Part 1
Part 1.5

Chad & I on a plane

Brandon Novak as Pill Collins

In the introduction I mentioned that Bam was going to go either way, but I forgot to mention what I believe the other way Bam could go. I said that he could self-destruct but then didn’t talk about the positive outcomes that could and should be. 

Bam’s not an idiot – not in the slightest. When people drink too much and all the time the public can only form an opinion based on their own experiences. We’ve all fucked up the same amount or more than Bam has but we’re just not in the public eye. Unfortunately for some time now people of all ages, races and creeds have seen Bam as an influential and inspiring person – someone they can look up to. “Bam was about being a straight edge skateboarder. This isn’t him” said April on a worried phone call across the other side of the world. When I signed on to help manage and organize this tour I strictly told them I want absolutely no involvement with money, but when shows were full and hotels were getting damaged there needed to be some conversation with April to see what the hell was happening. I don’t want to get too involved with the admin and accounting sides of the tour because it’s boring and no one else’s business except those involved. So let’s move on…

My first ever experience with Bam was in 2010 when my company toured Chad and Jesse’s band cKy. I was organising a Guttermouth tour and Alex was organising the cKy tour, so I didn’t get to know anyone too well. A few weeks out before the tour Bam had decided that he wanted to join – which we gladly accepted to help promote the event. I didn’t get to know any of the cKy guys too well at the time. It was only the Fuckface Unstoppable tour where Chad, Matty and I got closer. That’s pretty much how Alex got to know Bam. To be honest I didn’t know what to think of him. He was polite to his fans, and the general public but at the start was pretty distant towards me. What caught my eye was how “normal” he seemed, for lack of a better word. When I arrived in Sydney I met Alex and the tour party down in the hotel lobby to get ready for the show at The Manning Bar. This is what shocked me: He picked up an Amp and put it in the back of a van, then continued to help move gear into the touring van. This might not seem like much to you, but for someone who has toured a lot of international or national bands around the country it’s sometimes how you can tell if someone is a good person. In 2009 the lead singer of New York’s Leftover Crack made me look for special medicine that stops fish from getting headaches – how the fuck do you know when a fish has a headache? “oh man I just can’t deal with going to work today as a fish, I have a massive headache” says a fish, never! Get fucked. They don’t get headaches, and spending a few hours in Perth, Australia looking for such a medicine made me realise that I’ve gotten myself into a hard world – the music industry.

That was my first experience of Bam 2010. Bam 2013 is a whole new ball game, baby. A lot of my mates asked if I was excited for the tour and my only response was “I’m nervous”, which I was. Bam by himself would be somewhat of a handful; now add a splash of Alex and massive dose of Novak and there’s a recipe for contrived anarchy that for some reason they keep getting away with. But for how long? How could one person possibly manage this group without going insane? I am currently in Nimbin in a Camper Van someone gave me, the night before I was in Coffs Harbour drinking home brew Rum and I still haven’t faced reality back in Brisbane. In other words I think I went insane.

Remember that scene from Wayne’s World 2 where Del Preston says “So there I am, in Sri Lanka, formerly Ceylon, at about 3 o’clock in the morning, looking for one thousand brown M&Ms to fill a brandy glass, or Ozzy wouldn’t go on stage that night.”. I had numerous requests like that or Bam wouldn’t get on stage that night, and they were mostly asked by Brandon Novak. At around 3.30pm, one afternoon before the Sydney show in Coogee Bay, I get a text message from Novak using a strangers phone that reads “Bam needs a bday cake for nikki, no questions asked or no performance .. you get it”. Here’s a screenshot:

Text message from Brandon Novak

I got the cake with ‘Happy Birthday Nikki” written on it within 45 minutes and I think it was that moment where Novak started acting like a diva towards me. To be honest he didn’t add that much value to the show apart from a pretty funny rendition of ‘In The Air Tonight’ aptly changing Novak’s name to Pill Collins for the performance each night. We were driving to the hotel from Ballarat after the show when Novak first made the van laugh with his high pitched, out of tune version of the classic Phil Collins. Apart from Ballarat, Pill Collins introduced the band every single night wearing nothing except whatever Bam told him to. “What do I have to wear tonight?” Novak asked Bam, whose only job seems to be whatever Bam tells him to do. “That fucker crashed my $100,000 car so now he has to pay me back” he said to the crowd one night. “I’m going to give $10 to each person who punches Novak in the fucking face” he continued. My point is that Novak didn’t add too much to the show. After his naked performance he just sat down and drank red wine before occasionally getting punched in the face during certain songs. Sometimes he made a little joke here and there, but for the amount of money it cost to get him into the country, feed and house him – wasn’t worth it. “Alex is getting his dick tasered on stage anyway, so what’s the point of having Novak” said Chad Ginsberg, one drunken night in Brisbane.

It wasn’t just Birthday Cakes on request; it was losing items everywhere he went, asking hotel management for drugs, high out of his head while police are trying to escort us out of the building and so much fucking more that did nothing but make my job harder and cause drama. In his first night in Melbourne he came into the “quiet” hotel room at 7.30am, turned the music on as loud as it could go and yelled “we’re raging” while spilling red wine all over the floor. If it wasn’t for me having some sort of sexual chemistry with the receptionist then we would have been fined a hefty cleaning fee. I sound like a massive dickhead saying “sexual chemistry” but it just seemed like that. It was also confirmed a few days too late that we both felt the same way. Like I’ve said in the past, the problem with these tours is you meet hundreds of people and only ever stay close friends with a few. She’ll be on my list of lifelong buddies, but I doubt I’ll see most of the people that sucked up to me or pretended to be my best friend while I was in the company of A-list celebrities – bordering on the cusp of B if they don’t change a few things before it’s too late. Novak has an amazing book and showed my friends and I parts of what seems like a great documentary about his life. But what’s the point of putting something out now if there’s no ending to what he’s doing? He needs to get clean, have a shower and show people how he overcame the horrible dramas that he has been through in his life. Show something positive to the audience man, why release this film that has so much potential without any conclusion? If he acted like he did when I first met him (sober) then he’d be in a much better position in his life now.

Sorry this is so brief, but I have only 6% battery life left in Nimbin and a Van full of rain. Please add my facebook page to keep up to date. If you follow me on Instagram (@glennstewart) you’ll see why these blogs are coming so late.  Here’s a picture of where I am staying -

Where I am staying at the moment. Not even kidding.

The first show on this tour was a DJ set at Ding Dong Lounge in the Melbourne CBD. It was a small venue that treated us greatly while we were in town. Brandon Novak still hadn’t arrived in the country and most of us were not even expecting him to get through customs or even on the plane. Alex told me a story about Novak boarding a plane and when the hostess told him about the rules and instructions of the exit row he pulled down his sunglasses, looked at her and replied “babe if this plane crashes we’re all going down”. Immediately Novak was asked to leave the airport.  I still hadn’t met Novak but was already a bit worried what he’d be like on the tour. I told Alex Flamsteed, the drummer of Guttermouth and partner in organising this tour, that I’m not into Jackass shit. I don’t want to be woken up with a dildo in my mouth or tasered in my sleep. That’s just not me. He assured me that Novak was nothing like that and I wouldn’t have anything to worry about. My arse did get tasered by Bam a few days later, but let’s save that for later on down the blurry track.

The first show was probably the tamest for Bam, but also it made me realise right away that this was going to be a fucking messy tour for Alex. Slightly impressionable, light hearted, sometimes rude to people but one of my closest friends; this tour is exactly what Alex wanted.  The DJ set started off great. Bam called his mother April (aka Ape) in front of the entire audience and told her to say “hello” to Melbourne, Australia. After her greetings the crowd loudly cheered and everyone in the audience had a smile on their face. “Why aren’t you fucking Phil?” shouts Bam as he wakes her up for her sleep. I am known somewhat as a softy and started getting goose bumps while this was happening. I took a deep breath and thought to myself that this is going to be a great tour, with not too many hiccups. Alex was jumping off the railings, feeding the crowd straight vodka and dancing like an idiot on stage – something I’ve never seen him do. I still loved it at the time.

It seemed like a pretty normal night. I went to bed around 3am and was looking forward to a nice sleep in before our road trip to Ballarat, Victoria in the morning. I remember coming inside and accidentally waking up Matty J, my housemate while we were in Victoria. Actually there were too many people in the room. A guy called Michael who only came on this leg of the tour because he had broken up with his girlfriend, Rhys and our driver Dunners. All we had in the room was two single beds and a couch. It wasn’t the most comfortable sleep I’ve had, but who gives a fuck about sleeping patterns. Let’s just say that I was just about to go to sleep and I get a phone call from Alex. He wasn’t making any sense though. He slurred and rushed whatever he was talking about and all I got from it was that the police might be in the building. I didn’t know what it meant. As far as I knew Bam, Nikki, Chad and Alex had gone to bed. Boy was I wrong. I can only tell you my memories about this story as I was asleep and didn’t exactly know what was going on. I put my head down and slept for about 30 minutes until I hear a knock on the door. I slowly woke up shirtless and only in my boxer shorts, stumbled to the door and opened it. Standing there were three police officers and the hotel manager staring at a semi-erect penis through my small boxer shorts. I was clearly thinking bad thoughts in my sleep, but they were definitely not impure enough to get arrested. I was so confused, embarrassed and fucking tired. Whatever Alex mumbled into the phone earlier is why the boys in blue were ready to arrest me. It’s funny, they asked if I was Brandon Margera. Clearly they could see that everyone in this room was fast asleep and not involved in anything worthy of getting arrested. The police leave and 20 minutes later they knocked back on the door and made me go to level 8 with them, where Bam & Nikki were staying. I put on pants and a shirt and followed them up, half asleep.

Bam came out of the room angry and yelled at the police and hotel management saying that he hadn’t done anything wrong. The main cop was a tall, dark haired, middle aged guy who had no idea who Bam was. The other was in his late 20s or early 30s and once Bam slammed the door in their face said to the main cop “you know who that is right?”. Sorry I keep calling him “the main cop” but I have no fucking clue what the technical name for a big boss cop is. Sargent? I don’t care I’m going to keep calling him the main cop. Actually I’ll call him Murtaugh. So Murtaugh did not give a shit who Bam was and had the hotel management, a small Indian fellow, open the door up. He asked Bam to come out into the hallway and talk. “All you need to do is come downstairs and apologise mate” said Murtaugh. Bam said that there was no way he would apologise. “What are you going to do?” he said to the younger cop, who I’ll call Riggs. “We can arrest you right here” said Riggs, in quite a nervous tone. “Arrest me for what?! You’re a rookie. Look at you, you’ve got no idea what to say” bam yells to Riggs. “You’re speechless! Why aren’t you saying anything?” he continues with his eyes drunkenly looking right into Riggs eyes. Murtaugh wasn’t having any of it though. “Are you really going to speak like that to the Victorian Police? I don’t give a shit who you are” Murtaugh yells. “Don’t bring a rookie cop with you next time” Bam quickly replies. “I think a few hours in lock up is what you need mate” said Murtaugh. I tried following Bam into the lift with the two police officers. “Fuck off or you’ll come to the station too!” said Riggs, who by this time stepped up and was absolutely getting sick of Bam calling him a rookie cop. I have a feeling this cop was once a fan of Bam judging by his nerves of when he first met him – but he probably isn’t any more. The police wouldn’t let anyone come into the lift. Myself, the hotel staff or Nikki were told we could not join them on the way down.

I took the next lift down and before the doors opened I could already hear the yelling and swearing in the hotel foyer of Citadines, Melbourne. Murtaugh comes straight up to me and says “get him the fuck away from this building or we’ll arrest him”. I grabbed Bam by the arm and said “man, this is fucked let’s just go somewhere and get a drink”. He was a little hesitant but followed my instructions, and joined myself and Leon Hill (the publicist) through the exit. “I need a smoke first” Bam demanded, and low and behold there was a fresh smoke on the ground. That was fucking lucky because I wanted him to get the hell out of there as soon as possible. “Just fuck off” Murtaugh kept yelling, and that is exactly what we did. We ran for about 3 minutes before jumping into a taxi. Why did we run? No fucking idea, but I’m not exactly a fitness freak so that took it out of me. We drove to a dive club called Revolver and we were all greeted with open arms by the security. They quickly made us a private room, gave us unlimited free drink cards and the room filled with hot women within 20 minutes, after a quick interview bam did explaining what had happened. We also sold an extra 100 tickets in each city.

This was my first night with Bam and I haven’t even begun to talk about the actual concerts or my experiences with Brandon Novak.

It wasn’t exactly the arrival of Novak that made things go downhill, but he certainly oiled up the wheels to its descent. I still had never met him and to be honest didn’t know too much about him other than the fact he was famous for being a fuck up. He was instructed by Alex and Bam to not touch a drop of alcohol or have any drugs before and during his flight. This made my first impression of Novak a really good one. Not many people, certainly no one in Australia, really got to meet a sober Novak. He was so polite and kind hearted. I was shocked and so happy. That night I told Alex that I was really glad that he came along on the tour. He was fine after one bottle of wine, but unfortunately for someone like Novak one bottle is too many and a thousand isn’t enough – a little bit like myself. The difference is that I can handle my alcohol normally and know when to call it quits. I am notorious for just suddenly leaving a party, or “smoke bombing” before anyone knows that I’ve left. This isn’t about me though, this blog entry is about the Australian Fuckface Unstoppable tour in January 2013.

Chad Ginsburg was one of the most professional people I have ever worked with, and he taught me a lot along the way. He saw my stress and helped me out whenever I needed help. If I instructed the group to be in the lobby of the hotel by 11am, he was there 15 minutes earlier. It was sad to see him leave the tour but there was just no way he could watch his friend drink himself to death. It probably took us about three days to click and trust each other but I was so fucking glad he came. “I’ve been touring for 20 years and have never left, ever!” said Ginsburg, sitting on the floor of my house in Brisbane, Australia.

Anyway I am going back and forth. I still haven’t touched on one concert, but let’s just say things went really downhill from the first night. On the way to Ballarat I had a really important phone call to make so I sat at the front of the tour van. Keep in mind I was working on working permits/visas for another tour for a promoter friend of mine, while trying to keep this whole mess together. Halfway through the phone call I suddenly get sat on by a naked Nikki Boyd, with her arse right on the cheek of my face. I hear everyone laughing hysterically in the background while my face turns bright red. I stutter on the phone and try to keep my tone serious while she’s trusting on me. Holy shit this was not going to be an easy tour. I’ll end this blog with a picture of us driving to Ballarat – our first show. But I also want you to know that you should stop reading about all the bullshit. I think I’ll be the only honest person, and I was the closest one to do so. I’m hoping by the end of these blogs you will love Bam, Chad Ginsburg, Brandon Novak, Louie Kovatch, Nikki Boyd, Matty J, Alex Flamsteed, Leon and everyone else who made this tour possible. My intention is to shed light and destroy or tone down the rumours that were spread around this tour. Of course you can make your own mind up, but you may as well listen to someone who was there throughout the whole journey. A journey that hasn’t even finished yet.

I don’t even know where to start. Bam Margera was drunk on arrival, drunk on tour and drunk on departure. He’s in Bali now and I can only guess that he’s still drunk. But who am I to judge? One quick read over my blog will show that I’m not exactly a saint. The difference is there are not as many eyes on me, if any at all. Without getting all Tarentino and starting at the end; on the last night we all tripped on this drug called 25i, part of some family of drugs that completely fuck you up. This guy handed out the drug to me earlier in the night.  I was instructed to put a white sheet of paper above my top teeth and on my gums for around 15 minutes. Know this first – I fucking hate acid and never wanted to experience anything like a trip that I had a few years ago. Rhys assured me that it was nothing like acid, which to be honest I think it was kind of similar. It was nowhere near as bad as acid but it was definitely intense for me when I first started tripping in crappy night clubs and bars in Cairns.

It was just terrible to be around drunken people. When I came back to the hotel we were staying at Bam, his girlfriend Nikki, his good mate Louie Kovach and Matty J (cKy bass player) were all a bit drunk. I was so happy to see them and I think my energy and happiness around them made them want to try out this drug, which has only been around since 2003. I could go on forever about this night, but to cut a longwinded tale short it really fucked Bam up. At the time it was probably a bad thing but I think it almost cleansed him and made him think about the track he’s going down or heading towards. Going back to what I said earlier, imagine yourself tripping out on a drug like this that makes regular Joe paranoid or being someone like Bam Margera who constantly has the attention of everyone in the room. “Bam is his own person and doesn’t like when people are constantly worried or thinking about him” said Louie, a longtime friend of Bam’s. Towards the end of my night, but in the middle of Bam’s drug trip I heard a loud scream coming from downstairs. It was Bam jumping on Louie thinking that he was about to die. “I’m going to die! I’m doing to die!” Bam screamed before jumping on Louie and holding him tightly believing his own words. The next day Bam had his Tarot cards read and seemed somewhat a changed man. I’ll get more into that at on a later blog.

I’ve mentioned this to so many people already but it’s completely true; I had more stories and situations within the first two days of this tour than I have had with any of my tours combined. Drama, stress, chaos, sex, drugs, drugs, drugs, and rock ‘n roll sums up this tour in a big fucking nutshell. What I saw through Rhys’s footage wasn’t the crazy guys from Jackass, it was a dramatic, drug fueled, punk rock road trip that was possibly the best experience I’ve ever fucking had. After being kicked out of 4 hotel rooms in 3 different cities our travel agent would no longer work with us. Our publicist quit halfway through the tour, and returned towards the end. The guitarist quit with 3 shows to go and the support band was fired by Brandon Novak over a impolite phone conversation on the way to our Brisbane show. The problem was the support band provided all of our amps, gear, guitars and drum kit – so essentially we’ve lost a lot of ground and as the manager it made my job a lot fucking harder.

Because this tour had too many stories I wanted to make this blog entry brief. I wanted to space it over time so I get everything down on paper and don’t forget a thing. I had to deal with drug addicts, weird drug dealers, almost 20 different police officers, angry hotel management, crazy groupies, fake promoters, rough security guards, terrified venue managers and a wide array of people that will make this crazy story make more sense.

The most important thing I wanted to write about in this post was an apology to my close and long friends who have been with me no matter what I am doing. The friends who I lose contact with when I go on something like this because of my own exhaustion. Time management and keeping calm is something I am going to learn to do over time, but I understand that when I do this next I need to take time out of the hectic schedule to let my friends and family know and understand that I love them and although they don’t hear from me directly, I am thinking about them constantly. I met hundreds of people on this tour that acted like they were my best friends, and I know that once the tour ended I wouldn’t hear from 80% them again until I start my next adventure.

Looking through Rhys’s footage I can almost see a tale of self-destruction rather than a group of crazy guys having a good time. I’m no expert, in fact I am wrong a fair bit – but I can see two things happening; Bam will either die within the next year if he keeps going the way he is going. Now as a friend of Bam’s I don’t want to see that happening, and neither do his close friends and family. “I’m worried that I’ll get a call waking me up at night and it will be a bad one” said April Margera on the phone to me, worried about her son, a brother, and a friend of many.

Forget all the bad press that you have heard or read about – it’s bullshit. Forget about what I’ve said about Bam in my own anger and venting. Behind the celebrity is a kind-hearted, loving guy who wants people around him to be happy and nothing else. There are road bumps and unexpected twists and turns in his life, but he’s just a normal guy who has been through more than most of us combined. I’m now happy and comfortable calling him a mate and I want to be a part of leading him down the right track. He has opened up a lot of doors for myself and many others and there’s no way in hell I’ll be closing any doors on him and letting people believe in all the bullshit that people have said on social networking and shitty newspapers.

This is an introduction and one of many blogs I want to post about this tour. I know I have a lot of “part 1’s” in my blog but this blog hasn’t even started yet. Right now I am in some shitty bar in Sydney having a $3 wine, and tonight I’ll be sleeping in a camper van. Tomorrow I’m not sure where I am heading but over the next week I’ll try and post many blogs about the tour to try and sum up exactly what happened. I’m still exhausted and still coming down from an amazing experience that unfortunately not many people will get to have. I love you all though.

“Boot camp was the most draining thing I have ever done physically. This tour was the most draining thing I have ever done mentally” – Leon Hill (publicist), 2013.

Thanks for reading!

Let me go back a little further though. I met this girl who played in this pretty popular band from America, and she came with me to a small acoustic show in Melbourne while she was on tour. The reason I mentioned that she was in a band is because I didn’t really think I’d have a chance to hit on her, and didn’t think for a second she’d like me; actually, I rarely ever pick up vibes that a person likes me. She was buying me a beer at the bar, and after I slammed down my beer I thought we should go a little bit closer to the stage. I just took her hand and directed her with me towards the front of the crowded, but small bar. When we got as close as we could possibly go, without annoying too many people, she continued to hold my hand. It was awesome because she clearly didn’t want to let go, but it was bad timing because I had to pee really badly and I was out of beer. I didn’t want to let go but my bladder was telling me otherwise, and I knew that continuous confidence would need a lot more beer now I’ve covered the hard part of knowing if she was into me or not. A fair few people at the venue knew who she was because they had seen her playing a couple of days beforehand. I’m not going to lie – I felt slightly cocky at the time and had a slight smug look on my face – the smug look people get when they wear ray bans.

me and my pug

She decided to stay a few extra days in Australia just so we could hang out, and it was amazing. We got to know each other a little more and I was slightly less stressed because I had finished a whole bunch of work. I want to cut this story a little bit short on details just to save you from boredom. I liked her a lot and thought it’d be nice to pay her a visit in New York a few months after she was here in Australia. I got to NYC while she was still working, so I used this application called Yelp and found the most suitable bar for me to slam some cheeky beers. My ideal bar is dark, wooden with cheap beers. I don’t mind craft beer bars, but I am perfectly happy with a domestic beer as Goon has ruined any palette I possibly ever had. So some cheap beer, seats at the bar, a few nuts, a good and talkative bar person and punk rock playing at 60% volume it my ideal place to rest and have a drink. Because I knew no one really at the time it wasn’t a problem that I was there by myself. Actually, I know a few people in Brisbane but I still don’t mind going to bars by myself.  One moment I need to have some Lemonade.

By the time we met up I was quite intoxicated and a little sleepy from my flight. We started pre drinking in a car park because the show wouldn’t let us take in alcohol. One of the guys there, who smelt a lot, had some pepper spray in his bag. I had never seen pepper spray so I asked if I could have a read of the bottle. I thought I might as well have a cheeky spray too. I had the nozzle the wrong way around and it sprayed all over my hands, but it didn’t hurt or anything. I just gave it back, so it was no big deal.

All night I was drinking more cheap beer and going to the toilet to snort coke and pee (I always wash my hands before and after to avoid germs on my penis or in the coke).  After another night corrupting my body and mind we finally went back to this party to have a little kiss (and more hehe). I don’t want to get into details about how I make love to a woman, but we started having pretty awesome sex. About 5 minutes into the sex I started feeling a tingling/stinging feeling on my balls – just an ever so slight tingle. I was a little worried that I had caught something off this babe, but I guess once both of us were into the sex there was no point in stopping. Another 3 minutes in and that small tingle turned into a mid-sting tingle (i’ve never said ‘tingle so much), and moments after it turned into a red hot sting which extended the whole length of my penis and inside her. She screamed loudly and asked why it was stinging so much. I forgot that all through that night, every time I was going to the toilet, I was putting pepper spray all over my penis. It turns out no matter how much you wash pepper spray off with water and soap it doesn’t completely remove it. We both immediately stopped having sex and I think the people in the house thought we were either having awesome sex or that she was getting raped. Obviously I’m not a rapist though so I’m sure they didn’t think that at all. When the stinging pain of our genitals eased up we just laughed about it together, passed out and then I woke up and watched TV. The thought of making a girl scream from pepper spray was extremely embarrassing and I never really saw her in person after that. We’re still mates but I doubt she has any sexual feelings towards someone who made her scream with pain.

This was probably a boring story but one I thought I’d share. If the person on the other end of this painful story wants me to take it down then please let me know.  For some reason I am feeling really dizzy, so this might be really badly written and could quite possibly or definitely have many spelling errors. Feel free to edit it and post it on your own blog website.

Anyone want to go on a date with me now?

I have really started hating it when I hear “YOLO” coming from people’s mouths. It makes me cringe and sometimes the internet just really fucking annoys me. “That awkward moment” on facebook when a joke is like a big penis that just pisses out the same joke until it is all dried up and the people who still wait above the toilet even though there is no more pee left. That’s a pretty annoying way of looking at things, but social networking can take something quite clever and let the masses ruin it. I never thought anything in this world would make me hate cute photos of kittens – but once again I’ve been proven wrong. Fuck I get proven wrong a lot. Not the point of this blog though.

The other day I had 6 beer bongs before work and still managed to hold myself together and even sober up quite quickly. It wasn’t because I needed to drink to be able to handle work, it was because my mates were having a good time and I wasn’t going to let a little time hurdle stop me from having fun. The following Sunday my friend had a party at a bar in Brisbane called The Yardbird. This is a tattooed/American themed bar that has a nice distance from the rat-race in Brunswick Street Mall. People from outside Brisbane can’t believe how many people The Valley attracts on the weekends. Having so many clubs aimed at douche bags and then putting them in somewhat of a sardine can is a recipe for disaster – and the police reports can probably concur. Fuck I just remembered my experience with the Valley Police: I just did half a gram of speed in the x&y toilets with some friends and after the venue closed we walked back to the last place open in the valley, RGs. My friend who started working at Ric’s pointed at the fridge at the back of the venue and informed us that it was open. Being high, drunk and confident I decided to open the fridge up and steal a carton (or slab, case…depending on origin) of beer. I got about 15 meters and heard someone yelling “Oi!!!” at the top of their lungs. I very gently placed the carton of beer down and started to run. I now have to point out that I was wearing a brand new pair of jeans that were way too small for me and made it almost impossible to run properly. I was also intoxicated and sweating a lot from the drugs that stung my nose earlier. Fuck, half of me is really wanting to point out that I’m actually a good bloke. Moving on; as I started to run the girls I was with were yelling at me to RUN – and I fucking tried. There is a tiny traffic island in the middle of Brunswick Street and I fell right over it as I tried to out-run the three security guards behind me. My tight pants made me legs extend much less than they can so I probably looked like the biggest idiot trying to run away from them.

They picked me up from the ground, forcefully pushed and held my right hand down while the one other put my left arm behind my back. I’m not sure why I needed so much force or people to drag me back to the venue – all it needed was one guy to hold my hand and I would have walked back with him. I certainly wasn’t going to try running again. Here is a picture of how violent and strong I look:

very tough guy

Kate, Bell and Poofter Mike (this is what I call my gay cousin) were yelling so hard at the security guards. Mike was actually filming the whole thing on his iPhone and perhaps if he’s reading this he can link it – if he still has it. The manager at the time, an Indian fellow who actually sounded really bogan, was advising the guards to take me to the back of the bar. I once worked at Ric’s and I know exactly what a lot of the boneheads did to people they took to the back of the venue. One guard told me he his “secret spot” where there were no cameras – although I’m sure it’s not there anymore. He apparently could get away with anything there. I think because Poofter Mike was filming the whole thing they decided to take me to the police station. While they were dragging me down I politely said to the nicer looking bonehead “hey mate, that’s hurting my hand a little, could you please loosen up a bit” and to his credit he did. They took me inside the police station and the female officer took one look at the guards and said “why are you holding him like that?” and forced him to let me go. Once the guards left the Police Beat the cops gave me a blank piece of paper and said “just waive that around if you walk past RGs, and go home”. And that I did.

I have never attempted robbery since. Well, that’s a lie. I hope Mr Pauls Milk himself isn’t reading this but I make a point of stealing a small chocolate milk every time I go into Coles or Woolworths. Just drinking it, putting the empty bottle on another rack and paying for my overpriced goods at the check-out. I’ve probably done this 100 times and I’ve never been caught. Fuck you Coles!

That’s one of a few regrettable drunk stories I have. Another was quite recent which inspired me to write the blog in the first place. I was hanging out with all of my friends at Yardbird and some girl put her phone in my face, showed me a blog I wrote over a year ago and were basically being bitches. I called her a cunt and walked away, actually I might have gone back once more to say sorry but I think I reacted badly again to her comments. To be honest I can’t remember. All I know is that once I called people the “C” word then it’s time for me to get my things and leave. I was almost blackout drunk, reckless and rude. I am never violent, nor will I ever be – but no one deserves to be called that even if it’s apt. Someone informed me the next day there were being bitches and put me in a corner, but still. If she’s reading this I am genuinely sorry for calling you that and hope that I never get in that situation again. I’ve cut down drinking a fair bit since that Sunday night. I still drink but I am definitely trying to cut down on drinking so much that I forget what I’m doing.

OK, so the point of writing this blog was to try and work out whether it’s better for me to take drugs or to stop drinking alcohol as much.  People have tried to show me how great it is being sober and healthy, living on the beach and just enjoying life, but it’s not for me. I wouldn’t have met some of the most amazing people and being in some extraordinary experience if I wasn’t somewhat drunk or high. I’m not condoning it either. I am quite shy, awkward and quiet if I’m completely sober. It’s not fun meeting people if I’m like that. Sure, people can say that I should just be myself, but you’re not me and it’s impossible to function properly in a social setting without a bit of poison in my body. And to go back to annoying sayings I was talking about earlier – you do only live once. As cliché as it is, it’s true. But this lifestyle isn’t for everybody.

No one should hurt anyone FULL-STOP/PERIOD/WHATEVER. If you know that you get a little bit rough or violent on drugs and alcohol then it’s your responsibility to moderate your intake or not do take anything at all. I very much believe in karma and I’m quite superstitious but I have never punched someone, been in a fight nor have I been punched. I am touching so much wood at the moment hoping that some dickhead out there isn’t reading this thinking that you could give Glenn his first black eye, but I’d like my life to continue like that. My lifestyle is my choice and I’m going to continue having as much fun in this world as possible and hurting no one along the way – at least not intentionally. Calling someone a cunt is where I draw the line and need to go home and reassess my choices though. The next day all I could think about was her family and how her grandparents would react if they heard me calling their grandchild such a name. Apparently she deserved it and perhaps I’m looking far too deep into this but I certainly will try not putting myself in a position like that where I’m confident in name calling. I had so many shots that night so perhaps cutting my shot intake down to half. Now I’m not sure what I’m even talking about…

That was a bad alcohol experience. I’ve probably had less bad experience with drugs but they’re still bad nonetheless. I feel like I’ve talked about nothing for this whole blog so I will try and keep one of my bad ecstasy experiences as short as possible. In fact I have such a bad memory I’ve probably written about this before:

We were going to a party that ended up being so big it ended up getting its own title – Miltonpalooza. It’s named after the suburb called Milton, for those who aren’t from Brisbane. My friends were actually playing a show at this party and we all bought pills to slam for the party, and they were big and blue. That’s all I remember about the look of them. A few of us had taken them and immediately had a pretty hectic reaction that included shaking and hallucinations. Alex was about to play drums in his band and we all warned him not to take them because he wouldn’t be able to play properly, but if there’s one thing bad I can say about Alex it is that he never listens to anyone. He snorted them like it was his last meal, which doesn’t really make sense unless that was the only way he was allowed to enjoy life while he was on his death bed. There I go again talking about nothing! Where was I again? OK, so this is actually a boring story when I think about it. I had two other friends doing the drugs with me so and for some reason all of our ex-girlfriends turned up at the party, along with people that we liked or had previously slept with. One girl I slept with the week before and I was so high that I called her a completely different name, and her friend who already hated me yelled “Um, did you just call her <insert name here>?” The next morning we were all shaking, depressed and felt like we had fucked up any chance of fixing things with the girls we actually liked. What a day. I had more to add to this but really can’t be fucked at the moment. I have to go to work. Come in and have a beer.

promo poster

I had never really thought about doing Mushrooms. The thought of something growing out of cow shit never seemed very appealing. I am still coming to terms with girls shitting so I’m sure as hell not going to be into eating something that stems from it. And I’m not trying to be chauvinistic or outside reality. I understand that girls do that, but I just don’t like the thought of it. And that’s the same with thinking about males doing it as well. I don’t mean to put my foot into unsavoury territory – but the thought grosses me out. I also hate people who don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, I hate stainless steel toilets, I had the smell of vomit and I think everyone should shower properly at least twice a day.  So where was I? Mushrooms, Mushies, Shrooms… is there any other nick names? I’m just not that down with street talk when it comes to drugs but for the rest of the story I’ll use “shrooms” as it rolls off the tounge better even though it  makes me sound slightly bogan. I have a fucking tattoo of a drunk koala on my neck so I’m sure people kind of expect me to be a little bogan.

We arrived in Nimbin, I’m guessing, in the mid afternoon. The sun was still shining and if you haven’t been to Nimbin before it has beautiful mist all through the mountains that surround the little hippy town. We had played 10 shows in row before this day and we were making the trip from Sydney to Gold Coast to just chill for the next couple of days. I know that sometimes using the word “chill” can be annoying but that’s exactly what we needed to do. It’s not that easy spending ten days on the road and having 10 – 15 hours collectively of loud punk music ruining any chance of being able to hear properly post 40 years of age. Most of the drives are between 5 and 9 hours long and I don’t want to get into the hygiene again but you can imagine what it’s like with 12 males cramped in a van in Australia’s summer. It’s better getting drunk and going with the flow than to attempt sleep while 11 other people are warming up to the next venue.

Nimbin is a slight detour on our trip to the Gold Coast but we wanted to get drugs. Alex who was drumming for Speedlab (he now has replaced Ryan on drums for Guttermouth) was sent out to gather some Schrooms or Acid. He came back literally 15 minutes later with an airtight, massive bag of dirty little mushrooms. We finished our beers and headed back en route to Meriton Hotel at Gold Coast, Queensland. Every time I brought a band out to Australia we seemed to completely fuck up the hotel rooms. Part of it is getting drunk and getting to know your new friends a little better, but the other part is probably because bands think this is all part of the “sex, drugs & rock and roll” lifestyle. And to be honest –  it is, and it should be. The long drives, early starts and late night check-ins to hotels filter the groupies and sluts out somewhat, but the lifestyle is clearly there for the pickin’. Most venues give free booze and more often than not most of the blokes on the road are ready to booze and do drugs – so there’s ample opportunity to lose your inhabitation and just fucking party. Even saying that I like to “party” is irritating for people, but at the end of the day it’s normally quite harmless – at least to people around me when I party. Oh wait, I guess it’s pretty bad for my body but I’ll worry about that later.

We took the shrooms as soon as we got back into the car and I didn’t really notice anything for the first hour. I took a handful more and went to the front to sit with our driver Chris Cox (formally of Speedlab, Phalanx etc). If I can just talk about Chris for one moment: he has always been a strong, hardworking and loyal supporter of anything I’ve tried to do with music. I actually used Chris to play bass on the Leftover Crack tour in Australia because the usual bass player wasn’t allowed to fly out of New York. He has driven probably 100 hours for me over the time I’ve been organizing these tours and he is always the first person to have a beer with me. He stays pretty calm considering the circumstances we’ve both been in.  I have one story to tell about a strip club in Sydney around 2008, but I will wait until his approval before I let anybody know. In a nutshell – Chris is a top bloke!

After two hours I started to feel something. I just couldn’t sit still and was kind of getting agitated in the passenger chair. My head was slightly flushed, and I was wide awake. I didn’t want to say anything though. It felt like the back of the bus was quiet and I didn’t know if the drugs were making me like this or if it was in my head. To me it was so quiet in the back. Fuck it! I turned around and yelled “dudes I am fucked! Is anyone else feeling anything” and with that sentence the whole back of the bus laughed loudly and agreed. And then it was on. We laughed at everything and of course everyone that had not taken the shrooms probably thought we were just fucking idiots. I guess it’s pretty similar to an acid trip, only slightly milder. I still saw rainbows when trying to flick through my iPhone contacts, and I was laughing so hard at anything that my head started hurting. After three hours we had to stop to take it all in. Chris quickly pulled over at some park near a river and Ryan jumped out and spewed everywhere. He does vomit all the time and granted the only other time I saw him vomit that much was after snorting heroin in Bangkok, but we had all taken too much because we didn’t really know what we were doing. Chris might be able to shed light on this, which I will happily add to this blog entry later, but we were probably annoying the fucking shit out of him by this stage. After a while Chris kind of gets impatient and yells “I actually have no idea where I’m going”. After he said that I pulled out my iPhone and opened the Compass App up to give to him. At the time it was the funniest thing that I’ve ever done. A couple of years later I still get a little chuckle out of it, and I hope that Chris does as well. Finally we see the bright, fake-californianesque lights of the Gold Coast and we work our way to the hotel. Rhys was directing a documentary and I’m pretty sure he was just making faces in the camera and finding new settings and visual effects –which in hindsight were kind of shitty once we sobered up. I had booked 3 rooms that day in this 5-star Apartment. The entry is quite lovely and only the people involved with this trip would remember the fucking stupid clothes I had bought at Nimbin and changed in to on the way up. Let’s just say I looked like an idiot fucking hippy (go frank turner!) as I somewhat floated from the loud van to the gorgeous reception area I locked eyes one on one with the receptionist at reservations. Some people know that I have a thing for eyes – but on mushrooms these were the best eyes I have ever fucking seen in my life hands down. I think I accidentally and awkwardly stared into her eyes for what seemed like 30 seconds. Now I’m standing there in love – the problem is that from her end she can see some form of hippie, not wearing shoes and staring at her like a huge fucking dickhead. I am quite confident in saying that she wasn’t staring into my eyes with the same feelings. Deep down I am a softy and every one of my good friends knows that. So it’s quite easy for me to fall in love – especially with something inside me heightening my emotions. I just couldn’t talk to her. I was having the famous “tripping out” moment I’ve heard guys talk about in the past while slamming a bong made from a Gatorade bottle on a Tuesday afternoon in Toowoomba.

Guttermouth in Newcastle 2010

I just couldn’t do it properly. From memory I had to get Rhys to help me out because I couldn’t think straight. All of a sudden about 20 asian folk entered through the sliding doors and in my mind it was more like 100 chickens fighting over chook-feed. And I’m not racist, but because I couldn’t speak Asian (edit – ‘any form of the beautiful Asian language – god I’m an idiot) all I heard was loud noises behind me and I just freaked out. Checking into a hotel with a band is always a problem, but I highly advise you not to do it whilst on any form of hallucinogenic drugs. I had taken way too many drugs and I needed hard liquor to help me relax. The next day I had lost Mark’s passport and our agent had completely fucked up some of our flights over to Asia. It wasn’t an easy next day, and there is actually more of a story I’d like to tell – permission pending. Until then I highly recommend being stress free when taking Shrooms. It was fun and I’d do it again, but not for a while. If anyone is interested in a Nimbin Road trip in the future let’s start organising.

Until a person I know allows me to write more about this tour – I might have to leave it there. If anyone is interested there is a preview of the documentary which shows Ryan vomiting in the park and me being fat and trying to break up a fight. I’d also like to note that the music in this clip is the shittest Guttermouth song in the world. Also it’s NSFW

Love always,

Glenn

PLEASE VISIT www.heapsgoodadvice.com  OR YOUR LOCAL DOCTOR IF YOU ARE AS CRAZY AS THIS GIRL.

I don’t want to always interview my favourite bands or actors. I want to start interviewing people in everyday life. Some will refer to this as Glenn interviewing a “slut”, however, I don’t think there are many Candii’s in this world and I feel privileged she let me ask her a few things. I’m also happy to report that someone on my facebook had a night with Candi thanks to my last blog. I’m happy to bring this exciting world together. And for those who want to know – I have not had sex with Candii. We did kiss once though.

1. Do you consider yourself a slut?
I consider myself a slut, yes. The definition of slut is someone who sleeps around alot right? I have slept with more men and women than most people I know put together. I am a slut. but I’m a bag of fun and to me a slut isn’t bad at all.

2. Have you been in any altercations in public because of your own freedom?
Of course I’ve been in altercations, I’ve punched on, I’ve had bottles smashed over me, I stabbed someone with a pair of chopping scissors etc… people can’t handle outrageous in society… It is only rarely accepted in certain social situations- take the way I am outside of those situations and people are gon’ hate.

3. Do you get regular checkups?
I do get regular checkups because I don’t use protection. I never have and I never will. I’m super open about that stuff too. I have had 2 STD’s in my life. I probably haven’t been checked for about 4 months though. Usually my friends and I will grab lunch, get tested… really make a day of it. in saying that the amount of men and women I have slept with exceeds 200 people. I don’t give out my number but it is quite high. I can count on two hands how many times I’ve used protection – not how many different men.

4. Do you think there’s a difference between a girl fucking 5 guys, and a guy fucking 5 girls?
 I absolutely think there is a difference. It’s so much more acceptable for a guy to do it. It really depends on how you carry yourself during the acts in question and the lead ups. People call me a slut all the time, but anyone who has actually slept with me would never. In the lead up I am still fun, I make everything humorous, build the friendship. Yes I act sexy and seductive but its more you just know you’re in for a good time not that you’re going to be worried about catching Hepatitis. Just on Saturday night I had a wild orgy with a group of life guards on a balcony in some apartment complex. I was clearly the slut in that situation. Not one of those guys would call me that though. I’ve hung out with 2 of them since Saturday and nothing sexual happened we just chilled, and I’m having dinner with another later this week.

5. How often do you drink and do drugs? Does it affect your work life?
I am 22 years of age. I tried my first drug at 17 and went a little crazy; my sexual peak was the tender age of 18-19. In saying this I only lost my virginity when I was 17 and a half to my at the time fiancé whom I had been with for 3 years. I did every drug under the sun but never drank. It created a problem for me in everyday life, so I stopped. I smoke weed every day and I have for the last 2 years. I drink 3 or 4 nights a week but a social drink is still something I struggle with – I get written off. I still don’t do any other drugs but weed, and I only really drink white wine. I cannot recall the last time I have actually had sober sex. It would be about 2 years sice I have not been high or drunk to take a penis.

I am constantly being promoted and climbing the company ladder. I am a career woman and I always have been. I have been blessed with the gift of the gab, incredible style, a flirtatious attitude and a high IQ.

I get asked regularly how I still do the job that I do and party as hard as I do…. quite simply I don’t know. My mind set is strong. If I don’t work, I can’t live my lifestyle. simple. Somehow I make it happen.

6. Do you think society needs to loosen up?
I would never be one to tell society how to think. Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but I don’t think judgment should be so easily passed without experiencing that particular lifestyle first. Live my life for one week and then try and go back to normality- you would hate it. people are always afraid of the unknown. I know who I am, this is why I act the way I do, I get around with no top on, I smoke cigarettes out of my vagina at parties.. I make out with over 20 people on a night out, I love anal, I get crazy. That’s me. I reflect with I feel…. a good mother fuckin’ time. To me that’s fun, that’s living, that’s life. Some people want to travel, others want families or degrees –  I just want to say I’ve lived the way I want too. And I have so far.

7. What’s your opinion on gay marriage?
I consider myself straight and free to experience. I recently however just came out of a 1 year relationship with the most beautiful woman I will ever meet in my entire life. I live a very large part of my life in the gay community and my stance is very strong; Gays should be allowed to marry. They are people too. Why they cannot yet share in equal rights is beyond me.

8. Explain your wildest sex story
I could write a book with my sex stories!

I was 17 and had been drinking at a bikies club house and nailed by like 5 guys, I’ve met a couple on the train and had a threesome in a train station toilet which resulted in a porno of that night being released online and having 54 thousand hits in the first 4 days it was up, I have slept with 3 Brisbane lions players that I met on the street and did some bad things to their holes. I’ve had sex with a home and away star and had to chase him and about 6 of his friends out of my house with a knife, I’ve been fucked holding onto nothing hanging off a 13 story building, I was drunk in Sydney and stumbled onto a job site and they ended up giving me a hard hat and a vest at 2am reversing a ute and letting me strip before the foreman cancelled work and everyone took me back to the a house to party and play…. the list is endless… each week comes a new guy, a new situation, a new way to get even crazier than before……

9. How long have you been “Candii Ray”? (Her alter ego)
I think I have really only just come out of my shell in the last few years, but the wildness has always been there. I think I am just so confident now nothing can stop me. I have never cared what anyone thought of me. If I wanted to pop a tit I would do it, if I wanted to give that guy head after school I would do it, If I want to have sex with a woman, I’ll do it. If you can’t accept, appreciate and love how insanely outrageously perfect I am in my own way- then you weren’t right to see it in the first place.

I have no idea who these girls are, I just asked if I could have a photo.

One of my best friends is also one of my most annoying ones when it comes to sex. His first question after ANY encounter with the opposite sex is whether or not I or anyone in my current circle of friends has fucked said girl.

Truth be told that in most cases someone in our group probably has had a little bit of a fiddle with her, but that’s not the principle. My point is that it’s so fucking easy being friends with chicks so I don’t know why guys care if the girl rejects you. Move on and find value in a friend. If she’s still being a cunt even though you’re happy with friendship then she’s simply a cunt – and the same goes with males. If a guy can’t be friends then he’s never going to want to be friends; he’ll quickly move on to what he considers the second best option while still not fully being over the first. I’m not a cold hearted bastard though. I’ve been very smitten with girls and sometimes a lot more than they are with me, however, I move on very quickly.  I’ve said it before and I’ll write it again – I love being friends with girls no matter what they look like.

And here I go again! I started this blog with only the smallest of ideas. My infamous and local celebrity mate, albeit mostly with the Gay community, has caused a bit of “controversy” with her facebook posts – most notably the ones that I copy/paste onto my public wall. I first started noticing her antics when she answered the door to her own party almost completely naked. She didn’t talk much to me at first but she was polite, welcoming and wanted to make sure everyone was there to have a good time. I am curious about people like Candii and perhaps a little reserved when I’m around her. I added her to my social networking page just so I could get to know her a little better. One of the first posts that stick out was something along the lines of “I have found a lot of things in my vagina but today took the cake. I had two cigarette butts in their!” While that’s a little crass to think about it that doesn’t make me want to be her friend any less. I do however think there is a fine line between being open sexually and sticking items in your Vagina, albeit to put a smile on the faces of those around her.

I once stated on a blog years ago that just because a girl listens to Nick Cave it doesn’t make her any less of a slut. Unfortunately I know girls who act a little “arty” and think that if they fuck two guys in one week it’s different than a clubbing whore that racks up the same trophies. One is a little bit more open so often you know what you’re getting in to. It could be argued that the other one is playing with emotions of those she sleeps with by putting a shield up and trying to hide it from the general public. It’s usually the quirky, cute and cool on face-value chick that gets to most blokes. And there is one thing that I can’t stand is being called a slut. You think it’s just girls that get called whores if they sleep around? I bet there are a few girls around my circle of friends, if not friends of friends, who I’d get along with amazingly well. Because of drunken mistakes, poor choices and possible ‘chinese whispers’ I doubt that I’d ever get a chance to even talk with them.

I’m probably sounding like a dick now by trying to convince you that I’m actually a good bloke, but being a slut is not something I am going admit to when given  the social title. If a girl wants to fuck me on the first night I met her that’s more her problem than mine. If she wants to be my friend then we’ll weigh up that option together consciously but if she wants to be more than mates and I’m not interested then it’s not my problem.

The same could be said about girls I have slept with. I’m not trying to hide a brick wall with my emotions. Mike Ness (from Social Distortion) once said “Fellas you don’t mind I sing a love song? don’t get embarrassed. That’s right motherfuckers, ‘cos even tough guys fall in love” before playing to a sold out audience of punks with tattoos on their face. My good friend Riz, who lives in Malaysia, knows and admits all about love. “I don’t really sing protest songs, but getting your heart broken hurts more than getting tear gassed” he said before playing songs to a small crowd in Dataran Merdeka. A few weeks prior to this gig he was protesting the Malaysian government before the police stomped the crowd and gassed the lot. Fuck, you think we’re punk over here for dressing differently? Those unlucky buggers aren’t legally allowed go to punk shows and should be sent to Muslim Camp for sporting tattoos. In fact there is a government party there that thinks they should send all non-Malaysians back to where they came from – even if they were born in Malaysia and can’t speak another language other than Malay. Anyway, why would you send someone to a camp to be a better person if they have a tattoo as cute as this?

Riz’s cute little tattoo

I’m not here to talk about my heartbreak but I’d be lying if I haven’t been through it all before. I think that people just need to start respecting the other person’s decision if they don’t want more than what they’ve already given. Constantly texting someone, calling them all the time, showing up on their doorstep and trying to follow their lives is not the right way to grab someone’s attention with positive emotion. If you both know you’ll both find out. Fuck, I’m sure social networking, emails and text messages have made it a lot easier to open up but let’s not abuse its powers. Let’s all be friends. My next girlfriend, if I get one, will be able to sleep right next to my friends or her friends of the opposite sex without anyone having to worry if they’re going to hurt anyone in the process. If you’re worried about your current situation then I’m afraid it probably won’t get better. One thing I have learnt from my limited experience of dating is that my gut instinct was always right. Did I go about things the right way? Nope. I was one of those people who read the messages of my partner’s phone. Was I right to worry? Yes. Was it the right thing to do? Probably not. I regret it but my gut instinct was right. If I didn’t have that gut instinct then maybe I would have found out a lot later than I should have.

Am I perfect? Fuck no! I made the mistake of cheating on a partner on my last tour and unfortunately the old “what happens on tour stays on tour” line is never realistic when there’s a tour party of 10 or more people. Looking back now I don’t regret it at all because we were both completely wrong for each other. I’m not condoning anything either – I shouldn’t have done it. But that brings me back to my point; if someone is right for you then you should both know. If there’s that special someone she can have my phone, have my facebook account details and anything else she fancies should she wish. But that’s not realistic. What I think will and should happen is perhaps optimistic though – we’ll just both know that we’re right for each other.

I am doing my best this year not to sleep around – well at least the last month or so. And just so you know; I don’t think that includes me getting really high on drugs and asking girls to kiss me. I think that’s harmless. Actually I got cut off the bar on Sunday because I was completely wasted from beer, and asked almost every girl who I didn’t know to marry me or go on a date. I think that’s harmless too, and my sway hopefully suggested I wasn’t being very serious, even though a few of the girls I met are very keen to take me out for a beer.

So believe it or not there is a point to this write up, I am just unable to finish it because I want to interview Candii Ray first. Please stay tuned and hopefully I’ll finish it all this week. If you have any input please ask me on faceook or email me from the contacts links on this page.

Oh no I’m drunk again

I did drugs for the first time in over a year last Thursday (apart from the cheeky lines I did on my last tour). I hate to say it, but it was awesome. After that annoying lull period of breaking up with someone it took ecstasy to make me realize girls are like spiders – more scared of you than you are of them. It also made me realize how much I love meeting new people and hanging out with my old friends.  The only problem was that I planned on doing more drugs the following Sunday and when you plan things it just never turns out. Too much build up never leads to a good night – ever.

So apparently it doesn’t matter how shit you are at guitar to get a handful of girls nodding their heads while some form of noise is screeching through a bad PA system. I am of course talking about Oh Hello – possibly the worst name for a club ever. The actual lay out is not too bad even though I am easily distracted by the huge video screens behind the bar. And what would an indie club be without pretty girls who look like they hate absolutely everyone that they serve? I understand serving alcohol to douchebags all night can be frustrating and tiresome – but that’s exactly why I don’t work in a bar. If you want to slam your way into a weekend bar girl you have to go drinking late nights on Monday’s and Tuesday’s. That’s kind of getting off subject. Is it just me or does Brisbane not have a mid-way point with the amount of band members playing? It’s either a 2 piece band or a 12 piece band – both ends of the wanky spectrum. On one side it starts getting tiresome because of how shallow the sound is and on the other end it’s either not needed or too much happening. I also don’t like the false attitude in some of the vocals, however, unwarranted confidence was never my thing in music; especially if the lyrics are terrible.

Last time I wrote about going out in Brisbane I spoke fairly highly of Rics – and I think I’ll have to take it back. If I owned a shop or service I would not cover it in piss and vomit than double the price of everything. In the normal world that doesn’t make sense. So the music is slightly better than the bars next door, but isn’t alternative, punk, grunge supposed to be the big “fuck you!” to the sterile commercial world we live in? Or are we exactly the same as every other idiot. We all have the same motives when going out after all; meeting new people, having fun with friends, getting drunk, possibly taking home some idiot… sounds like every clique to me. My biggest beef with Rics is the price of a damn beer.

Now a big surprise for me is Snitch. I’m not sure how they can convince people from Sunshine Coast and Logan to venture down to Brisbane every Thursday night. It’s the kind of place girls can walk in for 5 minutes then come out pregnant, with a black eye as a souvenir. Tattoos are stupid. And I know that a lot of people will think I have no place saying tattoos are stupid as mine are the dumbest. Some people might just think I am trying to get a rise for no reason…but I’m not. As addictive as they are, I regret every single one of my tattoos. Before you get a tattoo you should put on your favourite shirt every single day and see how much you like it in the next two weeks. I kind of have this attitude where it’s too late for me now so I just am going to have fun with my skinny, beer-gut body. The music still sounds the same in snitch so there’s no point even going down that road. It sucks – end of story. If you wanted to help stop teenage pregnancy in lower-economic towns like Logan, blowing up this place would be a good start. Now I am just getting bored and bitter so I should probably lighten the mood up.

My whole point of this blog is to try and bring back the house party. Well at least that’s what I’ve decided the point is. On April 14^th I am going to be hosting a housewarming party with my fellow housemates. It’s going to be better than going out in the valley and cost 1/3 of the price and that’s even if you had to get a taxi to Cleveland. I’m sure there will be “cool music” playing before we all get drunk and start playing one-hit-wonders. Our neighbours always have parties so there should not be anyone calling the police. If you’re going out to The Valley afterwards it’s a $12 taxi ride. I can’t really sell it much more than that. If you want to come that’d be great.

email me – glenn@japan.com if you’d like to come.

You know what I did in between that paragraph and now? I poured myself a delicious glass of wine. As expected the first sip made me cringe a little, but it can only get better from here – until I drink slightly too much. Let’s see how this blog ends up by the end.

A lot of people ask me about my time in the porn industry, but to be honest I’m not sure if it was that exciting to talk about. I’ll try and remember some of the better times. It started right in the middle of Brisbane City, in a 2^nd floor office in Edward Street. The sign on the building said ‘Iprocessing’ but the name on the website was ‘Live Web Friends’. I found out about the job through a friend who dragged me along to the training session. When we got there it was mostly backpackers and a pretty nice office, albeit with a temp-feel to it. I think it was divided with cheap pine timber and plastic walls. Most of the people attending the training session were backpackers – including the management. The boss is from Vegas and is still my friend ‘til this day.

A guy called Boris was our trainer, and he was normal. Most of the people in the office seemed normal – as in, not sleazy at all. I remember seeing a really old, conservative looking lady typing away at the computer. Don’t ever judge a book by its cover. A sweet old lady waiting for her local bus, with her pennies ready to pay the bus driver – could really love sucking a young guys cock (OMG I JUST REMEMBERED A STORY!!! – should I tell? Too much perhaps). Where was I… I have to read up for a second…

BORIS! That’s right. So he trained us… and it seemed to easy. Some of the people that read my blog (I feel like a huge wanker for saying “my readers” for some reason… but I guess that’s what you are) might be too young to remember Yahoo Chat. When I was a young, single 15-year old living in the country who wanked way too much, we had a thing called Yahoo Chat. I’m sure it’s possibly still going. It was just a list of chat rooms with different themes. There were rooms like ‘Teen Chat’ and ‘I <3 Animals’ to name a couple. The service I was about to offer would use chat rooms such as ‘young females looking for older men’ or ‘will do anything for cash.  At this time streaming internet porn wasn’t really a huge thing – actually it was pretty much non-existent. And I’ve already told you what it was like when I was younger… we had nothing. What became huge through this period was ‘Live Webcams’. When Webcams became the norm we suddenly realized how awesome it is to see naked women who are getting their clothes off right in front of you. It was awesome. It was a no-brainer to start a company where guys would pay money to see a girl taking their clothes off. Just like a strip club except you could do it from the comfort of your own home. Not even laptops were that big back then, so it was mainly in front of the family or office computer.

So here was our job; A website was set up with thousands of girls and basically we would pretend to be them. Every time you logged in it would show 40 or so girls who were online – mostly from Romania or USA (yes, that specific). We would then choose which girl we thought would sell well. I would go for young, good bodies and cute photos, but there was a lot of choice. Some guys went for the sluttier, dominating girls while others would select by race. The same could be said about names; when joining the chat room we had to come up with a nickname. Mine was always cute like ‘tennisgirl21’ while some guys went for the dirtier approach like ‘cumbubbles69’. Both types worked with different people.

At first it was easy. We would go into a busy chat room and write “if anyone wants a webcam show PM me with 1234”. Saying that would weed out all the people that didn’t know you were a webcam girl. Eventually we would weed them out even more by stating that “if anyone wants a 30 minute webcam show please send us a private message with 1234”. I am trying to explain what I did in a nutshell for those who still don’t understand. So here it is explained really easily:

-       girl from Europe turns webcam on but can’t speak English, or is too stupid to attract guys to her webcam.

-       Guy or girl from Brisbane, Vegas or Memphis (weird mix of cities I know) would log into a chat room and pretend to be girl from Europe.

The job was commission based only, but for the first 6 months it was so easy to make money. The problem was it was cash in hand, and I’m not sure if you know this but getting cash in hand is dangerous for me. I mean – I have to walk past one hundred stores that are selling me things I kind of want but definitely could live without. Oh that skateboard looks good…SOLD.

As mentioned earlier Internet porn and webcams were still not that huge. I feel old saying that… is it kind of like the comparison of CDs on the cusp of getting huge? Anyway it was easy to sell a webcam show. We would get a unique link for the girl. Let’s say her name was Vegas Barbie – who was a real webcam girl. My personal link to her would be livewebcams.com/vegasbarbie/766/whatever.html … ok if you notice the ‘766’ that is our username and the way the system would recognize that we made the sale. As soon as someone paid with their credit card we would get $25 cash into our pockets. It was weird though. We would say the show was $4.95 for 30 minutes, but we got paid $25. How does that work? I’m still not sure on the exact details but it definitely wasn’t a 30-minute webcam show. The show went for 2 minutes at the most, and we never had any interaction with the girl on the other end whatsoever. Also in a really small box there was an option to choose being a member for $39.95 per month – and most guys would miss the option because they most likely had one hand on their dick and the other with their credit card. After 24 hours of being a member of the website, and you HAD to sign up to get that 2 minute webcam show, you started the monthly $39.95. Before tight laws started coming into place on the internet, there was actually no rules about the colour of the font on a website. So let’s say that you had something on sale for $10, you could put in the terms and conditions that you’re actually going to be charged $100 per month – but the text was in white. Technically it was still written there on the website that the person purchasing the product would get charged. Obviously this scam didn’t last too long but it was definitely in place.

I learnt a lot of things from Internet porn. At one stage there were more Porn websites getting produced out of Brisbane than anywhere else in the world. I find that fascinating.

I moved on to another company doing exactly the same thing, but eventually moved on to writing up descriptions for porn movies. This was fun for about 3 weeks until we ran out of things to say. My friend Rhys Day and I would watch 15 minute clips of porn videos and try to write a description about it online – much like the back of a DVD cover. It went from us having fun and being creative to basically saying that some slut was about to get fucked by a fat dude. We had 500+ videos of one fat guy having sex with hot blonde girls in Miami. It was the same fat guy! It was so hard trying to sell the same thing over and over again. We ended up getting so bitter and angry about that guy. I think from memory his name was Joe. Rhys Day if you’re reading this can you please comment on your memories of this?

I was recently single, recently moved to Brisbane and drinking more goon than what the QLD government let out of the floodgates. Selling porn and making fuck loads of money was the perfect job for me at the time. I would NEVER do it again though. I ended up hating the general population. Ladies with husbands – most dudes suck. 98% of our clientele were lovely guys with hidden fetishes they’d unleash on a stranger. Of course they didn’t know they were telling a drunken guy from Brisbane who would later write blogs for .5% of the world to see. My hate for conventional relationships extended from that. In the industry I hung out with fags who became prostitutes and their main customers were married, middle-aged men working in the CBD. The prostitutes had a 10k debt paid off within a week of starting their new trade. I met a tranny with great tits, and hundreds of strippers. Our boss would take us into a club and throw thousands of dollars on the table. This was all fun, but there is a terrible dark side that you’re exposed to doing something like this. I mean – how easy is it saying what you want to say to someone without looking at his or her face. Sending a text, emailing or chatting online is much easier to get out in the open. You have time to think and also a chance to be humiliated without them seeing your expression. It’s not as real, but it does the job and it’s only going to get a lot worse. Guys would ask if I would have sex with a dog, make myself bleed or just watch him punch himself in the nuts. I made $100 one night by just pretending to watch a guy spank himself with a wooden spoon before shoving it up his arse. I just minimized the screen, watched a movie and occasionally cheered him on. If it was really funny we’d print screen and show all our friends. But like I said – there was a dark, heavy side to it. Once a guy from England sent through a 7 year old giving head to a 50+ year old. With the old Yahoo Chat you didn’t know what you were getting, and when I clicked open… there it was. It literally made me sick to the stomach, and I didn’t know what to do so I just called my boss over to get advice.

The job didn’t last too long. Maybe a few years give or take. I never knew what to tell my parents, and eventually I wasn’t too proud of it. This blog started off about hating bike riders, and that’s still definitely true. But I am now quite drunk and it is beginning to get harder stringing together sentences. I have heard a million times before that “this blog is ok but it has spelling mistakes” but right now I don’t care.

I am looking forward to 2012.

Try typing Gowrie Junction in Google and finding a better picture. Impossible. This is the only image I remember of the place.

When I first started this blog I wasn’t expecting to get so personal – yet here we are. Let me finish my sour memory from Glencoe while we were coming home from that basketball match. One of my good friends Wayne (who reads my blogs) might also remember the story. Although Glencoe and Gowrie were small I still have great friends from that area and wouldn’t change that for anything. Where was I? I should let you know that this is the first time I am writing on a mac so I keep hitting the keyboard funny and you may have also picked up a few spelling mistakes by now. I am also drinking goon. BACK TO MY STORY…

From memory there were 3 of us in the car – a guy called Troy who left the army and came out of the closet, and Steve who I am not really sure what happened to. Steve was driving us home at around 9pm at night and as we were turning right on a T-intersection an old van completely cut us off and blinded us with their high beam. I told Steve to beep his horn and the next thing we know we see the Van doing a U-turn, start following us and gaining speed. Steve’s car was a really old Nissan with almost no fuel. The Van shone its bright lights right onto the back of our car and caught up quick. We didn’t know where to go or how long the car would last with fuel so we opted to try and get close to home, which is the idea I quickly and regretfully told Steve. I knew that my friend Tony would be home and knew that Wayne and possibly a couple of others were also there so we drove up his street which was just down the hill from where I lived. These roads were all dead ends so when we got to the end of the street the Van cut us off and Steve tried to start the car quickly and drive off but his car stalled – probably because he was nervous and scared. The side of the van opened up and around 6 or 7 guys started coming out of the car with beer bottles and a crow bar. They were all around 40 and clearly drunk. The closest pub was in Kingsthorpe which was around 5 or 6 minutes away, even further west of Toowoomba. Absolutely nothing noteworthy has ever come out of Kingsthorpe other than this semi-attractive girl who is still on my Facebook. These guys just wanted to fight – nothing more. I jumped out of the car and one of the bigger guys came at me with a smashed beer bottle so I ran. Troy also ran as well, but when I looked back I noticed that poor Steve was stuck in his seat, unable to undo his seatbelt in time and had 4 older men and a fat lady start punching a 17 year old through his window. I managed to escape from the guy with the bottle because through pure boredom I knew the bushy surroundings like the back of my hand. I went to the back of Tony’s house and frantically told everyone that Steve was getting beaten up just up the road, and I remember Wayne running out and trying to get the number plate. If you’re reading this Wayne I’d love you to comment on your memories from that night. When the car of cunts finally left Steve alone, and driven off drunkenly into the night he walked inside holding his nose trying to stop the blood from pouring onto the carpet. Inside the home was Tony’s Mum and a one year old child. Steve told us that an aboriginal lady held steve back with her umbrella while the other guys were beating him to a pulp. I mentioned that she was aboriginal to give you a detailed version of the story, not because it has anything to do with her race. Tony’s mum was also aboriginal. She drove Steve to the hospital in Toowoomba and waited for hours because his own parents didn’t care enough to visit. I felt so bad that I made Steve beep the horn at these idiots, and I often wonder if driving up that street was a wise decision. Would he have been injured if it wasn’t for me?

Memories like this continue to remind me why I hate Toowoomba and its surroundings. Although I have a group of amazing friends who are mostly from Toowoomba – most of them were smart enough to leave. The reason places like Cunnamulla & even Gowrie Junction have a high teen pregnancy rate and violence is because fucking and beating people up is a lot more fun than jerking off to New Idea magazines at home while your parents are on holiday.  I felt safer in a shitty street in Tijuana than I do walking down the main street in Toowoomba on a Friday night. Small minds, big arms, dumb girlfriends and absolutely nothing to do with their energy except breed, fight and drink. I am probably sounding a bit bitter tonight but Toowoomba can go fuck itself. Unless you have a career that you love, or you’re studying – get out. Other stories in Toowoomba include my friend getting beaten up with a fence paling at a party, someone getting stabbed at a skate park, too many suicides, 20 middle-aged men destroying a home with baseball bats while I hid in a cupboard with the rest of the house and more stories that always lead to violence and drinking. I am sure most people who have lived there can share similar experiences too. There are a few good points one could weed out of the place – but the only incredible thing that comes to mind is my great friends. I owe you all one for making me a better dude.

Now someone make me a mix-tape and send me a link. I need new music still.

My old boss is actually from Vegas so she and her mates took me out to places where people from Vegas go out – as in, nowhere near the lights and dirty old Vegas. That was all fine but I came to Vegas for one reason – to party! And why not? If I go out in Brisbane by myself I’d probably feel like a loser, but if I’m in Vegas where nobody knows me than I’m going to party hard. And I did just that. I thanked everyone for their company and headed off by myself to join the hustle and bustle of Vegas. Just for future reference if you haven’t been there… it’s hard to get a taxi. Make sure if you find one that you keep his/her number handy for when you need to get home.

So I’m by myself in Vegas now and decide to check-in to a hotel room, which is only $49 a night for a fantastic room. Of course you have to go through thousands of pokie rooms before you put the key in the door, but if you can hold off gambling then anything in Vegas is cheap or sometimes free. I have quite an addictive nature so I for one cannot hold off gambling or drinking. OK, so I have travelled a fair bit, but the difference between me and a normal jetsetter is that I never have any money once I land. As soon as I have enough money for a ticket I purchase the flights and worry about the consequences later. Is that a good way to travel? Not fucking really, but it does open up gates for interesting stories and I definitely haven’t regretted everything I’ve done. The place I was staying at was called The Excalibur and it was quite nice. I have to put this picture in your head; I have been in the USA for a few weeks now and I am pig-fat from all the food I was eating. Not only was I pig-fat, it was 52 degrees (CELCIUS!! – that’s our 52 degrees!!) which made me a sweaty pig of a man.

I met up with some friends from New York who were visiting Vegas and ended up walking around their hotel (MGM grand) about 400 times, so by the time I met up with them I looked like a sweaty tomato, pig of a man. I am trying to do this thing where I sing Garth Brooks in every single country in the world, and so far I have done it in 4 – and it was in Vegas where I took to the “stage” and belted out ‘Friends In Low Places’.

This is me singing Friends In Low Places by Garth Brooks

Some of you might know Hannah Minx from youtube.

My mates from New Jersey/York. Roya on the left, Hannah Minx on the right.

For those who have been to Vegas one of the things they’ll definitely remember is the amount of Mexicans shoving hooker’s business cards in your face. After hours of walking around drunk I was tempted to just go “fuck it, when in Vegas”. I took some cards and walked back to my hotel room after my mates went back to bed. I was in America so I thought the only way I can break my hooker virginity was to have sex with a black woman – and I am quite fond of them as some of you know. so I called the card with the hot black chick on it and a girl called Zara answers the phone. I ask how much and then tell them my room number. I was so fucking nervous, sweaty, and I kept fidgeting. I couldn’t relax, my palms were sweaty and no matter how much beer I drank I just couldn’t stop pacing the room. I thought hookers were supposed to relax people? Well not this guy!

Ok so about an hour later I get a phone call from reception saying that my friends (that’s right – PLURAL) have arrived. I thought that because she was black that she must have a huge bouncer that wanted to kick my ass (I was in USA so I will say ass) if I didn’t pay her. I told the reception to send them up and wait about 2 minutes before I hear the knock on my door. So I was REALLY fucking nervous by this point. After I opened the door there standing before me was the hottest black chick I’ve ever seen, and a really hot Jewish chick. Now this black girl had confidence – just like in the Bring It On cheerleadin’ movies. It was awesome! She says that I got “two for the price of one”. If one hooker was going to make me nervous, two hot hookers were going to make me three times as nervous. I didn’t even feel drunk now. I was just shy and looking at my feet while trying to talk to them. They tell me to sit on the bed and they ask if I had any music, which I didn’t. So they grab a useless hotel radio and put it on a local dance station, then begin to dance around my legs while I nervously perve on their almost perfect bodies. After the small preview they ask how much money I had, and I said that I only had $200, which is what you quoted me on phone earlier. Then and there I found out that $200 was not enough money, and that in fact this wasn’t a 2-4-1 deal like they offered me at the door. I lowered the price down to another $200, however I didn’t have the cash on me so I had to run downstairs and go to the ATM. As I ran out the door the girls yelled out “get condoms” and I looked back nervously, then down to my shoes and said “ok no problem”.

So I power-walk to the elevator, go down the bottom level and proceed to the nearest ATM. DECLINED! The worst word to see on a receipt, and unfortunately it has happened to me far too many times – mostly in front of people. This time it was in Vegas and I realised that perhaps I spent a little too much on the pokies. I transferred $150 hoping that it would be enough to use the services of the beautiful girls in my room upstairs. After I finally get my money I race back to the lift, go upstairs and realise I forgot the condoms! So I run back down to the closest store I can find. Now this might sound weird but I am ALWAYS nervous about buying condoms and I always seem to buy them when it’s a disapproving elderly Asian behind the counter. I didn’t have time to think about judgements from the east, I ran back to my hotel, got the lift to the top level and proceeded to my room. MY SWIPE CARD ISN’T WORKING!!! What the fuck?! I try for ages and then realise that this is 262B, and my room is 262A… as in… the other tower that’s located in the same building. I have already sweated like a pig 3 times today; once in karaoke when I was nervous, once walking around the MGM looking for friends and now trying to fuck a hot Jew and a beautiful black chick. FINALLY I arrive in to the proper side of the building, swipe my card, enter and inside was an empty room. By empty, I mean the prostitutes had left – and fair enough. I did take over half an hour before I got back into the room. “Time is money” as they say on Wall Street. Fuck this! I thought. I was so bloody prepared now that I just had to do it. So I called back “ZARA”, whose voice seemed to be a lot different from the last time I called her and asked her to come back. She said ok and confirmed the hotel room I was staying at. Not sure how she forgot as she only just left there. I am still kind of nervous but also really tired by this point and just wanted something to happen. I was so prepared earlier, but at this point I just didn’t care too much – I just wanted to get laid. Ok so about 25 minutes later I get another call from reception saying that my friend Zara is here. Just like before I send her up, only this time she doesn’t state that there are more than one person, so I assume it’s just Zara coming back and the other girl was busy on another job. My door knocks, I open it and standing there is the fattest black girl I have ever seen, and I was literally in shock while I welcomed her into my room. I nervously introduced myself and offer her a drink, which she rejects. She asked me to sit on the bed and get comfortable and we begin to talk about completely mundane things, awkwardly of course. A few minutes later she says “is that how you get comfortable”. I concurred and said that I was in fact quite comfortable on the bed. As I’m about to finish that sentence she gets up and joins me on the bed and puts her hand on my leg. My heart starts racing and I get sweaty and nervous again and tell her that it would be ok to just chat. 30 minutes into our deep conversation about racism we start getting into a deep discussion about living in Vegas. As I write this blog I realise that every time I go to have sex with a hooker I just end up talking about their feelings instead of paying for sex. I mean to be honest I couldn’t have sex with this girl because I wasn’t physically attracted to her, but strangely I really loved talking to her. I felt like I could tell her anything after she opened up to me. I don’t think about her as much as I do about the hooker I purchased on the beach in Hawaii, but I still hope she’s ok. I am now paying $160 to see a psychologist for one hour and am wondering if it’s cheaper to just tell my problems to a hooker? I guess they probably don’t have great qualifications but who am I to judge?

You will never believe this – but after I wrote this I remember a completely different hooker story that happened on the same trip but it was in San Francisco. I hope this blog doesn’t turn into a guide on how to comfort whores because that would be fucking boring.

I went for run today in my yuppie suburb, and although there were beautiful houses I kept asking myself if that’s what I wanted. I love going on adventures around the world but I do love calling a place home and feeling comfort when I sleep. Perhaps a home base is all I need when I get back to Brisbane until I get bored and rush off somewhere to get myself into shit again. Looking at a beautiful kitchen, a huge lounge room, a great back yard is good for about 5 minutes before I get completely bored. But in saying that when you’re somewhere even slightly uncomfortable you really appreciate what you’ve left behind. I don’t want to create any more new stories in my life about hookers but I’ve finally had the guts to share some old adventures with you.

I am starting a new section on my blog for those interested.

I am at the higher end of social drinking now, but apart from the alcohol I am pretty clean of all drugs and it feels bloody amazing. I am addicted to nice food, sports and music being the cliché that everyone loves.  Speaking of which; I need new music so if you have anything that you want to share with me please get in contact. I am so sick of my Itunes list at the moment.

The last time I snorted cut powder in my nose was in Honolulu, Hawaii and it was $40 for a gram. I went to a motorcycle bar and the owner offered me some coke. 20 minutes later the barman passes over an ashtray and I’m now the not-so-proud owner of a little zip locked bag that would keep me up for the rest of the night. I remember a few blogs back telling you that I’ve never fucked a prostitute, and that’s still true and will probably stay true unless you really can fuck the whole Victoria Secret catalogue for under $1000 in Amsterdam, like a close mate informs me. But this is where things get a little bit weird for some. After my solo coke binge I started walking back to the hostel in Waikiki before I noticed there were still a couple of bars open in one of the main strips. I try and have a beer but the place had a terrible cover band. I honestly think that the quality of bands in Hawaii would be fucking terrible and that night didn’t prove me wrong.

So I leave the bar and start heading home properly before this gorgeous black women stops me and asks why I’m not taking her home. At first I just thought she liked me but about 3 minutes into the conversation she lets me know exactly what she’s there for. I didn’t want to do anything so I told her that I can’t really do much because I live in a hostel. She says that I can go back to her house but I’m too scared because she is a hooker in a pretty shitty part of town. Then she says that she will show me the beach and give me half price. OK I thought! Fuck it. When in fucking Hawaii!? Right? I stroll down to the beach that’s actually lit up quite well. I tell her that I’m nervous and I’m OK with just talking because I wasn’t really turned on, or maybe I was just too scared about being in public and it was a hooker. About 25 minutes I learn that her husband beats her up back at home in California and that she’s only doing this to send her kid to school. About 40 minutes into our chat she starts crying and thanks me that I’m not taking advantage of her. It’s about 5am by this point and I am getting picked up by an airport shuttle to take a flight to LA, so we hug and I wish her well. I still think about that pretty black hooker and hope that she’s OK, but I’m sure she’s still sucking cock on the beach for her sons education. I guess after a few weeks of an emotional roller coaster ride it has made me realize that life isn’t that bad! Worse things have happened than comforting a hot black hooker in your arms while she breaks down and gives me her miserable life story.

I did have a few snorts of coke on the last Guttermouth tour but it was all dud product so I’m not going to include that. Is there a moral to this story? No. I’m just remembering some of the things that I went through last year and this particular story I haven’t told anyone. I almost forgot it happened. If I can get all clear from my mates I would like to tell a story about a brothel that I went to in Brisbane about two years ago. But I promise you this – I have not had sex with a whore. Wait, a whore yes… but a hooker, no. Wait… I guess the moral of the story is not to do drugs. Don’t do drugs!

I just remembered why I wrote this. My friends and I were getting a stripper for a bachelor party but she ended up overdosing on some form of drug. She had to go home so we had to hire a prostitute to pretend she was a stripper. Hookers are like the soup bones and cheap cuts of meat in the sex world. You know how you walk past the steak section at Coles and can’t always afford the delicious marbled Wagyu steak? Well strippers can often be Wagyu steaks, and hookers are more like stuff you’re making a casserole with to feed the kids. I hope that made sense.

Dear To Whom It May Concern,

I’m not really into the process of going through several interviews and worrying about if I got the job or not. I am just going to come in and start working for you on Monday at 9am. I will have my bank account details ready to hand over to the accounts department before I begin working for your company.

Looking forward to meeting everyone in my new team.

Hope you’re well.

Kind Regards,
Glenn Stewart

Hi Glen
Whilst your “can do” approach is refreshing and might work in some jobs, unfortunately I have to be a bit of a party pooper and suggest you don’t just rock up on Monday morning.

You might be surprised to hear Glen that as a legal practice we have professional obligations which mean we have to be careful about who we hire.

For example, one of those tedious job application thingummies we do is check that prospective professional staff are qualified before they start dispensing legal advice to our clients. It might create a few headaches for us if you rock up to court for a client on Monday on the basis of your previous experience say as a pizza delivery guy…not that we have anything against pizza delivery guys, most do a great job at delivering pizza. But from the client’s perspective, you wouldn’t necessarily want one going into bat for you in the Supreme Court if your freedom depended on it.

Let’s assume you hold a university medal from a prestigious law school. Another bit of red tape we can’t really get around is the annoying consideration of whether we actually need another lawyer. I’m sure you need the work but do we need you? I guess that’s why we usually advertise if we need someone.

Don’t take it personally but what I guess what I’m really trying to say is you are obviously a “go get ‘em” kind of guy for whom the mind numbing constraints of legal practice probably wouldn’t work. Have you considered a career in the armed forces or the secret service?
I must say I’m glad you’re not a doctor.
All the best with your career,
Cheers Rob
Robert **
CEO

(Never give up guys)…
Robert,

I really appreciate your honesty; I really do. I feel however that you’re making a huge mistake and I’m willing to give you a second chance. Whilst I don’t have any experience in “law” as such, I have a few friends who have attended court – perhaps on the wrong side of the stand. I have also seen every episode of Boston Legal and am quite familiar with many of the terms used on the big cases. I can’t really give legal advice at the moment but I can assure you that most clients would receive a warm welcome while I point them in the right direction.

I do have some bad news though; I can’t actually start work until Tuesday or Wednesday.

I have a resume attached.

Kind regards,
Glenn Stewart

If you’re like me then you’re either not looking or very selective with the process of finding that perfect fuck buddy or one night of debauchery. If you’re new to the game then you’re going to have to start off from the bottom of the barrel and work your way up, which in some cases (like mine) could never happen or take several years. This isn’t a guide just for men; it’s for everybody. It’s also not about thinking women are worthless pieces of shit; it’s simply a guide to picking up a fresh pair of tits or getting a nice warm penis to keep you comfortable at night while you’re busy exploring or getting over a past loved one. I think everyone should be nice to everyone and it’s as simple as that. I will probably still come off like I’m being an arsehole but that’s about as much writing I’m going to do to make me look like a decent person.

OK so you’re probably better off going with ‘medium cute’ if you just want something to fill in the gaps of your day to day life. Medium Cute is not someone you’d necessarily take home to mum or be in a relationship with straight away. In my opinion you should aim a little bit higher to ‘cute’. Whatever you do, don’t spend too much time on ‘Fat Cute’. If it’s a sure thing – why not. But don’t go wasting too much time, effort and valuable resources like your Centrelink payment; because it’s much like going hunting and shooting a wounded boar – not much of a trophy.   Also don’t believe the rumours about fat girls giving great head because it’s their last meal, or they’re not used to cock. It’s completely not true. I picked up a skinny chick at downunder bar who was 19 and I swear she has been practicing on her next door neighbour since she was 14. I really hate putting that image out there, but the girl definitely spent her pre-legal years on her parents 80s, VHS ‘how to guides’ on keeping your partner happy outside the kitchen.  I don’t want to get into a rant about girls needing to spend more time in the kitchen, but believe me that one is coming.

The best way to pick up a partner is to go to a party. The music is always at a good level where you can engage in a conversation with someone long enough to prove you’re more important than you are. Drinks are also a lot more free-flowing and let’s face it – thank god we live in a world where a social lubricant like alcohol can be purchased in a box for $10 and still look cool in front of hipsters. If you’re new to Brisbane it’s not always easy getting invited to a party, and if you’re a local you may be sick of the same crowd of people who have been fingered by everyone in your clique over the years. So your next option is going out and slamming the notorious Valley. Does a short black dress, high heels and the personality of a bowl of Vanilla Yogurt sound familiar? You’re right it’s the “Valley Slut”, and I didn’t coin the term – they’re definitely out there in droves and most locals are very familiar with them. They’re not always easy for blokes like me because they usually go for dudes with more muscle and less beer gut, and possibly the same personality as Banana Tree; they look good and keep you out of the shade, you can’t really talk to them but they do provide you with fruit and healthy nutrients. If you can bag one of these babes then great work. Some of them can actually be quite friendly too and most probably have a better job than you because of their tits. The best place to spot these babes is almost anywhere in the valley but it’s mostly easier picking them up in the McDonald’s line at 3am on Sunday morning.

Personally I hate loud music unless I’m at a concert or drunk enough to own a dance floor. I like having beers outside, and if you’re sitting outside Rgs/Rics on a bright sunny day it gives you a chance to eye fuck all the hot boys and girls that stroll past, while forgetting you should be looking for a job or making your life better. The back of Rics looks pretty bloody nice on the weekend but the only thing I think they should add is a Taco Stand, with my authentic Carne Asada soft tacos. Seriously wouldn’t a taco stand behind rics just cap everything off?

Here’s a picture of me looking lonely at a taco stand in Tijuana. Imagine that but at Rics. Someone forward this idea on to Rics and let’s get it started.

Lonely Planet

OK enough business idea talk. If you’re into the world’s worst music but want to try and pick up hot babes, unfortunately Lambda has all the goods. For me it’s bordering on illegal so I try and keep away from it, but I highly recommend it for 18 – 22 year olds. Speaking of underage people; avoid The Fox. It is ridden with underage puss that simply sneak through the side and walk past men who are basically more like Gorillas chomping their $2 steaks. I know this isn’t a good subject to bring up, but I’m not surprised that people have been sexually harassed in and around The Fox. I have great taste in food so there is absolutely nothing in this club that I can recommend. Cheap drinks perhaps? The guys here wear singlets, tight denim shorts and pixie shoes. Can you imagine entering the country for the first time and seeing homophobes dressing like 80s homos? I can understand what makes an attractive man, but seriously girls? Fucking seriously? The fumes of fake-tan tins is making everyone fucking retarded. I can picture the guys going home without catching their prize pig and just saying, “you know what? Let’s just fuck eachother!”.

The Vinyl in West End has the best staff, and also a fabulous Mexican Punk night on Thursdays. Archive is bloody good for a cheeky afternoon beer and pool with mates, but there’s something about the lighting in the place that annoys me. Those types of places you go to with your mates, so I’ll try and focus more on picking up. One of the easiest places in Brisbane is Downunder Bar. You literally could walk in there and come back out with an STD. I remember one night a girl from Malta pushed me up against the wall at the back and proceeded to give me a handjob. If you can’t pick up here than you may as well give up and start streaming porn. It’s like they won’t even let you leave the place without some European with big ‘Fleshy Hogwobbles’ around your arm. (Josh invented the name Fleshy Hogwobbles, and in this situation it’s more than apt).

So this is a very beginners guide on picking up in Brisbane. I hope it works for you. If you would like any other advice than don’t be afraid to email me. I have a feeling I’m never going to pick up a girl after this blog, which is probably a good thing because I need to focus more on other important matters.

I honestly forgot why I even wrote this.

So what the fuck am I doing in Tijuana? Good question. I’m not even sure my answer will make sense. But let’s start from the beginning. As some of you know I came out here to work on a tour with a popular band through-out Canada and USA. I had just finished a pretty difficult tour which suffered financially and was ready to chuck in the towel with the industry all-together, work on my book and slowly pay off my debts. When the opportunity presented itself to travel to the US and work with a band for a month I was really surprised. I called up a friend of mine who once owned a bar in Brisbane who has been through financial issues before, I called friends who play important roles in the country’s biggest music festivals and I also rang my parents. Everyone told me that I should do it. My family and friends said that I was still very young and the debt will be here when you get back. I had already quit New Noise halfway through our last tour with AC4 and Star Fucking Hipsters telling everyone involved that my heart was just not in it anymore – not at all. I once woke up excited about going on the road and sharing stories and creating new ones along the way. But that all changed. I envied people with 9 – 5 jobs who could appreciate a cold beer after a hard day’s work. Often people who fit that category state that I’m “living the dream” when in fact it’s far from the truth. I definitely didn’t dream of being poor in Mexico, I didn’t plan on letting down trusting investors, and I didn’t mean to make my mates worry about me. Moving on; when I first arrived in California (via a cheeky stopover in Hawaii) I felt some sense of relief, and that I could possibly start off fresh with my new job. I didn’t have much money at first but I used Craig’s List and found people who were driving 9 hours to San Francisco for only $20 in a “ride share”.  Throughout the journey I would meet new friends and never had to pay for accommodation at all. When I got back to my home base in Costa Mesa, California I was getting more and more excited about the tour that I was about to go on. I got sent images of the tour bus, I had my passports all scanned for Canadian Visa’s and with 3 days to go before the commencement – the band pull out due to “illness”. I think a lot of you know me well enough now to know what my next move was – getting blind drunk.

I honestly didn’t know what to do next. I had only bought a one way ticket to USA and was expecting to either pay for a ticket home with money from the job, or possibly get more work and sponsorship over here to stay. None of that happened. With very little money I thought that Mexico would be a possibility to stay here for a few months while I finished my book. Now I don’t think I’m an amazing writer with better stories than the average folk; I said from day one that I just enjoy writing about my experiences. In hindsight it’s not the most realistic plan, but it’s a plan I have no regrets about – apart from being a little poor.

If you read previous blog entries you would already know my first story involving a taxi driver who took my iPhone, and you’ll see my thoughts on Tijuana and how I’m getting around etc. So I’ll move on to the incident that made me seem a little desperate.

The day before the ‘incident’ I had around $10 and decided that I would have a few cheeky beers downtown. I went into a bar I hadn’t been into before, and sat down to start drinking. Moments later I looked over to the end of the bar and notice a rather large jar with a rattle snake inside. The bartender said I could have a shot for $3 and a few minutes later curiosity got the best of me. The bartenders English was as good as my Spanish – Shithouse. I think he explained that they put the live rattle snake into the Tequila to drown it, while it’s drowning it shoots out poison and once it’s dead they take the snake out, gut it and put it back into the jar to foment for a few years. I asked if the waitress sitting next to me can have a shot with me and she nervously accepted. The whole crew come over to the bar to witness and cheer us on. The bartender fixes up two shots of Rattlesnake Tequila with a little bit of snake skin floating around, and we both slam down our shots with the applause of the staff. Keep in mind it’s around 2pm so it’s kind of quiet outside. After around 10 minutes I start feeling dizzy, say my goodbyes and wonder off home. I can’t stand the American housemate that I have here so I snuck into my room, and instead of just going to the toliet I pissed in a bottle through-out the rest of the afternoon and evening just to save myself from a torturous, drug justifying conversation with the world’s biggest idiot.

The next day I woke up kind of happy because the day before was quite fun compared to the week or so I spent in my room twiddling my thumbs. In saying that – I should probably apologise for the mass amounts of Facebook wall posts I’ve been doing. Sometimes when you’re stuck in a room with not much else to do, you love connecting and talking with people to keep you sane. When I woke up I noticed that my computer was off and sure enough so was the power to the house. I didn’t care though because I wanted to go back into town. I had my rent money in my account, along with some money to buy a friend a poncho. I did my normal routine of saying hello to my neighbour, and then catching a $1 taxi to downtown. I wasn’t really planning too much about this day so I just walked slowly around the place before stopping into McDonald’s for a cheeky Cheeseburger. I hadn’t had one for months so I decided to slam one. Afterward I walked up to the only bank that doesn’t charge me $20 to take money out – Scotiabank. On my way there I was kind of full from my burger and walking kind of slow. One thing I noticed was the amount of Police and Military. There were already a LOT but today it seemed nearly tripled with their presence. I am now around one block from the bank and i start to cross the road with around 4 or 5 people. I run a little bit and this older man dressed quite nicely says with a grin “watch out man these Mexican drivers are crazy”. I just laugh and continue walking up the block. I notice that he is slowing down and speeding up, trying to keep up with me. He would murmur little jokes about stuff and to be honest I thought he wanted to talk with me and ask where I was from, just out of politeness. We walk around the corner and he asks how I’m doing today, and it still seems normal. He then pulls out a badge and ID and says that he’s a Sargent for the TJ police department and that I should be careful where I walk in the future. I honestly thought he was just warning me. He told me that the street kids sometimes walk out onto the street and follow the Gringos, and that they could have ran after me. He asked if I had kids and said that he’d be devastated if his kids died. He then stopped me and said “just talk to me for a second”. OK by this point I realise that something wasn’t right. He asks where I’m from and when I tell him he says “you’re Australian, and you’ve been here a while. You should know better than that!”. I am honestly kind of worried. There were police around watching all this happening around 20 meters away. I just continue to apologise and say that I’ll know better next time. He then says that I wouldn’t last more than 15 minutes in a Mexican prison and obviously the more he keeps mentioning prison the more worried I’m getting. Sternly he says “I am going to give you two options, and you have to think quickly because you only get once chance. Option 1 we can sort this out like gentlemen right here and right now. Option 2 I can take you away to jail in hand cuffs and we can see what happens overnight”. So we all know the only option I can take is option 1, but I didn’t know how much it would take. He then says “how much do you value your freedom?”. What a fucking question! I just say as much as I can give. He asked for $1000 but I said that I don’t have that much money so he points me to the ATM and said let’s see. I put in my PIN and he then tells me which buttons to press. I give him the cash and he says “I don’t ever want to see you around here again”. To be honest I don’t think that wasn’t being a ‘Gentlemen’ in the traditional sense.   It did give me a fucking shake up though. I walked to a taxi kind of depressed, came home and realised that I think I really want to be home in Brisbane.

Selling my soul on Ebay was intended to be a joke and to be honest I thought it would have been taken off Ebay within a few hours. I had a Skpye conversation with a journalist in North QLD, and after that my story went out all through Western Australia and Regional QLD. I haven’t heard anything from here obviously, but I tried to make sure they knew that I wasn’t trying to put Mexico in a bad light. I still love it here and love the people, mostly. It’s very corrupt but that’s a minority of people who ruin it for the rest. I am however ready to go home and have a beer with my friends. I am hoping it will be soon!

Click here! my soul is up to $100!! I thought it would be $5 at most!

Hope you’re well!

Love Glenn

If anyone is keen to edit this for me I’d appreciate that!

Getting there

I was lucky enough to meet a person who worked in San Diego and lived in Tijuana. Once he finished work I met up with him and drove through the border. Getting through the border was quiet easy and the Mexican Federale (Federal Police) only randomly stops cars every so often. Our car just drove straight through. The other side of the road, getting through American Customs, was a different story; cars were lined up for miles, and street vendors, hustlers and window wipers walk through the traffic trying to get anything they can from the people entering USA. If you’re not lucky enough to get a lift to TJ the quickest way would be to catch a Red Trolley (Tram) from San Diego to the border and simply walk over. I wasn’t asked for a passport or questioned when entering by car, however traveling by plane or foot would be a lot different.

Accommodation

I am probably doing things a lot differently than you have time for. I went on Craigslist and found a share apartment advertised for $220 a month including all bills. This included high-speed internet and cable TV. The apartment is quite modern and is located at Playas Di Tijuana. ‘Playas’ means beach, so my part of Mexico is simply “beach at Tijuana”. From what I could tell there aren’t many Hostels/backpackers, but a lot of Hotels. Most of the hotels in town seem to be for prostitutes and their lucky man, but to stay safe I’ve heard that Hotel Catalina is the safest and best location.  You’d be looking at around $40 – $60 a night for a decent pad. Hong Kong Club also has accommodation but is marketed towards prostitutes; something that’s hard to escape in certain parts of TJ.

My Street

Public Transport

Mexico has a lot better public transport than California and most of America. New York’s subway and the BART in San Francisco is very reliable, but outside of these two cities I found trains and buses to be quite confusing and not well thought out. I’ve only been to about 5 states (Hawaii, California, Nevada, New York & Georgia) so I probably can’t comment or compare too much. Let’s just say that most of California has bad public transport.

Thankfully Mexico is different, and very safe. The easiest and most convenient way is to just take a taxi to your location. For a 10 – 15 minute drive it shouldn’t cost any more than $10. As some of you know I’ve had a bad experience with a cab driver in the past and have learnt from my lesson. Here’s what happened – I had 100 pesos left from drinking (roughly $8 – $10) and I thought that would be enough to get home. About 5 minutes into the trip the taxi driver pulled over and said that it wasn’t enough, so he pointed to my phone and basically said he wouldn’t take me home unless I gave him the phone. I won’t get into that story too much because it paints a bad light for the rest of the hardworking Mexican taxi-drivers.

My favourite way to travel from Playas is to take a minivan. They’re like Australia’s version of a Maxi-Taxi but it only has one route. It runs 24 hours, 7 days a week and can pick you up in any location along that route; simply wave it down! During the day it’s only $1 for the trip, and at night it’s only $1.50. That’s a fucking bargain! They are very safe, frequent, comfortable and affordable so I highly recommend this option.

Time To Party?

Now that you have options to get to your chosen accommodation it’s time to do what we all love doing – Partying. This guide is written by someone who came here by himself so it may be different than coming here with a group.

Having first entered Tijuana you’ll probably be overwhelmed and stressed about where to go and what to do. Walk 10 metres in any direction and you’ll immediately get hassled by the groups of bar workers at the front of their establishment trying to get you in. It’s so fucking hard to just say no because they’re always so nice. I try and walk on the very side of the walkway so they can’t hassle me too much, but no matter, you’ll get hassled. There are a few options, depending on what you like doing.

Dive Bars:  “A well-worn, unglamorous bar, often serving a cheap, simple selection of drinks to a regular clientele.” – Urban Dictionary.

As some of you may know I am a people person. My idea of getting to know a place is from locals and stories. It’s a little bit harder in TJ because not many people speak English, but as days go by I find myself being able to understand more and more. It’s not the easiest language to pick up but it is a fun one to learn. The best spot in TJ to meet local characters and have a cheap beer is La Sexta, or The 6^th. When walking up the main drag of Revolucion it pretty much acts as a grid. Just look for the number of the cross street until you get to the corner of Revolucion and 6^th (La Sexta). I guess you could compare it to The Valley in Brisbane, minus the abundance of wankers. It has some dive bars mixed with some standard clubs – ie Porky’s. Almost every Dive Bar on this strip is worth checking out. Beer can be as cheap as $3 for 1L, and it’s not bad. Tecate, Corona and Dos Equis (means Double X) is usually your cheapest option at $1.50 – $2.50 per beer, and most places will throw in free tequila shots for your troubles.  If anyone is dressed up, blowing a whistle and trying to pour tequila down your throat – don’t take it. It’s not free and is usually watered down, cheap tequila.

I’m that guy who’s sitting at the bar by himself until a curious regular sparks up a conversation. I’ve met many cool people this way and have no problem going anywhere by myself.  I know this isn’t for everyone though, but I highly recommend it. You could learn a lot, including their language.

Getting Laid for $20.

I have been very honest with this blog so believe me when I say that I’ve never had to pay for a prostitute in Mexico. Honestly I don’t need to, and even if I wanted to I couldn’t because I’m too broke. But if you’re a white male walking down the street you’re going to get offered a lot of different women. The Taxi Drivers, Shop Keepers, Security Guards and general public will try and get you to go with a certain girl. One security guard wouldn’t leave me alone. He said that I could have my pick of women, at what looked like a normal bar, for $35 including the room. Apparently the girls on the street are $20 + $5 for the room for 15 minutes. This is located at Zona Norte (North Zone) and is the only place in TJ where prostitution is legal. The girls need to have licenses and regular check-ups just in case you’re worried. If you’re going to the main area to party you pretty much have to walk in this area. The girls do this weird chirping noise when you walk past, trying to get you to go upstairs with them. Just keep walking past and they won’t hassle you. Most of them are fat and dirty looking. If you’re keen to check out a “standard” strip-club then I recommend going to Hong Kong Club, as the girls and staff will leave you alone and the clientele is very international. I’m not sure on how much private lap dances cost. One of the grossest things I’ve ever seen though is at this club. On weekends they have two girls wrestling in shaving cream. When a guy tips them $1 they’re allowed to touch them…anywhere! Seeing an old Mexican man fingering a girl covered in shaving cream is not my idea of a Friday night; and it might not be yours either. Apart from the shave cream and fingering there are some REALLY hot chicks here and they don’t hassle you. The entry is $4 and that includes a beer. Drinks are reasonably priced too.

If you have no interest in strip clubs you should stick with La Sexta. If you’re feeling like going to a group of clubs than the best way is to get a taxi to Plaza Rio, which shouldn’t cost more than $10. Here you’ll find all the standard clubs that locals go to.  Every bar has different specials on drinks, and different themes. You’ll find live music, dance, top-40 or just irish themed bars. It’s a very safe location in TJ and Friday’s/Saturday’s are usually very packed. There’s plenty of secure parking spots too if you’re driving.

Eating Food.

Much like Bangkok and Kuala Lumper you can find some of the best food on the streets. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about Mexicans, it’s their hygiene. They are actually a lot cleaner than I thought they would be. Everyone washes their hands and they use gloves if handling food. On the streets of TJ you can find some of the best Hot Dogs in the world for $1. They have mayonnaise, salsa, tomato sauce and mustard. The sausage is covered in a thin layer of bacon and the buns are steamed and melt in your mouth. These hotdog venders are everywhere if you’re into a western style meal. I don’t recommend eating the hotdogs all the time simply because Tacos are too delicious. I’m sorry to say but Australia doesn’t have any authentic Mexican food. Hard-Shell tacos are almost nowhere to be found in Mexico. The common taco is a fresh Tortilla wrap thrown onto a grill, then add the ingredients. It’s soft and delicious and a perfect snack in-between drinks. Hard tacos are almost as bullshit as burgers with hard buns, or burgers that are too big to fit in your mouth. I don’t want to start talking about burgers, but if you can’t have every single taste and ingredient in one bite than it’s not a burger. It’s pretentious. And when did really hard bread start becoming so popular? Wankers.

Keeping Out Of Trouble

If you look for trouble it will find you, and in Mexico you don’t have to look very hard. Downtown TJ you will not be able to walk around any corner without seeing a cop. There are three different types of police:

1. Regular Police Officer – Or Policia. They’re just like any standard cop found in most cities. El Policia is a male copper, and La Policia is a female copper.
2. Municipal Tijuana officers. These guys wear light brown pants, carry guns and are mostly on the lookout for narcotics. They also look after the different zones and traffic. They walk around on foot.
3. Very Scary Cops. They drive around in pick-up trucks, carrying AK-47’s and M16’s. They often wear masks that make them even scarier. I don’t know the technical name for them, but trust my description.

Despite what you hear it seems like these cops don’t target tourists. They target anyone that looks suspicious.  There’s a scam they do to make money – If someone sells you cocaine they then alert the police officer, the police officer will shake you down and demand money from you or take you to jail. Obviously most people opt for giving the officer the money. After he gets the money he splits if with the guy who sold you the drugs, and gives him back the bag of coke so he can do it again. I’m pretty sure this scam goes on everywhere in the world, but I honestly don’t think it’s worth risking a coke binge in Mexico. Sure you might find amazing coke that will keep you up chatting for hours, but you might find yourself in a Mexican prison getting molested by inmates who love a bit of Vanilla Gringo. I’ve looked at my arse in the mirror, and if you squint your eyes it kind of looks like a chicks arse, so I wouldn’t trust anyone if I was locked up in a dark cell for a few nights. My point is, don’t bother. Go to San Diego for your coke binge.

If you find yourself having to do Meth it’s best to do it in a toilet. There are several security guards and bar tenders who carry pipes with them. Simply follow them into the toilet and do your thing. Never carry! By the way, that’s a tip I got from a friend Meth-Addict, I don’t know from experience.

And to wrap it up…

I highly recommend people visiting Tijuana, even if it’s just overnight. The people are mostly lovely, everything is cheap and the locals really need foreigners to visit and spend money. USA has given Tijuana a bad name over the last two years and the lack of Gringos and tourists is very noticeable. I honestly think the American’s have blown this way out of proportion, but at the same time I don’t want to test the boundaries. At the end of the day Mexican’s are very family orientated and generally have a smile on their face. I can’t comment on other parts of Mexico but Tijuana is the most notorious, and I’ve been here for 3 weeks now roaming the streets by myself – so I think I’m entitled to some opinion.

If you’re already heading to LA then you may as well take the 2.5 hour drive south to see a whole other world. I don’t want to say it’s 100% safe, but so far I’ve kept out of trouble and to myself. Common sense is key, so use it.

Cheers Mate!!

Here are some examples of the stories that followed (you don’t have to read the article, just the headline is good enough):

A few months passed and I send a lazy drunk text saying I found Dinosaur bones in my backyard. They called me for an interview but I was way too drunk and underprepared to try and back that one up.

My next one was a few weeks ago, and was definitely a joint effort between my mates Josh and Tom, and a large group of friends I was drinking with at the time. I thought I’d send a little text saying the following:

“Why haven’t the police stopped the new strip club in Mt Lofty!? They openly advertise and I bet they don’t have approval. Caught my husband there the other night. Someone even had the nerve to hand fliers out in front of my son’s school!!!”

Pretty vague, simple and not that funny. Exactly the type of news Toowoomba would thrive on. I tell my mate Josh to send a text to follow up and he sends the following:

“Can the Toowoomba Police please explain the following: why, are you allocating 4 (!) speed cameras between here and pitsworth when my children have complained about pamphlets for strip clubs by the Sudanese outside their school? Get your priorities sorted!

quite simple and vague. Exactly what a disgruntled parent would write. For days the Chronicle were calling us but we didn’t know how to approach it. Instead of answering the calls, Josh and I would just get more and more people to do it. Josh’s brother Tom then sent his own text in complaining about the strip club just so we could keep the theme going. The following morning Tom answers his phone and it’s the Toowoomba Chronicle requesting an interview. Apparently over 20 people had texted the Chronicle about this story, and the journalist seemed to be on top of it all. I don’t know how he did that considering it was all of our friends that were texting in complaining about this new “All Ages Strip Club” near Mt Lofty (Location of Toowoomba State High School).

Instead of doing the interview Tom said he didn’t want his name dragged through the mud so he said he’d send a scanned copy of the flier that people were handing out at the front of his son’s school. Tom designed the following:

After Tom sent that the journalist thanked him and said that he got to the bottom of it. The next day there was a full page article:

I am unsure of what happened after that, but with little evidence it seemed like the Chronicle shut down a normal party thinking it had some involvement with strippers, sex and drugs. Since this article there has been facebook groups flaming The Chronicle, with one person writing an open letter saying :

“…you created a story, littered with sexual allegations, and defaming the name of a school, from facts gathered solely from Facebook.

There was no research, no information. There was no evidence from any figure of authority to say the story was true or false. You collected some posts off Facebook and it made the front page.”

So I guess I am writing this to apologise to Toowoomba State High School for The Chronicle making a story out of nothing, and making it front page news. I am also sorry that your party was shut down. That was not my intention. But fuck it’s a fun newspaper. My friends did a great job here too (actually they did most of the work), and we can’t wait to get more stories in the Toowoomba Paper.

So there you have it. To my mates who helped us send in a text can you please comment below with what you wrote in?

EDIT – I just got this email and thought I should share it with the rest of you.

So, I planned to have a party, every teenager wants to throw a party and my parents were cool with it so I decided to do it. I set up a private facebook event because it was easier, and a few days before my friend said she wanted to bring drugs, and she was joking so we didn’t think twice about it. Then the school contacted her parents and told her that she wanted to bring drugs and we presumed they had a list of the attending, but they didn’t really have any list. Considering that some of the people coming had strict parents I cancelled it, because I can just imagine if a parent gets a phone call saying their son or daughter was at a party with drugs at it, even if there were none.

The last day of school I was called into the principals office, he was really angry and I didn’t have a clue what about and then he mentioned sexual connotations and a sex party and all this stuff and I didn’t know what he was on about. He eventually realised that I didn’t organise a sex party and told me that the chronicle was releasing a story about this “End of Term Sex Party”. If I had organised a sex party specifically for Toowoomba State High School students, then he had grounds to expel me and I totally understand where he was coming from when he was angry. But because I didn’t organise such a thing and I didn’t hear about it till then we ended up chatting and eating cookies.

When I got home, I had an inbox from a friend. Turns out, this friend I used to work with was dating Adam Davies, the guy who wrote the article. Because my privacy settings were Friends of Friends on facebook, he could go on and then linked my party to the “stripping joint”. The concerned mother of the 14 year old from the article was I one of your friends, I presume? Regardless, classic! Anyway, the inbox said to call her and it had her number, so I did, and she told me to delete anything that can be linked to me. Nothing of my identity was on the article which I’m happy about, but they’ve been planning this story for a week before it was printed apparently. Then my mum gets on the phone because Adam was there, and being the awesome chick she was said: “You call yourself a journalist, and you get your facts off facebook?”.

That’s pretty much the end of it, but it’s been bloody awesome! haha, cheers bro

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It didn’t take me too long to move away from those uncomfortable living conditions and move somewhere else. Let me tell you about a little bit more about my living conditions not long after my Nazi experience. I lived in a massive house in a Brisbane suburb called Annerley and have never drunk so much in my life. It was a massive, old dirty house and each occupant couldn’t be more different; A geek, a Sudanese refugee, a psychotic ex-navy marine and a loud-mouth but lovable drunk that beat the shit out of the ex-navy bloke. We were all loud-mouths though.  For this blog I will call the lovable bloke Steve. I still consider Steve to be a very important part of my life even though I hardly see him anymore. He did some weird things and I would have written a book about it if ‘He Died with a felafel in his hand’ hadn’t beaten me to the punch. We disliked one of our housemates so much that we stole his pillow, took it outside and all had turns at pissing on it. Steve tried to fight him one night and was banging on his door trying to get him to come out of his room. He wouldn’t come out so he threw rice on the door and pissed all over the handle and rug just outside his room. That guy ended up moving out. Steve would also rip off bits of the curtain when we ran out of toilet paper. He would vomit in the bath tub and leave it there for weeks or months. Our house got so dirty and gross that once we had guests and the only thing we could offer them was coco-pops with out of date banana milk that had to be eaten out of a saucepan. Some days while we were drinking goon on the balcony an old Sudanese man next door, snuck out of his house to watch pornography on our VCR player. This reminds me of another odd thing I remember from Steve and this house. He would watch part of a porno, eject the tape and take it into his room. The funny/weird thing was that he didn’t have a VCR and he didn’t take the case in or anything visual at all. He took the tape in. I never actually got that, but he did it so many times.

Since we’re talking about pornography I may as well talk about my job that Steve introduced me to. I was involved in the wonderful world of internet pornography. In fact many of my friends were. Just a really quick useless fact; people in Brisbane created more pornography than any other city in the world. For the guys reading this… it wasn’t as ‘awesome’ as you think. And for the girls reading this…we didn’t really see any naked ladies nor have any involvement with content whatsoever. This is what we would do: we were given a unique link (for this we’ll just say pornwebsite/user1/webcam.html). We would choose a picture of a hot girl and pretend to be that girl in various chat rooms on the internet. We would talk sexy and entice guys to join up to our link for a sex show. Once the guy pays for the website a girl from Romania would do a very short strip tease and we would get paid around $25 per sale. I once made nearly $900 in one night, and Steve once made nearly $2000. “Steve” would say anything to get the sale. “Yeah I’ll fuck a dog” he typed. It was pretty weird but to be honest who cares that the guy on the other end of the keyboard got ripped off after saying shit like that. I met so many people in the sex industry because of this. A gay couple who were doing this with us ended up becoming prostitutes and paid off their massive debts in less than one week. They looked really young and 99% of their customers were businessmen in the CBD, who all had families. Actually they said it was pretty much all business men. And they all had a wife, and they all had kids. The same statistic goes with the guys I signed up on our porn websites. Every single one of them would ask what showed up on their credit card statement, just so their wife doesn’t find out. This was all one part of why I don’t think relationships will ever work, or at least tells me why I am so god damn picky.

During this time I met a girl called Tina who thankfully made me stray away from the porn industry for a while. But first let me tell you how I met her. Steve talked about a party that was happening for a Brisbane event called Riverfire. I had an old sex pistols shirt on, torn jeans, old shoes, greasy hair, unshaven and most probably didn’t smell too good. This was the equivalent of a 5 star apartment on the Brisbane River. It was fucking beautiful. I was sipping on goon with Steve in the bath and in walks the most gorgeous Indian girl I have ever seen. She was way too fucking hot for me. The only reason I can think of her showing an interest to me was because she went to a strict private school, and she wanted something different. She wanted a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. A public school reject was more interesting than any of the Nudgee jocks that attended her high school dances. And none of her friends had one. Not long after we were in a relationship, and not long after that we were living together and seeing each other every single day for over a year and a half. To cut a long story a little bit shorter I was “in love” with her. At least I think I was. I changed so fucking much for her. I got a stupid haircut, wore stupid clothes, lost touch with music and more importantly lost touch with my friends. There was so many times where I felt trapped and out of place. I wanted to leave her but it all seemed to perfect on paper.

A rich girl was helping me get my shit together and help me get a realistic career and be a better person. To her credit she did attempt to enjoy music and tried to like what I liked, but she was far too insecure for me to really branch out and do anything. She wouldn’t let me go out, she wasn’t very nice to my friends and she thought me wanting to do music as a career wouldn’t happen; although there were a few times in the relationship where she showed support. So this is how it ended. Every year I got free VIP passes to Big Day Out because I helped a little (very little) with the BDO website. I was pretty excited about taking Tina to the festival and exposing her to some of the bands I listened too while I was growing up. A day before the festival she lacked interest in going so I suggested that I take my friend Jeremy (aka Dr Jerm from Bizoo Magazine). He agreed and came over on Saturday morning to stay over at my house, and the BDO was the following day at the Gold Coast. On Saturday we were meant to catch a train straight to the Gold Coast to party there the night, but we got side tracked and saw an old Brissy punk band called Gazoonga Attack in the city. We got pretty drunk so we decided to just go back to my house and catch the train the next morning. Tina sent me a message before the concert saying she didn’t really feel like going out that night so she was staying home. Jeremy and I walked back to the apartment stumbling, and laughing and talking about music. I missed talking about music a lot, so it was nice. We opened the door of my apartment and I see two people having sex on the couch. I thought I had accidentally stumbled across Tina’s mates having sex. But Tina’s head popped up over the couch, followed by a strong naked guy. I heard Jeremy whisper “oh fuck…” and he walked outside. I followed him. I didn’t know what to do. Actually typing this is pretty hard because I remember the feeling exactly. An “OC” moment unfolded before my eyes and I was in shock more than any other emotion. I angrily walked back in and yelled “what the fuck?” The guy stood up, quickly put his clothes on and came over to me and said “look man, I didn’t know anything”. And I showed no anger towards him because I knew he didn’t know anything. She had actually hidden my DVD’s, and clothes just to make sure there were no other traces of a guy living there. It wasn’t easy finding someone you had spent so much time with having sex with someone else on a couch we both shared together in the past. What hurt me the most was that she admitted it was all planned out and she had been speaking with him for months. I didn’t know what to do but the first person I called was mum and finally broke down and cried. I’m not that open with my family, so this was the first time that I actually opened up and needed advice from her and it helped so much.

Looking back now I am glad it all happened and I hold no grudge to her whatsoever. I hope that Tina is happy and found someone she can be comfortable with. In hindsight we were never going to work, but I’m glad we shared time together, albeit a bitter ending.
Let’s get this out of the way though: a lot of girls fucking hate me, and rightly so. I barely have any interest in anyone on a relationship level. I don’t want to be tied down and get told what to do, ever. This doesn’t mean that I don’t want to be in a relationship because truth be told, I do. But I don’t want to settle for convenience or lust. I want a best friend and someone I can share everything with and be completely honest with. I have hurt a lot of girls, and ignored a lot of phone calls but almost all of them have moved on and found a match that suits them far better than I would. I am not after looks either. Without sounding like a dickhead, most of the girls I have been with are really good looking and way too good for me on paper. I’ve had threesomes with girls who look like models you see on TV, and been with far more girls than any of my friends. I’m not lying here, but rather telling you everything. I’m over it all. I don’t want any of that anymore. I’m not picky with friends and find beauty and interest in nearly everybody I engage a conversation with. I would do anything in my power to help people out whether it is shifting a couch, writing a resume or giving comfort to someone who has had their heart broken. I am so forgiving that I find it hard hating anyone at all.  But holy shit I have made some mistakes and done things I am not proud of. But I have to move on from it all.
What has this got to do with anything? Well it’s my blog for starters… but mostly because a lot of female readers wrote to me and abused me about previous blog entries. I actually lost friends over my last blog (which is now deleted). I guess I’m sorry for anyone who has ever been upset with how I’ve treated them or if I’ve hurt them in anyway.

This is the point of the blog where I get tired and need to go to bed. I’ll wake up tomorrow and find grammatical errors or things I shouldn’t have said, but thanks for taking the time out to read this. So I don’t bore you with any more love stories, here’s some pictures of my life that happened after Tina and I broke up. It’s so hard to tell anyone that has been hurt or newly single, but life does go on and there are plenty of fish in the sea. It sounds cliché because it’s fucking true. But most importantly don’t let anything get in the way of friendship and family. Life is too short for grudges, and good friends will always be there when you need it so make sure you give them time as well. Even a Facebook post asking how they are could remind people of some of the best times of their lives.
Love always and everyone…
Glenn

Interesting Fact: Peter Garret was actually stoned in this picture. I’ll tell you more in person.

Interesting Fact: Simmo, Steve Diggle (The Buzzcocks) and myself were actually stoned in this picture.

My friends and I at a Xiu Xiu concert. The girl in the middle is no longer in the band but she was hot. I have no idea who the band were in my shirt either, but wore it to this concert.

I was a kid growing up in a town outside of Toowoomba in a place called Glencoe. We didn’t even have a corner shop let alone a record store. Fuck we didn’t even have a rubbish bin collection or town water. I had no radio or TV reception and we didn’t get a modem until 2001. When I discovered a band I latched on hard and became obsessed, so the love of music has always been there. My first obsession was Elvis Presley which lasted until I was 13. I had Elvis stamps, number plates, a cement statue; my room was literally covered with Elvis memorabilia. I lived in Kandanga (West of Gympie), for a short period when I was 9 years old and tried to make an Elvis museum in my room and charge entry. I had a sign at the front of my house but it turned out nobody living in Kandanga liked Elvis as much as me. My point of telling you all this is that I didn’t have much exposure to music. I’ve since had the internet, passionate music loving friends and lived and travelled in cities which thrive on the arts; so I’m lucky enough to be exposed to great music. I find that I get obsessed with an artist/band very easily and will not listen to other music for weeks or months so I’m still not that knowledgably when it comes to knowing every band on the planet. Since the internet became norm and high-speed, hipsters started to sip on their Chai Tea while reading Wikipedia and strolling through MySpace, trying to discover bands before their friends do. Quoting books and phrases from an Ian Curtis biopic to impress your prey is no different than a dumb jock using a sleazy line to try and pick up a local slut in a top-40 club. At the end of the day they both have their objectives of fucking whichever chick is dumb enough to be enthralled by it.

One thing I hate is routine and staying in one spot for too long. I think that’s the same with music for me. I’ve always needed something new and exciting to refresh my mind and keep me interested in living. As you already know by now, I didn’t get much exposure when I was a young lad. My research was usually asking friends or buying random records in Brisbane when I got the chance to spend time there. For a period of time we could get ABC on our TV so I’d stay up late watching Rage with my friend Tony who lived down the street. This all helped me get a basic knowledge of music. At the time I was working at Macdonald’s (which was actually my longest running ‘normal job’) and most of my money would go towards records or VHS tapes. I did buy a bass guitar but ended swapping that for a DVD player at Cash Converters. In hindsight that was a bad idea, but I did play a cover of Stink Fist by Tool at an event called ‘Big Lunch Out’ at a school lunch break. That was the only time I really played that particular bass guitar in front of a crowd.  I later formed a punk band called The Clack. We were hopeless but it was fun, even though it cemented my understanding that I shouldn’t be in a band or play music.

The worst punk band ever.

The last gig I ever played with The Clack. My friend Les tore the Razel sticker off because they weren't cool enough for his little rockabilly band.

I was staying at my friend Aussie’s house in Toowoomba and he asked me to go to an event with him called Livid. I had no fucking idea what it was. I know it cost $50 and I had to pretend to mum that I was attending with adults. A the time it was one of the best things I have ever experienced and made me think that I should be putting on festivals and working with music. I say this so often but it’s too true; Livid was the best festival in Australia, hands fucking down. I’ve been to enough Melbourne and Sydney day festivals and they have no atmosphere compared with Brisbane’s Livid Festival. I didn’t give a fuck about Christmas or my Birthday; I was more excited about the announcement of the bands playing Livid each year. In most cases I would know before anyone else and even started a Festival Rumour website with a young guy called Nick Smethurst who I am still friends with today. I discovered timeless acts like Lou Reed, Billy Bragg and Pulp while at the time Big Day Out announced bands like Marilyn Manson, Korn and Hole – bands that have never will reach that peak again. Ask anyone I went to school with or knew me back then and they’ll vouch how passionate I was about Livid Festival.

Apart from discovering the bands mentioned above I was also getting a taste of what Australian music was producing at the time. Bands like Custard, Jebediah, Grinspoon (before they resorted to play B&S balls and RSL Clubs), Frenzal Rhomb, The Mavis’s, TISM, The Cruel Sea, You Am I, Regurgitator (before they started to suck) and the list goes on. I think the best thing about those Australian bands at the time is that they were all equally as popular but all sounded completely different. It’s definitely not like that with popular Australian music these days. All metalcore band’s sound the same, all indie/hip bands are too busy combing their moustache to write a decent song and don’t even get me started on the electro fad that ruined music festivals. But that’s best saved for another blog. I was a kid with no internet, very limited records, no radio or TV and was discovering live music for the very first time. Instead of doing work at school I would research bands that were playing Livid and research artists that influenced the bands. The IT teachers hated me because I literally did no work.

I’ve touched on my first festival experience in an earlier blog so I’m sorry if I’m repeating myself. I met Peter Walsh, the director of Livid after I replied to a mail out the website did. I got that email in IT class at school, and I didn’t stop emailing him from that point on. I emailed him so much that he ended up liking me and writing to me just as much as I wrote to him. Here I was talking about sports with a guy that was in a career that I dreamed about. If I was passionate enough about being involved in the music industry then this should have been a great stepping stone and the best mentor that a young guy from Toowoomba could ask for. At the time it was like Martin Scorsese talking with an aspiring director. I didn’t actually tell Peter my age. I was a 15 year old kid and he thought he was talking with a 25 year old bloke. He would tell me about times he spent with bands and if I didn’t know the band I’d get straight onto it and download it. My music taste at the time must have matched his completely, and it’s safe to say it still would. It got awkward when I was invited in the VIP bar at Livid 2000 as I wasn’t old enough to even meet him for a beer.

When I was around 17 – 19 I was lost. My family never thought that music was a realistic future and from what I could tell most of my friends never took me seriously. I tried lots of things. I worked at Subway, Department of Natural Resources and Mines and even made sausages in a meat factory. But it was all too boring. I didn’t want to do it and would not take no for an answer. I forget exactly when but I got an email from Peter Walsh telling him to call him ASAP. I got excited. I told everyone including my mum that a guy from one of Australia’s largest music festivals wants me to call him as soon as possible. I thought I had a job lined up for me. I took the cordless phone in the spare room and shut the door behind me and sat on the floor. I was nervous as fucking buggery. After a few rings Peter answers the phone and says “how are you Glenn?”… I was shaking. I told him I was fine and he then continues and says “Why the FUCK did you tell everyone the line-up?” I had accidentally told a friend the line up for a future livid festival which he outed on the Big Day Out forum. He told me my backstage pass flew out the window and that he was extremely pissed off. OK so this wasn’t the call I was expecting and from that point made me keep my mouth shut. At that time line up announcements were exciting. These days every band plays here and there are way too many festivals so no one falls off their chair when the bands get announced. I actually share the same opinion with Ken West, co-creator of Big Day Out, in that the festival fad will pretty much end in a couple of years. I’m sure some will stay strong but they will not be as fashionable. My point is that it was pretty important at that time to keep everything on hush-hush. I understand why now because the music business is a greedy world and people will try and snatch things from under your nose. It’s so hard making a living so it’s a dog eat dog world and only a few will survive.

Which brings me to my next point – why the fuck am I still doing this?

I started writing for a Zine in 2003 which led me to be on the committee for Eidecan Festival, a drug and alcohol free event for the youth of the Darling Downs. Through my contacts with Peter Walsh I contacted Darren Hawthorne who now works for Soundwave. He gave me a list of bands to choose from and I ended up going with Area 7 for $4400. In my opinion it was the best act that has played Eidecan even though I think the band kind of suck. My mother and grandmother were at the show too. They watched thousands of kids jumping up and down to a band that I had booked so I guess that gave them more confidence in me and proved my passion for the industry was a little bit more realistic. Back then Eidecan wasn’t a great experience. I was just one of the apprentice’s stirring a pot while the head chef’s dominated the meetings. But I always thought they had no idea what they were cooking. There were fun times though. I did a rural tour that passed through Cunnamulla, Tara, Roma and Charleville. Eidecan wasn’t a camp group or religious so I was allowed to get drunk in shitty places and watch my friend’s punk band playing in front of 12 people. For those interested they were called The Reparations, whose members later formed bands like Short Straw Warfare Mary Magdalene and more recently Teargas. It’s funny how things work. If I didn’t know The Reparations I wouldn’t have met Teargas. This means I wouldn’t have met Yeap from Pisschrist who handed the Leftover Crack tour to me. Networking and sticking with something you love definitely has its advantages.

My first show and gig that I booked myself was under a company called Arthur Terrace; a name I got from the street I lived in at the time I started it. I called my friend Ben Thompson from The Rational Academy and asked if they could play it. The gig was on a boat sailing up the Brisbane River, an idea I got off a punk cruise I went on a couple of years earlier. All of my friends came and I put all of my energy into promoting it. I didn’t sleep the night before as I was so scared of everything running smoothly. Only a few things fucked up, like forgetting the power chords for the amps which made everyone wait about an hour. Overall the gig was pretty good and I appreciate so much that my friends all came and still support me to this day. It actually sold out but it was far from perfect. Check out this review from Rave Magazine. This was my first ever review as a promoter!

Disorientating was the word of best fit for Saturday night’s musical river cruise. The gig was the first of Toowoomba-based promoters Arthur Terrace, which meant 90% of the crowd hailed from that part of the planet, and 80% of the crowd went to the same high school (some possibly still in high school). Couple this with a rather cramped and crowded boat that seemed to traverse the entire length of the Brisbane River and you get the feeling you’ve mistakenly arrived at a house party in the middle of nowhere.

After a few organisation hiccups – like not being able to board the boat until nearly an hour after its scheduled departure – Venus Vespa hit the deck. Hazarding some hype, these guys are going to take off as quick as their namesake; the three-piece live on the tri-boarders of stoner rock, art rock and garage rock and their vocalist has a voice like Chris Cornell. Honestly, if they had a more masculine name every Commodore in suburbia would have their CD in the stacker. And they have stickers too.

Modern Lies really wish they were British. They wish they were The Yardbirds in Blowup, but with an army of mods bouncing in the front row. They’ve got catchiness and cool, but in the flood of recent disco Britpop they seem a bit like a face in the crowd. Set-closer Sirens is a blast though.

Frou Frou Foxes are like a big F U to the preceding act, launching into their rancorous, raucous and unruly post-punk like the chainsaw Patrick Bateman drops down the stairs in American Psycho. They invoke intrigue and revulsion in equal measure, although one should think such is the intended result.

Rational Academy are really a lot better than this. An unbalanced mix, guitar troubles, a river cruise that comes into moor during their first song, and an audience that seems disinterested in the Academy’s My Bloody Valentine/Jesus & Mary Chain/Sonic Youth-inspired sound. Naturally they can be relied on for a solid set, but this wasn’t their best night. Their finished set is unduly revived for a song request that the band insist is not an encore.

PAUL RANKIN

My first solo gig

I did another stint at Eidecan Festival where I actually got paid to book bands. I had lived outside Toowoomba for so long that it was painful trying to settle back in there. I fucking hated it basically, but it did give me something no other promoter had. I dominated Toowoomba’s music scene, and I’m sorry if that sounds up myself but it’s true. It started from me talking with Graham Nixon on the phone about Parkway Drive and talking him into letting me book their concert in Toowoomba for a payment of $1 per head or $300. Weeks before the show was on I had a call from the Toowoomba police saying they wanted a meeting with me to discuss why I was doing PWD in Toowoomba. I met with them at the venue and they said I was not allowed to have more than 300 people there. On top of that I had to hire 6 security guards ($50 per hour, each) and 4 police officers ($90 per hour, each) for the duration of the show (4 HOURS). I knew that Graham wouldn’t do the show if there were that many costs involved and only 300 tickets to sell, so I made up that the council would pay for the security guards. They ended up agreeing to pay me $500, although I didn’t actually see any of the money. The youth coordinator for Toowoomba told me that I shouldn’t put on the show, but I didn’t listen. Even though I lost almost $2000 on a sold out show I was happy watching everyone smiling. I borrowed money off my Nana to pay back the high costs of the show. The police were called on because of ‘riots’ that happened at a licensed/all ages show in Brisbane with 1500 people. I have no fucking idea why the police forced me to hire 6 security guards and 4 police officers for 300 punters ranging from 14 – 17. I was right; they were all bored as fuck and stood around doing nothing. I hope the QLD government is pleased with themselves with that one. After the gig a few friends and I got out the brooms and bins and cleaned all the mess up while the kids walked away with smiles on their faces. I’m sure people at the time thought I was getting heaps of money for packing out a small room but I hope this will show you some reality. Almost the same thing happened with The Getaway Plan. They wanted a good venue and production but were only willing to sell tickets for $12. I ended up losing $3000 because of the high costs of The Empire Theatre, another local business that have no clue how to run a venue for live rock music. If I ever made a profit (which I think was once) it would be paying back debt I owed from another gig.

Cost to hire police - $1440, Cost to hire Security - $1200, Cost to hire venue $1500, Cost to hire me - priceless

Well at least I got laid that night in a cheap hotel room

Truth be told, all my Arthur Terrace gigs were like this even before Parkway Drive and The Getaway Plan. I wasn’t getting paid anything; the costs were always so high that I’d end up in debt. Friends came and went in the business. Sometimes because it wasn’t as glorified as they thought, but mostly because of differences in opinion. At the end of the day I’d always be the one there to clean up the mess; financially and with a mop and bucket. In the earlier Arthur Terrace days my friends would take the glory of helping put on the show but didn’t show up to help me clean up the next day. We started using halls so to get our deposit back we’d have to clean it up and leave it how we found it. It was months of preparation for one shitty show. Bookings a good line-up, getting people to help street team, getting the poster designed, dealing with venues and praying that it wasn’t too cold on the night so people would actually turn up. I remember sitting by myself on a Sunday afternoon at a shitty hall in Toowoomba, dragging amps and cleaning up chewing gum off the ground. Yet another moment where I questioned my choice to do this.

This leads me to a story of a little punk motherfucker I call Captain Anarchy, who led a group of likeminded anarchists who thought that I was ruining the Toowoomba music scene and cashing in on everybody. People actually believed him and he was so fucking wrong. I lost money on every fucking gig in Toowoomba and it got worse and worse. The bands would get bigger and the costs would get higher. I had to supply everything. Sound, venue, engineer, staging, security, supports, food and more. Everyone got paid except me. I stressed so much about trying to pay everyone back that I stopped putting effort into promotion. It seemed like the last person anyone cared about was the promoter. I started owing more and more people money and it was stress that didn’t need to happen if I just fucked Toowoomba earlier. Captain Anarchy was preaching that I was ripping people off while I’m borrowing thousands of dollars off my parents just to pay back what I owed to local business. It seemed like no one was supporting me except the people who actually knew me personally; the ones who could sense my passion for it all. But what was the point of putting on these shows if people were gossiping about me ripping people off for charging $12 a ticket instead of $5 and losing a fuck load of money. I charged more because I got better production, better venues and better bands. Is that so fucking hard to grasp in your tiny brain? That same motherfucker spray painted an anarchy symbol on a local artist’s gallery, but he’s telling me that I’m bad for the scene? Get fucked cunt.

Cpt. Anarchy

Leaving Toowoomba was great for me and I guess I learnt a fair bit from it. I am now booking bands around the world with a good group of people and we’ve actually just opened base in Japan. I have a tour in April with Star Fucking Hipsters and Ac4. These bands are important to me because SFH features members of Leftover Crack, which was my very first tour under New Noise Agency. And AC4 features Dennis Lyxzen of Refused. For those who don’t know he wrote a song called New Noise which is where we came up with the name of our company. In my opinion that’s pretty fucking cool. So perhaps all these bumps along the way will eventually flatten out with time and I will hopefully look back and laugh. I just hope the passion stays there long enough for me to pay back all my debts and start making this all worth-while.

Shitty job number two was working as a Glassy/shit-kicker at Ding Dong Lounge in the city. This one was depressing and it didn’t help that it was a busy night full of hipsters who can’t hold down their drinks. I was mopping up glass, vomit and collecting people’s empty bottles while they were all getting drunk around me. This wasn’t so much the fact that I was cleaning up after a bunch of ‘jock meets indies’, it was more annoying that all around me were photos of events that I organised, worked hard on and lost money on. I mean everywhere. Jim Beam sponsored the bar, so on the bar mats, drink coasters, posters on the wall and fridges were pictures of my good friend Hunter who was playing for Guttermouth on their 2009 tour. I was snorting coke at Hunter’s million dollar home in Costa Mesa, California only 6 months ago, and now I see his face everywhere while I mop up people’s shit. Life definitely has its ups and downs, and this definitely wasn’t a good memory. In saying that, I’m glad it happened. It truly made me believe that I could not work in a shitty bar, or any shitty job listening to people. Ideally I’d be doing exactly what I was doing; booking tours for international bands. But I want someone to take complete control of the finance, and just pay me a modest wage to do it so I don’t blow it all on strippers and drugs like our first two tours. It sounds like I am bullshitting or trying to be cool… but it’s true. And it’s not cool. Snorting lines off strippers one month, and then walking down a street on Christmas Day without any money for food, and no family or friends was a big kick in the guts and an obvious huge swing of events.

This blog has started off rather depressing, but I promise it’s more about making a change for the better and there are only a handful of actions I regret in 2010. It’s fitting that I’m writing this on the first day of 2011, because things need to change and even though it’s just like “any other day” like a lot of people say, I need something to help inspire the rest of my year.

At the end of last year people were always saying to me “that I was doing so well” but I knew that things weren’t going so well.

I should point out that I only make half of New Noise. The other half is Alex, A great friend of mine. We started NN in July 2009, and by November 2009 we had successfully booked and toured Leftover Crack from New York and Guttermouth from California. Both bands became great friends with us and we should continue working with them for a long time. Obviously it wasn’t all fun and games though. I am going to write about my experiences with this, so I’ll probably leave out Alex but please know he has worked equally as hard to create New Noise. He can write his own fucking blog though.
For this blog I’ll start off with Leftover Crack.

Our baby

I was dating a very pretty girl, and she was the type of girl I’d do anything for. I’ve had about two girls in my life that could make me do that, and the rest I couldn’t give a shit about. (That sentence reminds me of Frank Turner’s ‘Substitute’. Lyrics read; I’ve had many different girls inside my bed / but only one or two inside my head). Back to my beautiful ex-girlfriend. She was a huge fan of Leftover Crack and to be honest I didn’t really like them that much. I was living in West End at the time studying Music Industry Business, ie the worst course in the whole entire fucking world. Seriously I’ve never attended anything so pointless and can’t remember one thing I picked up from that course. For those thinking of studying something like this, my advice is to do it yourself and learn from your own mistakes. Like the old saying goes “a camel is a horse designed by a committee”, and it couldn’t be more accurate when trying to organise things in a group setting like this. I’ve always hated committees and 10 people with strong heads trying to stir the pot. Another thing you’ll have to get used to is me losing track of where I was going with the story. If you can get over that than we can have a good time through-out these blogs. It also means that there will be a lot of spelling mistakes and commas where there shouldn’t be because I barely look back up at what I’ve written.

Where the fuck was I? Oh yes, Leftover Crack. So I found out through my  flatmates at the time that someone was planning on bringing LOC over to Australia, and I put my hand up to help out with the Queensland leg of the tour only. For some reason the main promoter pulled out, so I offered to do the whole tour. Little did LOC know that it was our first one, and little did I know what we were getting into. But I was so excited to tell my Girlfriend that I’d be the main person behind touring one of her favourite bands. It feels good when people are genuinely proud of you, and I could tell that she felt that way about me.

We got LOC in the country on $25 tourist visas, because we had no idea about the requirements for a ‘Subclass 420’ visa (or the $1400+ for each member’s documents). It turned out that half the members were not allowed to leave the country at the time, so I had to source two replacement members here. Luckily Alex was a good drummer and I knew an amazing bass player called Chris who was playing for Phalanx at the time. Add Frank Piegaro from Star Fucking Hipsters into the mix, and we have the Australian version of Leftover Crack.

Aussie LOC. From left to right; Chris Cox, Frank, Stza & Alex

We were so worried about Stza and Frank being sent back to America so we hired guitars and only the Australian’s carried them throughout the tour. Stza stands out in the crowd. He has tattoos on his face, so you immediately spot him out of the crowd. And we’d never dealt with customs before. I had booked international bands but only for one off shows. We were risking around $20,000 down the drain if they were caught without proper visas. Apart from standing out from the crowd, the second someone types ‘Scott Sturgeon’ in google, we’re screwed. Not long before that tour a band called Deez Nuts were forced to cancel their US tour due to having the wrong documents. It’s not a good feeling knowing that this could be the first and last tour that New Noise Agency organises.

We started the tour in Perth, and waited at the airport for about 2 hours until the last people to get off the plane was Stza and Frank. What a bloody relief! They’re in the country, and we wouldn’t have any custom problems until we flew over to New Zealand.

I had always thought LOC were quite unique and catchy, but I had never really gotten into them as much as I am now. I didn’t know how bloody popular they actually were. The first show was an acoustic show in a record store, and two people actually lost their breath when Stza walked in the room. I had never seen that before. People couldn’t believe who they were seeing, and it made the months of organisation all worth it.

This might sound petty, but after months of preparation and money spent, the locals could have put our name first in the presenters line. This happens a lot though, so I’ll just get over it.

If I was to do it all over again I would make sure that the all the band members could have had longer to practice because they were not comfortable until the Brisbane show, which was the 3rd last concert. At the time I didn’t have much of a choice because of their commitments with Star Fucking Hipsters, so the whole band had one practice before the start of their tour. I think they pulled it off in Perth but it got pretty sloppy in Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. To be honest I think it was my fault for rushing the band and having such early flights which caused a lot of tension on the tour. One of the first lessons I learnt was not to book flights before 12pm, it doesn’t work with bands. Most nights they’d play until after midnight, get drunk on stage, get drunker when they finished and mostly didn’t get to bed until 3 – 4am. Perth to Adelaide to Melbourne to Sydney in 4 days can cause quite a toll, especially for two American’s who just flew 16 hours to Sydney, then 5 hours to Perth. Another lesson… start the tour in Sydney or Melbourne, that’s where most international flights arrive at.

I’m trying not to ramble too much about LOC, because I wanted to kind of talk about my experience with people like Bam Magera, Guttermouth and why Misfits was cancelled. Unfortunately I’m going to have to do these in parts because I can’t stop writing the stories. I understand if you want to turn away now, but I promise to reveal more down the track.

Another new thing we were entering was Merchandise. The only t-shirt design we had for LOC’s whole tour was two blokes kissing, and “Gay Rude Boys Unite. Take Back The Dance-Hall” written on the front. To be honest, I didn’t know how well that shirt was going to sell. Lucky for us it sold very well.

The Official Aussie Tour shirt. I love how it doesn't even say the band's name.

Now I’ll tell you about some of the fuck-ups while I was planning the tour. Keep in mind while I make my mistakes public, that this was my first ever tour. Even a year later when I was doing it full-time I found it hard telling people what I actually do. I guess promoter sums it all up, but then I have to say that I’m a promoter of mid-level punk bands, or “I help tour bands in Australia”. I actually found it easier to just say that I was a tour manager for international bands. In fact a lot of my friends didn’t know I owned or operated the company for a long time, simply because I was kind of embarrassed about telling them, in a “I didn’t want to pretend I was something I wasn’t” kind of way. Because to this day I’m still nowhere near the level I want to be at. Obviously the first few paragraphs will tell you I’m not at a good place yet. OK back to my fuck ups. I had never put on a punk show in Sydney before, so I approached a guy called Julian to help me with the show. I found out 3 weeks out that he had booked 17 (seventeen!) bands on a Monday night. Lots of the bands booked were massive fans of LOC, so our company wasn’t the most popular by this point while we were kicking bands off the bill.  I don’t know what Julian was thinking booking that many bands on a Monday night, especially knowing that we had already sold out the show with just LOC’s name on the poster.

Another thing we were stressing about were getting Guttermouth legit visas for a tour that was happening a few days after LOC finished. We figured that they had been here several times and they were a ‘bigger’ band so we had to get them legit visas. It costs a lot more than the flights to get visas, which was a massive pain in the arse. I won’t talk too much about the stresses that come with visa documents, because it’s boring. But in short; every member needs a resume, cash in the bank, insurance and a sponsor (Alex and myself). For us to be sponsors we have to prove that we have enough money in our account to afford a lawyer and detainment in the unlikely event that something legally bad would happen while they were here. Basically a tedious way of making us babysitters. If you are genuinely interested in knowing more about an Artist Visa, go here.

We were so obviously inexperienced to everyone by the first day of tour. We just hadn’t prepared as well as we should have. Other stresses in my life were definitely affecting the way the tour started off and how disorganised it must have seemed to the people involved. But it’s all down to experience and nothing else. Truth be told, Alex is 21 and I am 26. We’re probably the youngest promoters in Australia bringing out bands of this level. Every band we’ve toured has stated that they’ve never worked with anyone so young. Alex actually lied to cKy/Bam Magera about his age just so they would take him seriously. However, I believe we always painted over the green by our enthusiasm and not being jaded (yet!).  By the 2nd show we started getting really drunk as soon as we hit Adelaide. Chris and I took a different flight because when we first purchased Stza and Frank’s flights, we couldn’t actually afford our own. By the time we had money the other flight had sold out. This was my first time in Adelaide and it was 40 degrees celcius. And a dry heat that I hadn’t experienced before. Chris and I found the closest pub and just drank heavily. You learn quickly on tour how much Australian states differ with their local beer. I forget what happened from getting drunk, to getting ready for the show, but it was horrible. The Adelaide show was one of my least favourite memories on that whole tour. The sound guy was drunk, I was drunk, Stza was drunk and Alex was drunk. Alex also played the worst show out of the whole tour. He forgot the songs, played out of time and was a complete mess. And we both paid for it straight after the set. Stza yelled at Alex for playing horribly, and me for supplying the band with a shitty drummer. He actually wanted me to call the drummer from Deez Nuts to replace Alex. At the time I was organising a tour with Juliette Lewis (which fell through and was replaced with cky), and it turned out that Stza was good friends with her brother. He was drunk and telling me on the way home that he has to be honest with Juliette and tell her we’re shitty promoters. It’s not easy getting yelled at and told that you’re a shit promoter, but I’ve always been one to listen and not over-react. I took it all in.

Our flight was at 10am the next day, which meant we had to be at the airport at 9am. Stza got to bed in his own room around 2.30am, and the other boys and myself drank until 4.30am in the morning. On tour I can’t sleep very well, so I woke up around 5.30am and prepared to do the shitty task of waking everyone up. I was actually scared of going to Stza’s room, so I had room service wake him up by phone call at 7.45am. Stza walks into the lounge room around 8am with a furious look on his face and knocks over all the empty beer bottles with his laptop bag. He put on his headphones and barely talked the rest of the morning. We have 5 people, plus heaps of gear so naturally I’d be calling for a maxi taxi. Guess which capital city doesn’t have maxi taxi’s on Sunday’s? Yep, Radelaide. Not only do they not have Maxi’s, they don’t have a big supply of standard taxi’s that can fit in all the gear. Finally we get two taxi’s around, and they take us to the airport just in time to catch our 45 minute flight to Melbourne. We get to the city around 11am, and this might sound fucking dumb, but we forgot that you can’t check in until 2pm. The first thing Stza says to me all morning is “Why did we leave so early?”. I had nothing. I’m sure it was to do with it being a cheap flight, but the $30 – $50 extra for a later ticket would’ve definitely been worth it. Stza called my room around 4pm and cooked me a meal to say sorry for yelling at me the night before, and being angry in the morning.

I actually blame the hectic tour schedule for the low quality of the shows. So I  blame myself. The show at Arthouse, Melbourne was over capacity and they weren’t playing much better than the night before. Alex had definitely improved but I knew he could play better. It was a hot and sticky show. Some ‘Captain Anarchy’ punk wanker kept knocking over Stza’s mic, and he said that if he did it one more time he’d kick him in the face. The thing about Stza is he doesn’t bullshit at all. He kicked the guy right in the face. Meanwhile the guitar cab stops working, so he calls me up on stage to fix it. I pretend to play around with the chords but I’ve got no clue what the hell I was doing. The next day we played in Sydney so I made sure that we had stage hand to help with the tech issues that always happen. The same thing happened. Over capacity, and punk people getting kicked in the face by Stza’s boot. To his credit all he asked was for them to stop grabbing him. One guy got really offended and ended up knocking Stza out halfway through the set. I had no clue what to do other than let the show roll on. I am very much used to band members getting into fights with punter’s now. I have the same problem everytime I tour Guttermouth. We’ll get into that at a later date possibly with video footage.

By the time we got to Brisbane we had a few days off to relax, and it was well needed. Stza is still one of the most interesting guys I have ever met and probably ever will meet. People from the Sydney and Melbourne LOC shows talk a lot of shit about Stza, but I can guarantee you that you don’t know him like I do. He’s actually a very genuine guy that has been through a lot in his life. It’s hard to forget the actions that happened at the show, or to change your opinion about what you witnessed. But he’s simply one of the most inspirational people that have walked into my life. We all became really great friends, so it’s exciting to know that I’ll be touring Frank and Stza’s other band, Star Fucking Hipsters in April 2011… if all goes to plan.

Gold Coast!

My problem with organising a tour is taking too much on my plate, and topping it off by drinking excessively. Soundwave’s tour manager Darren said that to me in Thailand last year, and he’s spot on. I actually haven’t had more than two days off drinking since 2008. My stresses cause my work to go downhill and it’s an obstical I have to overcome if I want to succeed. Like everyone I have my weaknesses and strengths, but showing them to a whole tour party isn’t easy. The next tour will be a lot easier. I know that I’ll have to keep a clear head and concentrate solely on my strengths while other people help out with my weaknesses, or a better way of saying it would be to deligate tasks to people I trust.

At the end of the day I’ve done exactly what I wanted to do in life, and nothing has stopped me yet. While I may have financial issues at the moment, and am in a posistion where I owe family and friends money. I know that New Noise hasn’t even begun to shine yet. I won’t end the blog entry with cliche sayings, but you know exactly what I’m getting at.

The next blog I will write about my touring experience with Bam Magera and cKy. It’s an interesting one with a lot of dirt.

Before the end of Livid, it was Australia’s longest running music festival.

Enough boring bullshit. Why have festivals changed? Am I getting too old for the crowd? I don’t think so. Drink prices are fucking ridiculous everywhere, so I won’t get into that. Too many douchebags? Possibly, but that has been the case for nearly every concert in history.

I think it’s because there are too many ‘big’ / ‘good’ bands, rather than focusing any energy on creating a great atmosphere for punters. It’s left up to the large acts to create a vibe in their 30 – 60 minute timeslot.  They probably need to cut the line-up by about 3 bands and focus more on the atmosphere, something I think Splendour In The Grass does very well.

Splendour In The Grass gets its name from a poem by an old cunt named William Wordsworth. It reads:

Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find

Strength in what remains behind;

Knowing this proves whoever is behind this festival is quite the artistic type, and it certainly shows when you walk around the Byron Bay and the new Woodfordia site.  I liked about 3 bands in total on the last Splendour line-up, but still walked away thinking it was the best festival in Australia. It has all a festival should have; atmosphere. It takes more than a (very) solid line-up to create the perfect festival. Massive bands, big stages, a few rides and some hot dog vendors do not always equal  a fun environment.

The most recent festival was No Sleep Til, which was organised by Melbourne’s Destroy All Lines & Blue Murder. In my opinion it had easily the best line-up going around, but I couldn’t afford to go. Not because I thought the festival was overpriced, but because I had no money at all. I can’t comment on anything on the day, because I wasn’t there. My only criticism is the poster art, and the name itself. While the artwork and name might work for a drunken party night at an “alternative” nightclub, it didn’t give the vibe of a massive attraction like it should have been. In saying that, naming anything can be bloody difficult but the artwork can definitely improve next time. For my taste, it had a bloody fantastic line-up that reminded me of the Loudmouth stage at Livid. From what I heard a lot of people complained about the drink tickets. Punters would have to prepay for a $30 drink card, even if they wanted one beer. To be honest though, no one just gets one beer so I didn’t see a huge problem with this. If you went to a festival to have one beer you’re probably a pussy, very tight, or broke. I’d say on average of an event like Big Day Out, you’d most likely spend $100 – $150 for the day, on average.

Now you’re probably wondering why the fuck I wrote the most boring blog in the world. It’s because I actually wanted to defend Destroy All Lines / Blue Murder’s efforts for putting on a festival in the first place. When it was announced, people got the feeling it was to be in competition with Soundwave. I’m not just talking financially, but also to showcase some great Australian talent and get them sharing the stage with well established international bands. Soundwave has continuously been criticized for not having any domestic acts on the bill. Personally I think it’s pathetic that they have around 30 bands on the bill that no one cares about, or has heard of. Big Day Out, Splendour and even Triple J prove that there are hundreds of Australian bands that are good enough to play a massive festival of that kind. I won’t get into that argument because my side makes so much sense. AJ’s side (guy who books Soundwave) must think ‘if it ain’t broke,  don’t fix it’. Also when people like the smaller international acts he would have first dibs on them when they tour again. Pretty good way to spin some extra coin really.

Booking and touring a band isn’t a walk in the park like my drunken photos suggest. Touring one band can be extremely strenuous and cost a lot of money. Let me break down the costs of one international band for you:

Band Members: 4 + tour manager
Artist Fee: $2,000 (for argument’s sake)
Flights: $1900 each (return including domestic flights)
Entertainment Visas (subclass 420): (circa $7000 in total)
- $263 per member processing fee
- $500 – $900 per member for assistance from credited Immigration Officer.
- $242 Music Union of Australia Fee (you need their approval before you bring any band out)
Artwork: $250
Printing an ad in Street Press: $1000 each
Poster printing: $500 for 1500 A2
Distribution: $1.20 per poster or free if you know people who can do it for you
Accommodation: $300 – $600 a night
Van: $120 per day + fuel
Per diems: $25 – $35 each
Publicity: $1000 – $6000 (depending on length of tour)
Venue: $3 per head
Backline: $5000
Supports: $1500 (this depends. A lot will play for free, just because they love the band etc).
Sundry: $2000
Total of thrown-together budget= circa $40,000 before anything has happened.

That’s a very thrown-together figure, but you get the point. Every artist will need visas, accommodation, van, flights and per diems. Our artist fee was very modest at $2000 as well. Why am I telling you this? Because it’s not fucking easy.  From here I can easily get into an argument with punk kids who think spending $40 on a ticket is too much. When we toured GBH we got a lot of emails asking us why it was costing so much to see GBH. Obviously they think it should be $5 in some basement. Unfortunately Qantas doesn’t have ‘punk discounts’ on any of their flights. The Australian government won’t turn a blind eye to punk rock band members (as in, we still have to pay for their visas). Most of the bands we’ve toured have been 20 years or older, so they prefer to sleep in comfortable beds rather than squats. Fuel is expensive, food is expensive and alcohol prices are ridiculous. Bottom line on that topic – grow up. $40 is nothing to see an international band, so fuck off.  It’s fucking $7 for a bottle of shitty beer these days. How is an international band not worth 4 beers!?

My company (New Noise agency) has had some ups, but a lot more downs this year. I took 4 months of solid work booking Bad Brains in Australia. It was an exciting time. It took literally 3 months before they gave me the green light at 11pm on a Tuesday night. I remember jumping around with excitement and going to the pub with my friends and business partner to get some beers. It was on! This was the band that would make other companies envious, or at least go “hey, they’re the real deal”.  We got them for a good price, and their rider wasn’t completely ridiculous. They announced on their social networking before we even got a chance to tell the world. To me that made it even more official. The feeling of calling up venues, street press and travel agents to make this show happen was such a great emotion. It felt like I had finally made it in the industry after around 7 years of working with music.

After getting the go-ahead from their agent in the UK, I was on the phone to their assistant manager working out the finer details like what food they wanted to eat on the plane, or making sure I didn’t book Earl (drums) above the 2nd floor. Little things like that. I was also relaying through about 4 different people about the artwork. I think I have around 8 different designs for a poster, before we finally agreed with the manager on which poster we were using. Note to self; always make sure you tell the agency every detail and agreement you make with their manager. I got an angry email saying “if you ever want to work with this agency again, you have to tell us everything”. Whoops.

Everything was mostly sorted. The visas were well on their way to be accepted, the flights were all organised, and the tickets were selling fast. Yep, we were on our way to selling out every venue at $60 a ticket (a price we got criticised about by people who have no idea about the costs of running something like this). It all seemed like New Noise would be going up. We had offers from other great artists, even though we couldn’t afford them at the time. I have a habit of being restless at night before these tours. I usually get between 2 – 4 hours a night sleep leading up to the event. I check my iPhone every hour when this happens, and one night particular night I checked it at 4am reading that a member was ill, and that it would ‘probably be a problem’.  Sure enough, I get an email the next day saying “He’s been told not to travel for three months & then return for re examination.”…

My jaw dropped. While I emailed back and wished all the members good health, I was still gutted about this and haven’t been the same since.

We had our next tour with a Canadian punk band called SNFU. They’re fronted by the crazy Chi. Pig. While I was sipping on a Pabst in New York I got the news that the Australian Immigration Department had denied a member of SNFU because of criminal convictions, and no updated police reports. It was another kick in the nuts, especially so close to the cancellation of Bad Brains. That’s two tours in a row, cancelled,  that were completely out of my control. The next act on our roster was CKY and Bam Margera, a band that I was never too happy being a part of the New Noise name. No offence to them, as they were all nice people but they didn’t fit the mould of touring respected punk rock acts around Australia.  Not to mention it was a financial flop.

This industry is not easy. Just because you know how to throw together a shitty hardcore show at a grubby venue in the city doesn’t mean you know the ins and outs of the music industry. Of course people should voice their opinions on why a festival or tour wasn’t good and then the organisers can build from their mistakes. It’s only natural that a brand new baby is going to have teething problems.

While I fully support the efforts of DAL/BM’s No Sleep Til, and respected their line-up choices, I do think that there are too many festivals in Australia and not enough developed ones. The best festivals here have all grown up into something worth writing home about. Big Day Out started with a couple of stages in Sydney before it moved nationally a couple of years later. Every line-up grew after the next. While people complain that it’s a rehashed line-up, I think they’ve done the impossible job of attracting the people who love music in their cars on the way to work, but aren’t passionate about it. They’re expecting a well developed and well laid out music festival, and Big Day Out delivers. I respect their efforts greatly. Another seed that blossomed was the previously mentioned Splendour. Starting with Michael Franti and Steven from Pavement, a modest line-up has now matured into easily one of Australia’s best festivals.  Imagine being in a position where you know you’ll sell out every year. It must be comfortable. I remember getting drunk with Paul Piticco, founder of Dew Process Records and Splendour In The Grass this year. I’m sure he would have no idea who I was, but I mentioned that I hate the visa process. He simply said “I wouldn’t remember, my assistants do it”.  Good on him I say. I’m sure at one stage he was in my position, and I am very happy and proud of everything Splendour has done. Special mention must also go to Kate who developed the layout of the festival site.
I’d like No Sleep Til to continue. Obviously I’d prefer a different name and poster art, but I’d like to see it go ahead. Somehow they have to work out how much time they spend on creating an atmosphere and how much money they spend on their acts. With all the costs mentioned, the insurance that I didn’t even touch on and all these drinking/smoking laws in place, I’m not so sure it’s worth starting a festival from scratch any more. Whereas 4 years ago it was my dream to be a part of creating an event like this.

Our company was in talks with Katatonia (No Sleep Til), Social Distortion (Soundwave) and Andrew W.K. (Big Day Out – though he originally approached us), so we feel the effects that festivals cause on the tour circuit, especially when it summer rolls around. In my opinion all those acts would be better to see at a concert hall, but we just couldn’t offer the same amount of money that a festival could.

This rant took a turn, but my main point is that No Sleep Til provided us with a great line-up. I think for a group of people who can put something like that together they need constructive criticism rather than completely blowing off something that could be great. My first thoughts are more local acts, more dedication to the vibe, an acoustic stage, starting smaller, growing, and themed bars. I wasn’t there though, so I can’t and shouldn’t comment too much. I hope that it continues next year so I can have a better opinion.

Lots of love.
Glenn