new plymouth and a couple of other things. like the woman with the horn etc..

It was pretty amazing to wake up earlier than usual and hear on the radio that someone from America had turned 101 and also had begun to grow another horn out her head. The lady had been growing a single horn for a few years which had got to about six centimetres, but soon after her 101st birthday she had discovered a new horn growing on the other side of her head. The radio also said she 'liked spending time with her family' which I found pretty relevant to the fact that she had horns.
When in Rome i guess.
I was in a taxi at the time with some of the guys from the band. The taxi driver had George FM on which is an Auckland dance station and pretty soon after the horn story we got some techno 'beats'. I made a crack about how it felt like we were going to the airport to fly out to Ibiza but nobody really laughed so I ignored those jerks and started looking at the back of the taxi drivers head for a little while. After a while that got pretty boring so I mucked around on the game i have on my phone.
I am currently sitting on the plane to New Plymouth. It is a smaller plane than you might usually travel on and really feels like one that Lynard Skynard may have gone down in on that fateful day where their plane crashed and most of them died, but one didnt, and kept the band going. That would never happen with us. Felix and Rob are not on the plane, so Felix would concentrate on his fantasy metal side project Star Control. I dont know what Rob would do. If we make it through this flight I will text him about it.

The lady in front of me just looked around and gave me the evil eye as I accidentally bumped her chair while readjusting my jeans. I felt like saying 'What the heck are you looking at Woozel Gummidge?' as she kind of looks like a scarecrow who would eat sausages on A.D.B (A Daily Basis). Fingers crossed this will be the last time I see her.

Yesterday we met up with a friend of ours who looks exactly like Chris Cornell from Soundgarden. We told him that we were spending a few days in Las Vegas on the way back to Europe in April and he told us that his Dad lived there and could take us around to look at some of the local crud that wasn't casinos or strip joints. My first gut feeling was to ask him if thought he might know any sites where all the mobsters buried the bodies of other mobsters and if we could go out there and drink beers, but then i figured I would wait till we got to Vegas to see if Chris Cornell's dad might be ok to ask questions like that.
My aim in Vegas is to mainly be a combination between
a) the fat samoan lawyer with all the drugs from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
and
b) the fat bearded guy from The Hangover who is a little bit tweaked out in the brain

Now i am back in AUckland and i just freaked out because the cat came in the damn room. I looked around and there it was staring at me.
I am not even sure if I like this cat that lives here, but who cares i guess, its not like we hang around all the time.

I must say there is something quite good about New Plymouth, apart from the drunk woman who barrelled along, demanded to sit at our table then called me a jehovah's witness, Sam a russian sailor and told Ede he had shit hair. I told her to 'get stuffed' when she asked me to kiss her hand as I was leaving. She kissed Sam's hand and he wiped it on my arm which (indirectly) totally made me feel like tripping her over.
She was really keen to go and see 'Anita Moa' who was on the night before us.
I didnt even bother explaining that her name was Anika as this woman was so drunk and probably didnt want to be corrected from a drinking, smoking, swearing Jehovah's Witness like me.

My favourite part about New Plymouth is the hotel owner Tony who takes you for a swim to the beach when you cant be bothered walking and also how the seagulls obey you if you have hot chips.

There was around 50 of them sitting in front of us while we were eating our dinner by the ocean... Sam said 'Jump to the left if you believe in satan!' and threw a chip to the left and they all went for it. So essentially, if you didnt see the chip it would have looked like they all believed in satan. You really had to be there.
i am procrastinating. i just watched a karate movie and feel like learning karate. Actually thats a lie, i feel like not having to learn karate , but to immedietley have the powers of a black belt without having to put all the training and hard work in. All i know is that getting karated to the face looks totally painful and also that all chinese villains in karate movies must hav bald hair on top, long hair on the sides, be skinny and have a wispy moustache. That is just what i have noticed lately.
Anyway, i can smell hot cross buns so i am going to walk up the street and figure out which house its coming from and stand around outside for a bit.

some crud about our tour.

Hello Anyone out there, i just thought i would write with an email to
tell you all about our exciting tour and about L.I.G (life in
general).
I am currently sitting in a lounge in Onekaka, Golden Bay. it is at
the beach and Sam and I just went swimming together with our matching
'High School Musical 2' towels. He was also wearing his new (second
hand) pink togs which really are a sight to behold. So essentially, we
looked pretty good as some kind of batty tourist couple, which is not
such a big deal.
Yesterday we played a festival called 'Illuminate' on the old
'Gathering' site. There was lots of tie die, incense, lentils, fire
dancing and other crud like that.
It was safe to say that I did not quite fit in walking around in the
evening wearing my three tits t-shirt under my long black trench coat,
but noone really said anything. As the moon was full, pretty much
everyone was too busy ululating to 'dub beats' and feeling each
other's 'energy' etc.



I walked around with a bottle of boysenberry cider looking for a good
stick as we were after all up in the woods. I didn't find anything but
managed to make hard out eye contact with a dog wearing a red bandana
under the full moon. I quickly wondered if dogs turn skitzy under the
full moon and attack humans like werewolves do, but he just walked
off. So then I walked off.
When we actually played our show the crowd was great. Heaps of the
women had their eyes closed and were doing all kinds of 'tripped out'
dancing and really getting into it.



One woman actually looked like
some crazy old witch who would cook children in a big boiling pot. I
made eye contact with her once and almost pissed my pants with fear.
Halfway through our show one of the power amplifiers started smoking
and there was a power surge and the whole system shut down. We had to
go off stage for 15 minutes while the crew fixed it up. But then we
came back on and played a few more songs before that witch woman
closed the festival with about ten minutes banging on a big gong and
opening her arms to the sky.



I looked around to pull a face at Felix as if to say 'What the fuck is
going on here?' but got busted by what looked to be one of the head
hippies pulling the face. It was awkward. I will not be surprised if
some form of voodoo has been put on me for pulling that face about the
Gong Witch. Hopefully not thou seeing Ede from my band pretty much
knew everyone up on that hill, and he will hopefully rebalance the
'kharma' or 'universe' or something similar.
this is why..



We had an amazing stage manager, a very nice lady by the name of Tina.
She had one arm and one stump. When we all had a group hug with her
after the show I was first into the hug and then when everyone
enclosed around us her stump was sticking into my back. It was pretty
annoying as it was kind of sharp. I tried to break the hug up, but
everyone was trying to extend it, so I had to hang in there a bit
longer.
We left yesterday afternoon and left Rob from my band up on the hill
hanging around fullfilling the prophecy of his nick name 'Star Child'.
No doubt he will be participating in drum circles, taking MDMA and
making love under the stars. He better be in Takaka on time for our
gig tonight or he's dead meat.
Then tomorrow we go to Kaikoura. I will try and get a whale. And a
stick off the beach.
The other shows on the tour have been a) excellent or b) pretty
mediocre.
Leigh, Raglan, Paekakariki, Levin and Camp A Low Hum were all such fun.
Even though we were a day late to Camp A Low Hum due to either my poor
management or Blink from Camp A Low Hum providing me the wrong day. I
somehow thing it may have been my fault.
Napier was super quiet and Wellington was also less than expected,
although we did get to play with a band i consider to be the best band
in the country Beastwars. You should look them up on the internet.
Also it was my birthday that night and things got a little crazy.
Sam and I missed the ferry from Wellington to Picton but managed to
squeeze onto the following ferry. Seats were tight but we managed to
get two seats facing the kids playground. Once again my trench coat
was not necessarily the best choice of wardrobe for that particular
time. But it went well with my dark glasses, and there were no
complaints.

Anyway, as per usual I am totally rambling. With no real point or
purpose. If anyone sees my mum tell her I will be home on monday and
that if possible it would be nice to not have to answer 40 million
questions upon arrival as I will be quite tired.

Hope everyone is pretty good. Love reuben.

MORE ON KENNY POWERS THE PIG ETC

MORE ON KENNY POWERS THE PIG ETC

Kenny Powers the pig has really started taking after me in all manners of life. Not only does he like looking on the internet frequently when I have it open on the computer, but he has also begun spending around 20-25 minutes a day looking out the window and thinking about life, love and the universe. Which is what I tend to do. It makes my heart swell to know that he is learning life lessons from me and I feel that I am not only a good role model to him day by day, but also probably someone who he considers a 'father figure'. This is hugely important in M.H.O (my humble opinion) seeing Kenny Powers was an orphan piglet. I probably now consider him my best friend and often wonder how my future bride will feel when I tell her that at our wedding Kenny Powers the pig will stand beside me in the church as we take our vows. I think he would look excellent in a suit jacket, top hat and cumberbun and I know he would, unlike some animals who hate wearing human clothes, feel totally at ease up there on the podium looking dapper. Especially if i could also somehow train him to wear a monocle. But that is a challenge for another day.
And of course, as usual, I am getting ahead of myself, I don't even have a girlfriend anymore, let alone someone who will marry an unemployed musician who is trying to win a Guinness World Record with a pig. But there is always hope in this crazy world we live in. And you have to hold on to hope. Or you may as well be dead. But if you are really rich, you are not required to hold on to hope as much, or as often, as money will buy you a lot of the crud that you would probably had only hoped for when you were poor.

I have a sinking and strange feeling that I am either a) really started starting to lose my mind properly this time or b) am slowly but surely somehow magically syncing up telepathically with Kenny Powers the pig. The thought of this may seem slightly far fetched, but when you think about it in context we have now spent almost every waking moment together since I picked him up from the post office and I would essentially say that he and I know each other probably as well as pig and man could. And as far as I know, it is not unheard of to telepathically be connected to someone when you spend extended periods of time together, eg Tony and Barry Chesterman, the identical twins from my boarding school.

My Brother etc.

I often think of my little brother when I am travelling. Hoping he is getting on ok. There is an age gap between us of 13 years. I am 28, he is 15. He was born the day that Kurt Cobain died. Everyone was running around school emotional and yelling 'KURT's DEADDDDDD! ARGGGGGHHHH' . And listening to Nirvana really painfully loud in the boarding house.
Even the housemasters weren't telling us to turn it down.
I was as much of a fan as everyone else, if not more. But still i kept yelling out 'SHUT IT! I have a brother!'
It sure was a sad and grand day all in one though. My mum sent me a photo of him in the post. He looked like a boiled chicken. But is now a striking young man.
Anyway we just discovered that we are both capable of chatting to each other on the computer.
Ben: 'Hey homo how is it going?'
me: 'Good thanks gaylord. What going on in that shithole freezing NZ winter?
'Just doing a homo assignment on terrorism'
'Cool.'
'Seeya'
'Later'

Tsunami Warning

I had been back in Berlin for two days lying around in bed relaxing, listening to Serge Gainsbourg, and researching Minotaurs on the internet when there was another tsunami warning back in New Zealand. I didn't really know how to take it as usually when New Zealand receives a tsunami warning our local beach at Mission Bay, Auckland (New Zealand, The World, The Solar System, The Milky Way, beyond the Milky Way, The Greater Cosmos The Universe, Infinity) will get a 20cm wave headed towards it at a rate of around 1 knot per decade. Everyone is encouraged to stay very clear of boats and beaches alike, just on the off chance one day there actually will be a real tsunami; one that could bestow destruction etc on Auckland City. Either way, I was in Europe and how the hell was I going to be able to tell when and what was going to happen. Naturally I wanted my family to be safe so I emailed my brother and told him to get the hell away from the coast or I would kill him.
He emailed back saying
'You are not the boss of me fatty. P.S. Don't forget to bring me back some DVDs from Berlin and don't forget that I have now got the big room so when you come back to stay you have to go in the little room, but there is a tv in there and you can use my old nintendo Game cube. I have sold most of the games on Trademe but Tiger Woods golf is still there. By the way, I will beat you at that game any day of the week. And also Mum said to tell you that we are well away from the coast but between you and I, I am thinking about sneaking out of the house and then texting her to say 'Hey, just gone down to Mission Bay to play hackey with some mates, be home later'. She would go ballistic and I could sneak back inside and film it on my phone and put it on youtube under 'Tsunami Warning turns old woman into crazed maniac'. See ya. P.P.S How is that pig of yours? Does it take a shit inside or what? Mum said that you are not allowed to keep it in the house and has been looking into farm stays for you to keep it at. I don't really care either way, except if it does a shit in my room, then I will be pissed off and probably kick it in the guts. Seeya

I am pretty proud to say that my brother is actually turning into a pretty funny kid, and I had a good feeling about coming home for the summer as to the amount of pranks we could play on my mum. Life was good.
I then also emailed my crazed fanatical accountant friend Gza to tell him to go and get an ice cream at Movenpick in Mission Bay because of the impending wave, as this would be his best chance at an 'easy way out'. I was referring to an easy way out of life, as he has been talking about wanting to die since the late 90's/ early millenium period when he was working at Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World as the penguin cleaner.
He agreed via email that this tsunami was in fact the perfect opportunity to be relieved from life but that he wanted to 'go out on a high' and decided the best way to do it would be to get a machine gun and head to the beach to 'shoot bullets at the wave' with a strategy of:
a) holding the gun in one arm like rambo
b) yelling out 'You call this a storm?' at God or whomever had sent the tsunami
c) clad in camouflage undergarments and his girlfriend Anna's house slippers
d) having a back up Samarai Sword to swing towards the wave at the final seconds in case the automatic mechanism on the gun jammed due to salt in the air

The picture he painted in my head made me smile internally, as the thought of Gza swinging a Samarai sword in his undies at an impending monster wave at a deserted yet picturesque inner city beach really was a scenario that dreams were made of.

On the off chance that a catastrophic sized tsunami was avoided and the usual 20cm piddler was on its way, this picture was just as good, If not better. As I visualised the moment where he realised that the tsunami had already hit, and the look of defeat on his face as he packed up his weapons to walk back to the car, put them in the back, and go back to work. Which would no doubt involve some form of excel spreadsheets on Profit and Loss and/or quarterly reports. It really was win win to be honest. Well for me anyway.

Paris then HOME

We had finished our London shows and toasted the night several times with friends and allies who lived there amongst the sprawling boroughs and rows of identical houses. The shows we played were nothing to write home about (not that I ever wrote home as my parents think of me as emotionally self sufficient and I am pretty much banished from all family trips), but the shows were essentially pretty lame. The pay was crap, the turnout was poor and I personally felt we had overstayed our welcome in what we collectively considered to be the most soul sucking city on the planet. It wasn't that our guests wanted us out, on the contrary, but the way we had been living on tour with a ten Euro a day budget each and the reliance on hospitality from venues and club promotors to make 3 meals a day happen, didn't really fit with the sinister and unwelcoming London music scene we were only semi involved with. Basically every promoter and venue owner in London can go jump in the lake and hang round treading water until they get eaten by a massive sea monster for all I care. Except Tim from the Brixton Windmill, who was really nice, and reminded me of some kind of IRA freedom fighter with rotten teeth and thick black rimmed glasses that made his eyes seem unsettlingly large. The Brixton Windmill also had a flat roof, on which lived a giant Rottweiler called Roofdog who would pace up and down and look at you while you were outside smoking and, I can only assume, was there to ward off bad humans and burglars alike after midnight. Roofdog and Tim were solid but everyone else to do with music in London can get two fingers up the butt from a giant as far as I am concerned.
After playing tuesday, wednesday and thursday night we woke early on a grey friday morning and got into Jim The Eagle our trusty van to head towards Paris. Most of the guys had not been before, and even though Rob, Sam and I had, we were pretty excited to get back there because there is lots to look forward to like baguettes and babes and historical crud.
The band were going to stay one night and drive back to Berlin the next day while I was going to stay on for a few more and fly home on the Tuesday by myself. I thought it was a good chance to get the hell away from my band for about two seconds and also the idea of taking in some culture to soak up didn't totally make me want to puke when it was in reference to Paris, which I think is the most beautiful city in the world. Well, that I have visited anyway.
On the drive down after we had caught the ferry from Dover to Bolougne I had a quick round of 'What's In My Pie?' with Sam and Reyahn - this time it was a rhinoceros and a sleeping bag - but then I went back to mucking round on my computer. I was busy concocting a list of things I could still do with my life if I got struck by lightning and went blind and deaf at exactly the same time. Part of me is always wary of this happening, and I feel it is sensible to have a list stored somewhere so that I don't spend a long time wallowing about it, but can get straight back on with my life if it were to happen.
I got quite far and in little over an hour had a list of around forty things. I was keen to get up to 52 initially so I had one thing a week to do already preplanned for the first year I was without sight and hearing. Some of the highlights were:
a)Stand at pedestrian crossings and hold my finger underneath the blind persons pole to get the electric shock that tells you to cross
b) Be a waiter at the restaurant in Berlin which is totally pitch black and has blind people as waiters. Actually, I just realised that I probably would not be very good at that if I was deaf to be honest. I will take that off the list.
c) Go bike riding in a big empty field
d) Go motor bike riding in a big empty field
e) Do pressups, situps and other fitness
f) Have sex with anyone I want without ever feeling like I am not physically attracted to them
g) Sit around in women's sections of changing rooms or saunas without ever having to feel like I am perving on them or eavesdropping on their conversation

Anyway, that is just the tip of the iceberg. I was probably better off making a list of the things i COULD'NT do, as it would be much smaller.
Listening to music and looking out the window would have to be added to the list, and I would no doubt have to hire someone to help me look after Kenny Powers the pig and complete his training to go for the Guinness World book of records record. That would be hugely disappointing. Anyway, I don't like thinking about what I could'nt do if I was made blind and deaf by lightning as it is a real downer, so I will continue to focus on the list of things I could do, because as far as I see it, the glass is still half full. When in Rome. I was happy where the list was at by the time we rolled in to the outer suburbs of Paris, they were dirtier than I remember but I didn't really give a flying crap as the sun was out and the rest of the band were busy looking out the windows so I didn't have to listen to a bunch of senseless yabbering. I was glad not to be in charge of driving the tour van because French drivers are ferocious and there seems to be no lanes on any of the roundabouts. Sam was driving who is pretty much blind, Paris is pretty much the most dangerous city in Europe to drive in, it was an amazing combination. I didn't really care, I have been ready to get taken out in traffic since I was 15. I was resigned to the fact I would die being hit by a bus or something of the like. So I just didn't care, I was in Paris, home of baguettes and chocolate stuffed croissants.
There is essentially nowhere in the world that I have ever seen which is as good looking as Paris and combining that with the amount of absolute crack pot crazy homeless people walking around yelling out crud, you have got a pretty good mix of the best elements that a city should have. It always warms my heart when I look around to see a bunch of people who are lot further down the crazy path than I am because As far as I know, I have been losing my mind for just over a decade.

Kenny Powers (the pig)

Kenny Powers has not been eating that much that stupid pig. He is possibly homesick, which is quite understandable. But anyway he needs to get his strength up that idiot. I have stopped eating bacon lately out of respect to him, so the least he can do is eat his nutri grains and normal grains and also his carbo shots that i put in his water bowl. Maybe he has growing pains. He has grown a lot even in the last two weeks. He seems pretty happy when we walk around Berlin and hang round in the park, however it has been hard finding anyone else with a pig that we can make friends with. I now know what it is like for people with kids who try and make friends with other people with kids, except it is even harder with a pig. I am considering taking us out to the country on the train to find an area with more pigs around.
Felix and Sam's moving business is pretty much taking off so that is pretty good. Pretty soon they will need to get an office and maybe even t-shirts made up. I have still yet to be offered to take on a moving job for them. But I am not pissed off or anything. In fact I am pretty happy just cruising around with Kenny Powers for now. I hope he doesn't grow so big that he will not fit in the basket on the back of Trent (my awesome bike).
When we are cruising the streets together like partners in crime I often daydream about how if I was rich I would buy a motorbike with a sidecar and cruise round the town with Kenny Powers sitting beside me wearing a leather pilots hats and sweet goggles. Pretty sure I would be 10 out of 10 irresistable to any babe that made eye contact with me or KP. I then wonder if KP is thinking something along similar lines.
Today we had to return some camera equipment back to a hire place about 5km away. It was part of my job for the day working as a runner on a fashion shoot. It was actually one of the only things I did except eat bagels and drink cokes. I also looked out the window quite a bit, which I am getting more and more addicted to.
Anyway, the lady who had hired this crap, I believe it was a silver reflective thing which you shine on the subject of the photo, gave me directions to the hire place. Just when I thought it was going to be pretty simple to find and I had my head around my route she said 'You can't miss it.'
YOU. CAN'T. MISS. IT. Can't I? Are you absolutely sure on this? NO. You CAN miss it.
She may as well have hexed the directions with 'May Satan speed you towards an unknown destination blind through the black night on a dark steed of doom.'
Because as soon as someone ends directions with 'You can't miss it' there is usually some characteristic about this destination that will make you miss it. And nine times out of ten you WILL miss it. And then have to turn back around, or stop, and call the idiot who told you you can't miss it and then talk about landmarks and if you have passed a certain T junction in the road or whatever.
Well guess what?
I missed it. Luckily I was prepared for this and had written down the address on my arm previously. I went in to a shop and the woman behind the counter knew where it was. And as I didn't understand all the dynamics of their German, even if they had tried to say 'You can't miss it' i was protected by the curse from not understanding that particular phrase in German.
However, I did cast my own curse on the lady who had sent me on my errand. And her future bloodline. After we dropped it off I didn't even return back to work. Me and Kenny decided to go hang out down by the river and just chill, as it was a nice evening.