australia day 3: marsupial hunt/tourist drive #9.

Wherein our protagonists, crippled by hilarious facial sunburns, head to the interior to direct their scorch-ed eyeballs towards a multitude of wombats, swamp wallabies, and, if the stars align (and if they do we'll be able to see them through the Antarctic ozone hole probably, it's 4:51am), a roo or two.

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After enough days in a row of getting up at a stupid time, it stops mattering. So by this point our crepuscular marsupial hunt was just like a normal thing to do after coffee. In fact the only downside of being up at 5am was where to find coffee. We found ours in Jamberoo (darn good coffee), I also ordered a mushroom pie, you know, to give Nelson a taste of the local delicacies.

Only trouble was that the main ingredient was not the mushrooms, but rather the kidneys. For a 5am kidney pie it was pretty good. I felt big and strong for about 3 hours after that.

Then we saw an amazingly big rainbow. And shortly thereafter, a kangaroo. Which was a really big deal until we saw the next 75. And shortly after all that, a wombat. 

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australia day 2: blowhole.

I think we read somewhere on the line that the Kiama Coast Walk was “not strenuous”. I myself find four hours of walking just conceptually strenuous, and that’s if it’s completely flat conceptually.

Nonetheless, on Day 2, in an effort to combat heroic jetjag through the time-tested miracles of sun exposure and physical exertion, we had planned to attempt “the short part” of the Kiama Coast Walk, roughly 10km (6 miles to you and me), and (spoiler alert) while, yes, completely worth doing and relentlessly beautiful (as you can peep for yourself below): by the time our feet and asses had given up and we decided to take the train from Bonbo for the final all-steeply-uphill 1km, a train which never fucking came due to “mechanical failure”, which OK was probably just as well because we couldn’t buy tickets anyway and undoubtedly would’ve incurred a massive, vacation-ruining fine (in the picture below of the train tracks next to the highway you can see Kiama on top of that impressive hill in the distance, at the time of the photo we'd just managed to figure out that the train wasn't coming and thus we were about to embark upon a slump-shouldered death march towards our ass-crushing homestretch)....JESUS what a sentence this is, it started like 3 minutes ago....

What I'm saying is, by the time our feet and asses had given up (thank you), the fun and wonder had kind of worn off and only ass and foot discomfort remained. Plus solid, very pink tourist sunburns we didn’t know about yet. These happened because the weather for the walk was "absolutely perfect"; I mean to the point where you’d find yourself saying 11 or 12 times out loud, “wow, man, this weather is 'absolutely perfect'', regardless of what a dolt you sounded like for repeating yourself. Each of us would repeat it 11 or 12 times.

What was it like you might ask, not having been there yourself. Well ask away Jam Master Jay: it was cloudy and breezy and misty but juuuust warm enough, at some point I may have even said aloud "I imagine this is a sort of Perfect Storm for getting one of those urban legend Cloudy Day Dumburns." Dumburns is an autocorrect but also totally accurate and a possible new coinage so i’m leaving it in there.

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Dus, blow by blow: here's 6:31am breakfast at the Something Monkey-Related Cafe (EDITOR'S NOTE: Hungry Monkey Cafe, you're welcome), us having been awake since 4:30am or something I'm sure. It is...not often I find myself waiting for breakfast places to open for business at this stage in my life, so being the first customers in the door was a bit of a "hey, wow, you're doing it! you're being productive!!!" shot of feelgood juice. In addition to it just being a friendly place, like just about every fucking where we went in Australia.

What I'm eating here was listed on the menu as "Purple Toast: Beetroot Relish. Persian Feta. Free Range Poached Eggs & Monkey Dukkah. Soy & Linseed Sourdough." I'm not exactly sure what Nelson is picking at, the current menu is no help. It's probably avocado with feta and tomatoes on sourdough, since Australian breakfasts were the beginning of Nelson's love affair with sourdough.

Ahhh, then we decided to wander over to the ol' Kiama Blowhole because a) it was 7:04am and b) every piece of goddamn literature you will ever see with the word Kiama on it will inevitably mention the Blowhole. Blowhole. Apparently it's a massive tourist attraction.

This we did not know. And this "not knowing that the Kiama Blowhole was something that people drive many many miles to undoubtedly be disappointed by" freed us from having any such expectations and thus we spent a serene 15 minutes watching and listening to the cycle of domestic blowhole violence: quiet peace; violent, not totally unexpected crashing gulf of water; giant refreshing misty spray; hiss of receding water; quiet peace; repeat. Pretty good: 4.5 stars as far as blowholes go.

THEN: We began the Kiama Coast Walk. Look at Nelson there doing her pre-walk mental prep. And stretching, she's probably stretching there.

No she's not: Nelson has never stretched in her life except to accompany a yawn. It's kind of a challenge to blog about this 16 months after it happened. Will I even know what's going on in these pictures??? Or will I just be talking out of my ass the whole time?

Mwah, I think I pretty much know what happened.

However, it is nearly impossible to get these posts to format correctly because of whatever thoroughly incompetent piece of crap software I used to make these blog posts in the first place. It's done something horrible to the code that I can't seem to fix.

So I'm just going to start typing here, since it's almost working, and you'll just have to use your lazy 21st century eyes to figure out which pictures I'm talking about.

Buh. A few things stand out from this walk in my mind. One: the obvious and dramatic beauty that is everywhere the ocean is. You think to yourself "Excellent coastline", and I'm sure people die every year with that being the second-to-last thought in their head, right before "FUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuccckkk" as they fall over the edge like the poor little stick figure on the sign above, which I didn't even see until just now. "How to Tell When Your Warning Sign is Ineffective."

Two: we were so scared. We didn't need warning signs. This is probably my fault. You know, you hear things about Australia. Dangerous animals, Google it. And yes, the Top 10 is truly, patently deadly: box jellyfish, bull shark, Eastern brown snake, crocodile, Sydney funnel web spider, blue-ringed octopus, etc. These will all kill you, easily, just by existing. But somewhere we started hearing about kangaroos attacking paragliders, wombats attacking handymen, magpies poking people's eyes out. And that made us think that when someone said, "Oh, well, you probably won't meet up with any actual kangaroos, but you might see some wallabies," well...a wallaby was probably pretty dangerous as well, if encountered alone in the wilderness.

So we were on high alert for most of this four to six hour walk. There were no people. No one to help us during a wallaby attack. We crept over the cliffs, crouched along the lush paths, tiptoed our way through the dark foresty bits, all with one eye on the ground for snakes and one eye on the horizon scanning for marsupial threats.

All we saw were lizards, bronze-colored lizards. Big! And the first couple give you quite a start when you're on high alert. And some fascinating birds. But in the end, our eyes remained in our heads, our guts remained in our bodies, etc...just a fantastic sunburn.

By the way: I loooooove how every video online of an Australian being attacked by furry wildlife involves the Australian talking to the attacker like it's a drunk friend: "What's up Skip? Ohh fuck off mate," or "(giggling) Piss off you bastard".

Three: What's up with putting a suburban neighborhood right in the middle of the Kiama Coastal Walk? It was certainly interesting to see what residential life is like, you know, landscaping, lots of palm trees in yards and tropical birds everywhere, educational...but...weird? You just felt more than once like you'd lost the trail and were just wandering through people's yards like a stupid tourist.

Four: Bonbo and the goddamn ocean. Superb. And, of course..."deadly."

Five: The warning sign on the beer garden door. I will transcribe it eventually since it's a little hard to read. Maybe this was a hotel? Super shady place.

Six: Sunburned pizza at Olive & Vine, we were soooooo goddamn hungry I think we ordered for 4 people. Nelson could barely function due to first-degree burns on her little face.

Seven: Yes we were staying on Bong Bong Street.

australia day 1: “new year’s day”

Above: flying into Sydney.

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I'm writing this text in 2019, because I don't understand at all how I didn't write more about Australia just as soon as I got back in 2018. I do understand why I didn't write about it while we were there: because we were fucking Navy SEALs of exploratory ambition and accomplishment when we were there, every damn day, ignoring our normal human limitations of insomnia and zero fitness and chronic laziness, fueled by a simple but powerfully effective rallying cry: "WHEN ARE YOU EVER GOING TO BE IN AUSTRALIA AGAIN?"

So it's mildly shocking and disappointing to go back to these posts to look at "the best vacation ever" and find that it's mostly unannotated photos. I am going to redress (?) this undersight (?) as soon as I learn how to speak English again.

Luckily, it was "the best vacation ever", so I might not even need English, and the events are burned into my mind. All except the last 90% of the flight from PHX to SYD, which my mind may have simply erased/repressed out of sheer trauma.

But when we did arrive, first in Brisbane and then in Sydney, at 10am or something, we were treated to a, no lie, two hour wait for our rental car. This is the line, which mostly did not move. This is, how you say, "not a good mix" with 18-hour jet lag after a 36-hour flight (EDITOR'S NOTE: someone please check these numbers).



Once we finally had the car (the right car), and finally made our way out of the parking garage (having le steering wheel on le wrong side makes an important difference, imagine that), it was how you say "smoooz sailink" all the way to Kiama, where we were spending our jetlag days.



The idea behind convalescing in Kiama was to not waste jetlag days in expensive Sydney, but instead chill out somewhere next to the ocean for three days or so, see the surrounding countryside, learn how to pronounce the name of the town we were staying in (kai-AM-a, this took about a week to remember), etc.

I probably never did mention what we're doing in Australia, is that possible? (EDITOR'S NOTE: Mmm yes it is). I'm playing in Rhys Chatham's A Crimson Grail. We'd just decided like two months previously that Australia was "too far away, sorry Australia, we will never see you, you will never see us, we will die strangers" which is such a depressing-ass thing to decide about somewhere, I can wholeheartedly recommend changing your mind about this kind of decision, or, even better, not making this kind of decision in the first place. Or no wait, best yet: if you do find yourself making this kind of decision? Just find a reason to go there immediately. You get the extra satisfaction of just saying "fuck it" to some depressing restriction you've put on your life mostly out of sheer laziness and/or fear.



So, that's what Chatham was: the reason to go to Australia after saying no it would never happen. And, foreshadowing: "it all worked out". Well, you know what I mean. Australia, Chatham.

ANYWAY: after getting used to the whole steering wheel being in the wrong place thing (thank you very much Nelson for driving), the next "wow we're on a different continent" moment came when we drove through something like a forest on the way to the coast. The cicadas were, i'm not exaggerating, deafening. OK we did not end up deaf, but they were so loud that you could feel their massed voices bouncing around in your ear canal (your aural canal?), the only other thing I've ever heard/felt quite like it was a clarinet trio that was aiming to hurt you.



I always love when you're on vacation near the coast and the ocean first comes into view. Once it did come into view we, well, stopped to look at it and I took a picture of this bird because he was there and was providing another indication that we were somewhere far away.

Then we drove down the less scenic side of the Grand Pacific Drive to end up in relatively sleepy Kiama. Where we had surprisingly good Chinese during which we began to fall asleep, having been awake for, I don't know, 39 hours by this point (EDITOR'S NOTE: Come onnnn, you're not even trying). I have not been happier to see many beds in my life, I'm pretty sure this one is in the Top 10 Beds I Was Happiest To See.

1001 things.

Yesterday, Christmas Eve, I had a couple of food revelations. The only one I can formulate clearly at the moment is this: Cheez Whiz is really pretty delicious on anything. I tasted it on Momofuku pork belly, cold shrimp cocktail shrimp, and even, yes, a chicken nugget...every time, I thought "man that's delicious". Way better than American cheese.

Anyway. So in my Christmas stocking I got this book, 1001 Things To Eat Before You Die. You know me, I like eating, I like nitpicky trivial things like this, plus the timing was right to take a peek at what someone/anyone had to say about Australia's essential eats, fortunately there are several pages' worth of stuff in there on Australia, New Zealand and Tahiti.

Well wait: for context and comparison's sake, let's also look at what they consider essential eating for some of the other places we're already familiar with. For example:

Dutch
Banketletters
Hutspot
Lamb's Tongues in Madeira Sauce
Nieuwe Haring
Eel in Green Sauce
Kroketten
Bitterballen
Haagsche Hopjes
Uitsmijters
Broodjes
White Asparagus

Et cetera. Not a terrible list, only the lamb's tongues seem really out of place on a list full of things you see all the time, though you see eel less and less.

And America, though a much bigger section, also gets a lot of things right: apple pie, biscuits, bacon, BBQ, baked beans, BLT, Brunswick stew, brownies, candy apples, Caesar salad, Cobb salad, cornbread, corn on the cob, crab cakes, deviled eggs, gumbo, jambalaya, key lime pie, lemon meringue pie, clam chowder, toasted marshmallows, muffaletta, Oreos, po' boys, saltwater taffy, fried chicken, shrimp and grits, Tex-Mex, Thanksgiving dinner, etc. I left out more than half of it, but those things all feel pretty nostalgically, uniquely American to me. Thus:

Australia
ANZAC biscuits
Barramundi
Abalone
Carpetbag Steak
Damper
Doyle's On the Beach
Emu
Granny Smith Apples
Kangaroo
Lamingtons
Macadamia Nuts
Pavlova
Peach Melba
Pie Floater
Sydney Rock Oysters
Tasmanian Leatherwood Honey
Tiger Prawn
Vegemite
Wattleseed

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midpoint.

A couple of helpful links would be Transport NSW, Sydney Coastal Walks, and the Grand Pacific Drive site.

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DAYS 1-3: KIAMA, CATHEDRAL ROCKS, LITTLE BLOWHOLE, BOMBO HEADLAND, KIAMA COAST WALK, MINNAMURRA, GERRINGONG.

I know it all sounds like gibberish but these are the things we should see around Kiama if we're awake. We should at least do the first part of the Kiama Coast Walk from Minnamurra to Blowhole Point, then off to Cowabunga and Gungagamunga and Great Googlymoogly etc. Note: we arrive on Bong Bong Street on Tuesday, when very little seems to be open, might be a grocery store night.

Olive and Vine. Italian/Pizza. Tuesday to Sunday 5.30pm to 9pm.
Penny Whistlers. General cafe. 7am-4pm Mon-Wed. Thursday - Saturday 7am - Late, Sunday 7am - 7pm.
Little Blowhole Art Bar. Half-hour walk from hotel but seems civilized. Open Wednesday and Thursday 5-9pm, Friday and Saturday 12-3pm and 5-10pm, Sunday 12-6pm.
Hanoi on Manning. Vietnamese. Wednesday-Monday 11.30-2.30/5.30-9.30.
Milk and Honey. Breakfast.
Flour Water Salt. Breakfast.
Gerringong Cafe and Deli. Breakfast.


DAY 4: GRAND PACIFIC DRIVE, THIRROUL, AUSTINMER,  SEA CLIFF BRIDGE, BALD HILL, STANWELL PARK, ROYAL NATIONAL PARK.

Then we drive up to Sydney and spend most of that day on the Grand Pacific Drive, hopefully see a kangaroo in Royal National Park and not be disemboweled by it.

Scarborough Hotel. "Rubbish service, mediocre food, awesome views."
The Palms. Breakfast and lunch, 9am-4pm.


DAYS 5-7: NEWTOWN.

After relocating to Newtown, the next day we should maybe go to Avalon Beach to make sure we get there. And then maybe the Bondi to Coogee walk, or vice versa and have dinner at Bondi.

Handcraft. Closest coffee to the apartment.
Rising Sun Workshop. Interesting bike repair/breakfast place that looks good, also close to apartment.
Jamaica House. "The closest bar."
Continental Delicatessen. Advanced preserves and things, I'm pretty interested in this.
Delhi 'O' Delhi. Indian. Supposedly kind of a "don't-miss".
Brewtown. Coffee and food, 8am-4pm.
Hartsyard. Dinner. One of the better looking things, should maybe reserve. Never mind, not open until 12 January. Could do dinner on the 14th.
Bloodwood. Not open til 10 January, and then not open for lunch until the 14th, our last day. Maybe worth booking.
Earl's Juke Joint. Secret bar with a "Betta Meats" sign out front.
Corridor. Rooftop.

DAYS 8-14: MARRICKVILLE.

And then we move to Marrickville and rehearsals and I don't know what will happen other than Manly early Wednesday morning. This is all a bit challenging because rehearsals are from 6pm-10pm which takes a giant shit right in the middle of my date nights. Thanks.

Two Chaps. Breakfast and lunch, dinner Thursday and Friday. Very close to home base.
The General. Breakfast and lunch. Looks worth making time for.
Cornersmith Cafe. Cafe with supposedly great homemade pickles, might not be open.
Gasoline Pony. Live music and cocktails, close to rehearsal.
Thai Pothong. Thai restaurant that caters to vegans, close to Gasoline Pony.
The Henson. Trip Advisor's #1 restaurant, website looks horrible but you know. Can't be good.
Hello Auntie. Adventurous Vietnamese, looks worth a reservation.
Creek and Cella. Not really Marricksville, a bit of a stretch, but looks nice.

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AVALON BEACH
Swell Cafe. Seems like the default for food. Tue 7:00 AM - 4:00 PM, Wed - Mon 7:00 AM - 10:00 PM.
Pineana. Vegan Asian bowls.
The Mill. Sun 1:00 PM - 10:00 PM, Tue - Thu 3:00 PM - 12:00 AM, Fri - Sat 1:00 PM - 12:00 AM
La Banette. Bakery.

BONDI BEACH
Brown Sugar. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Should probably make a reservation.
Drake Eatery. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Second choice. 
Rocker. Open all day, seems a good backup plan.
Funky Pies. Probably the only place to try a good vegan "meat" pie.

CBD
Love, Tilly Devine. Little good-looking wine bar.
The Lobo. Secret bar. Cocktails and small fried things.
Opera Bar/Kitchen. Cheapest good option in Sydney Opera House.
Hubert. Late night French in CBD.
The Kittyhawk, Cocktails.
The Baxter Inn. "Secret bar" that has 760 reviews on Trip Advisor. Supposedly "legendary".

DARLINGHURST
Mr. Crackles. Emergency late-night pork cracklings sandwiches, Darlinghurst, til 4am. Looks fantastic. Hey there's a pumpkin option too.
Shady Pines Saloon. Dive, Darlinghurst. 4pm-midnight.
Big Poppa's. Late-night Italian til 3am, Darlinghurst.

GAP PARK/WATSONS BAY.
Watsons Bay Hotel. Hotel with things other than seafood.

MANLY.
Hugo's. The more expensive waterside option, not much vegetarian, but maybe pizza is a good idea.
Chica Bonita. Mexican, supposed to be good. Tue - Sun 11:30 AM - 3:00 PM, 6:00 PM - 11:00 PM
Papi Chulo. BBQ, also limited vegetarian.

POTTS POINT
Yellow. Fancy vegetarian, also in Potts Point, should try and reserve.
Monopole. Wine bar owned by the Yellow people in Potts Point.

REDFERN
The Bearded Tit. Live music in Redfern.

THE ROCKS
Fine Food Store. Breakfast and lunch in The Rocks.

SURRY HILLS
Bar H. Japanese/Australian wine bar in Surry Hills, looks really interesting. Never mind, they're not open until the 9th and they don't do lunch.
The Wild Rover. "Pirate-themed bar".
Golden Age. "Art deco bar". In a cinema.

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dilla says go.

vegan ginger blondies.

Made these today because the recipe showed up in my sidebar and my mind flashed to the literally 9 not-quite-finished jars of nut butter in the cupboard. Plus there was a thing of chickpeas in the pantry. I wish I could taste these without knowing what was in them, I really don't think I'd ever guess what the main ingredient was. Plus, no dairy, no oil, weird, just a disorienting bit of kitchen alchemy. I personally think you could put a nut on top though. Anyway. Original here.

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ginger blondies.

1 15-ounce can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
½ cup nut butter (e.g., almond, peanut or cashew)
⅓ cup molasses (I used Dutch pannenkoekstroop, funny that I now type 15-letter words without thinking twice about it, which is very molasses-like, but I think date syrup would potentially be great too)
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground allspice
⅛ teaspoon ground cloves
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

Process til totally smooth. Pour into a cake pan or some other vessel lined with baking paper. Bake for 35 minutes at 170C.

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enchilada sauce.

I mention it because I've never made my own before, and tonight I did, and as the recipe creator suggested, it was better to have control over it than to just open a jar. From Cookie & Kate.

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homemade red enchilada sauce. 

3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp flour
1 tbsp ground chili powder (this is kind of key for how things are going to taste, so try to make it a good one)
1 tsp ground cumin
½ tsp garlic powder
¼ tsp dried oregano
¼ tsp salt, to taste
pinch of cinnamon

2 tbsp tomato paste
2 cups vegetable broth
1 tsp apple cider vinegar or distilled white vinegar
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste


Make a roux, let it get peanut colored, add the spices, whisk constantly. Add the tomato paste, stir to eliminate lumps. Add broth, whisk. Add vinegar and pepper, salt to taste.

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daddy's serotonin capsules.

Korean Fried Chicken @ Konbu in Groningen. Totally worth 5 euro.

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benzodiazepine withdrawal diet.

"Stopping a benzo 'cold turkey' without medical assistance is not recommended." -American Addiction Centers

No shit. Putting this out there for other desperate people. I can recommend the following. It could be strictly coincidence, timing, "throwing everything at the problem", etc. But I was in a situation where my symptoms were all just unpleasant...this very good resource takes the trouble to list them:

symptoms may include anxiety, panic, insomnia, muscle spasms or tension, nausea and/or vomiting, diarrhea, blurred vision, seizures, hallucinations, short-term memory impairment, trouble concentrating, clouded thinking, mood swings, agitation, drug cravings, twitching and weight loss due to a decreased appetite. 

I had all of them! Except seizures, and no real hallucinations but everything just looked like it was moving a little when it wasn't.

Anyway things were not improving, and then I started eating like this and let's say a week later I'm much better. Like I said, maybe no correlation, but I can tell you that the eating of the foods themselves did successfully provide moments of relief, I guess that normally would've been "pleasure", it just seemed like "less bad".

So for five days I only ate the following foods, for either their tyrosine content or dopaminic (probably not a word) properties:

Eggs, salt, lean beef, miso, chilies, peanuts, cucumber, salmon, herring, dark chocolate, almonds, kiwi, blueberries, ginger, pickles, yogurt.

And I would try to have a green or beet juice here and there for vegetable content. After my stomach started functioning again I added cheese, for this reason. I was just trying to feel better. And it mostly worked. I tried a lot of things. I tried very expensive CBD oil with varying degrees of success, but it turns out that just smoking weed is way way cheaper and worked better, except for the terrible heart racing episodes.

Oh and, really, do not drink alcohol. At first I thought that it was making my symptoms go away, but no it was really just getting ready to lower my elevator 100 floors lower into the center of helllllll. So, while it may seem like a good idea, especially if you have to function in public, for say a solo guitar gig or something...a good idea it is not.

Anyway, I'm not perfect yet, hands still shake when I button my shirt or peel a potato or try to play guitar carefully. But my RLS is mostly gone, and I slept 5 hours last night. You know what may be working? Magnesium. I've tried it before with no detectable results, but I've been taking it every day for a week and I've been sleepy before midnight the last four nights in a row or something. Insert thumbs up.

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btw.

This is the Surinamese peanut butter you want. Spicy but not too hot. No weird over-coriandered aftertaste. I'm putting it on celery sticks but you might want to make peanut butter cookies out of it, no joke.

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search for pleasure dome 2.

I can't tell what's going on, but this is another kind of home run.

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salmon burger with hoisin mayo, miso butter, roasted sweet potato, cucumber pickles, jalapeno, peanut.

salmon

2 tsp hoisin
2 tbsp mayo
1 tbsp miso
2 tbsp butter
1 sweet potato, sliced like potato chip thin
grapeseed oil

cucumber pickles
pickled jalapenos
peanuts, chopped

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