Very Naiise

On Friday night, my friends and I went to a new club in the Valley. I must admit I was a bit reluctant. This new club replaced the old Sunbar and I never did like Sunbar.

I thought it was pretentious, snooty and dull. The Sunbar was one of those places that just seeped snobbery, drudgery and try-hardery.

So when I heard that Sunbar had gone and an even flashier club had come to take its place. I expected a purer, demonic, distilled form of door bitch fashion police evil.

I expected some sort of metro, camp, buff modelesqe Adonis at the door with some stupid hair, looking down his upturned nose ready to greet me with a "Sorry mate, looks like you've had too much to drink", even though I had had none that evening. "Please move away from the entrance".

My slightly cynical expectations were booted down a jagged cliff to dark dark oblivion by a leathery Spartan sandal. I approached the red carpeted entrance to friendly door staff. We were accompanied up the staircase by a tall, blonde, female staff.

She looked like she was about to sit me down for a game of Sale of the Century. Perhaps I could have been the carry over champ and tonight I was about to win the car, jackpot and holiday. "We offer full table service", she announced.

The place looked plush. The lighting set a relaxed yet exciting mood. We sat at an extravagant studded leather sofa with carved wood frame. "Not bad", I thought.

The waitresses had Alice in Wonderland style dresses, except in deep red and black hues. One pointed us to the cocktail menu book sitting on the coffee table in front of us. The drinks ranged from 17$ to $1800. I had a Pegu Club Cocktail which had gin, curacao, some citric ingredients and other spirits which I can't remember. It was good.

All sorts of eccentric eccentric characters provided patronage to the club. A super styled grey-suited camp/gay gentleman (we shall call Molly) leaned against the bar with his hip contorted in such a way it appeared as though he was trying to attract members of the same sex with his jutting hips. Molly later disappeared with another guy into the function room.

A tipsy lady (we could call Rainbow) danced around the stage, attempting to befriend all the older gentleman. At one stage she was dancing on her knees as she crawled to more men who were sitting down. Rainbow reminded me of a Woodford hippy but in evening wear.

A couple reaching the top of the stairs caught my attention. He was elderly and white haired. She was in her late thirties, platinum blonde, slim and wearing a very open dress. So open that her right breast actually decided to wander out to take a look at the club on its own. She, lets call her Janet, ran to the lady's.

Speaking of toilets, the men's had a doorman, automatic taps and complimentary cologne (I didn't see which, but it looked like expensive stuff).

The band played a blend of funk, soul and rap while the singer tried his best to be hot and sexy. This was probably one of the most amusing components to the evening. His cheesy gestures to the audience sent one of my friends into a fit of unstoppable laughter.

I could go on with the eccentricities but I think that will do. Summary: Plush decor, good vibe, funny characters, a huge variety of cocktails, friendly staff, Very Naiise.

Oh I nearly forgot to mention what the club was called; Zuri.

Kate Miller-Heidke

There once lived a boy. This boy went to Race Course Road Street Festival about 5 years ago. There he saw for the first time an unusual, yet attractive and talented performer. This performer lived in his home city of Brisbane.

She had a great stage presence, even on that humble road. Her songs sang about events and places that occurred in Brisbane. ..Paddington, the Valley. The crowd could easily relate to her and her familiar stories. She had operatic training and unbeknown to him at the time she had already won many awards.

As well as original songs sung by her. She did the odd cover song as well. Imagine the TimeWarp done in a kinda hybrid pop/opera or popera if you will. Notably, overly, intensely, certifiably excellent. Very noice.

One might call her quirky, but the boy later found out in a local paper that she hates being called quirky.

He was impressed. She left an impression that 5 years later drew him into her latest CD launch concert at the Tivoli in Fortitude Valley.

Of course within those five years she had released other CDs, performed at Woodford and supported other music artists at other concerts, many of which the boy had attended.

But 5 years later, most of his friends still didn't really appreciate her like the boy did. "Not really my kind of music", they would say. "She's weird".

But that's the point isn't it? She *is* a little bit different and that's what makes her stand out. If she makes it big internationally, she will have defined a new kind of genre of music.

So, 5 years later, that stage presence is even grander. She knows how to warm the crowd, tell a funny, she still does a random cover here and there. This time she did The Voice as performed by John Farnham.

As mentioned earlier, no one he knew liked her, so he had trouble finding someone to go to the concert with him. As bad as it sounds he kind of guilted his girlfriend to come with.

The night was awesomely enjoyable. The set list was perfect. She performed the boy's favourites; some from old some from new. The crowd was loud and crazy and sang along. Her band was as zany as she was. Holding his girlfriend, the boy was in perfect company.

The Tivoli is a beautiful venue. Anyone who has not been there is definitely missing out on a great experience. This night in particular was a great experience and for $32.50 per ticket the boy and his girlfriend had a special night.

That boy of course, is me and the performer, as the title suggests, is Kate Miller-Heidke.

Her latest album is called Curiouser and my favourite song from it is "God's Gift to Women". I think she's gonna be big. Mainstream just doesn't 'get it' yet.

Spring is coming

Heya people.

Well river fire was amazing wasn't it? We've all seen fireworks before but last night I had the best vantage point I had ever had.

Thanks to the kind hospitality of Cindy's friend who has an apartment in Kangaroo point we got to see every sparkle of pyrotechnics Brisbane had to offer. The view was magnificent and made even more special by the fact that we could see the 'plebes' below, all squirming for a window of the sky action. Mu haha

Anyway, back to the title. Spring is coming and yesterday was an amazing day. I went to the Pasifika Festival at the Powerhouse. This festival is a celebration of island culture. The weather was awesome and I honestly couldn't get over how beautiful the day was. It sounds kinda airy fairy doesn't it? la di dah beautiful day, theres lots of them in between the grey days, so whats the big deal?

I don't know, maybe sometimes its just great to stop and say "Wow, what we got is awesome!" We're all probably used to the clear blue skies in sunshiney Queensland that it seems like nothing. But its far from nothing. Good weather certainly boosts people's moods and I just couldn't stop going on about it yesterday.

Maybe it just means I need to get out of the office more, or maybe Spring is coming...

Break Through to Success

Hi. I thought this was worth documenting. This weekend just gone by, I attended a seminar with Melee. It was a 3 day course.

I attended 2/3 days of the Break Through to Success seminar. Work got in the way of day 1, so my first day at the seminar was Saturday, but Melee started on Friday afternoon and left the same time as I did on Sunday. The seminar was hosted by Universal Events.

The main speaker was Chris Howard. He struck me as well researched and well trained as a speaker in motivational, financial and personal growth areas. He told lots of life experiences and a bit of name dropping here and there. eg. Hanging out with Richard Branson, quoting The Secret, 7 Habbits, that Jewish Concentration Camp survivor book (ill remember the name later), Warren Buffet (spelling?) and provided lots and lots of testimonials.

During the seminar he works through a number of activities, looking at what you want in life, your life values, looking at your goals, techniques for goal setting, limitations you have set in your mind etc. Then he looks at ways to reprogram your brain to overcome the mental limitations, touches on rapport building techniques and ways to change your attitudes into positive ones. There are a bundle of topics but I just listed a few. As well as these techniques, his topics also provide a means to plug all his additional material and courses which, unlike this free seminar, cost money.

The focus visibly shifts to techniques in neurology midway through the course. Topics include NLP, imprinting, breaking through negative emotions, visualising your past present and future self in new constructive ways. After completing the tool of 'Anchoring' and applying this to ourselves, we are taken back to our goals and values again to see how these have changed as a result of the neurological tools we learned.

The style of presentation was high energy and typically 'American'. It reminded me of the modern day charismatic church style of content delivery. There was a clearly evident degree of hype that seemed to infect some of the audience who rushed to buy extra courses, cds and dvds whenever Chris mentioned the products and special deals.

I am definitely glad I went. It was very interesting. I had never been to anything like this before but having heard of Anthony Robbins, I had always wanted to go to something like this. I will document a review of sorts on my experience. My approach to the course was skeptical yet open minded I hope and my approach to writing the review is slightly cynical but fair I hope.

This is my summary. More to come...

March is like the like you know like the best month like eva!

Sorry guys. It's already March 2008 meaning you haven't heard from me in a long long time.

It's gonna be unpossibelievably impossible for me to recap whats been happening. Suffice to say I had a House Warming, Easter, Birthday, Iceskating Bash on the 22nd of March. Which should subtly answer any questions you may have had about the title of this post.

It was my birthday, and I have a house now.

Lots of good friends came, we ate, we drank, we skated.

It's been about a month of home ownership now and it feels good. Damn good. Besides the 30 years of debt.... I think some feeling of pride is most definitely justified.

On the 23rd, the government kindly issued me a yellow birthday card, congratulating me on my speed on Ipswich Road on a portion marked 60 km/hr where I happened to be clocking a ludicrous 11km over. This card entitles me to cash in a negative sum of 100$. Thank you boys in blue and your fancy shmancy radar gun.

I cashed in my yellow voucher today and feel a tad lighter in the back pocket. Oh wellz, if you speed and get caught, you aren't doing it right ;)

Happy belated easter.