Wedding of the Year

I'm such a busy bee at the moment with work that I don't have a moment to scratch myself let alone blog...

I feel the need to quickly list the highlights of the Wedding of the Year between Marito and Mad Girl. OBF (Other Best Friend) took the Wedding photos, I'll post one when I have one but in the meantime, here's the invitation.

Edited highlights...

* Marito (in his fabulous Ozwald Boateng suit) and I drinking champagne together before the ceremony to calm his nerves;

* The group of hilarious "A-list Gays" (NOT) including Big Brother's Josh Rafter looking pumped full of steroids and leaving the wedding early to go to Revenge;

* Mad Girl's fantastic fifties inspired, powder pink dress - and how much weight she'd lost! (laxatives, surely!?);

* The photo shoot on Brighton Beach with champagne;

* Wedding Speeches by Mad Girl's 2 sons - both made me cry;

* The Crispy Pork Belly I ate for my lunch;

* Ziggy slumped on a seat at the end of the evening asking random people to remind him what his name was.

Smooth Moves

I'm still here.

Just recovering from moving in to our new mews house.

And the Wedding of the Year.

Exhaust-Head.

Awakening

A little while ago, I ended up in bed with somebody who is a very good friend. We have been friends for some time - I really value his friendship. I have never done something like that before but it felt entirely right - there has always been a certain sexual tension in our friendship.

Bizarrely though, it awoke something within me. I've been by myself for a while now, and I think I had neglected to remember what intimacy at that level is like. Because him and I are good friends, the whole thing felt entirely natural and comfortable - tickling... laughing; he burped... I laughed; he held me in bed... I sighed.

I had thought for a while that I was better off being single - I know that this has to do with trust issues and resultant barriers I've placed around myself subsequent to The Wanker.

But this little interlude suddenly re-reminded me what is so good about being in a relationship - those pure moments of connection which might not seem that significant but feel really, really special.

Just a moment...

F/BF (Flatmate/Best Friend) and I started our move over the weekend. GB (Ginger Boss) had been kind enough to loan me her car so that we could start moving over things like books, glassware, crockery, etc. It wasn’t too bad, although by Saturday afternoon when I was driving the car across London back to GB’s place I was pretty exhausted.

By the time I reached GB’s I was desperate for a drink of the alcoholic variety and thankfully, so was GB. We ended up in Balham Kitchen & Bar, and one drink turned in to five. (Ziggy the devil strikes again).

Anyway, I had to take the tube home and feeling slightly intoxicated, put my iPod on. At Elephant & Castle station I changed on to the Bakerloo line, and on the way down the platform walked past a very attractive looking guy (Blonde Adonis) walking in the opposite direction. He glanced at me but I was almost certain he was straight. And even if he was gay, he was completely out of my league.

I got on the Bakerloo line tube in the last carriage and awaited the train to depart. Three minutes wait is a long time on the London Underground! Just before the train departed, I was slightly bewildered to see Blonde Adonis jump on to my carriage – why? Just a few minutes ago I had seen him walking in the opposite direction.

I soon realised that Blonde Adonis was rather drunk. He almost fell in to the woman sitting next to him when he sat down, and smirked to himself in a goofy stylee. I smirked back because I knew the feeling (and his smile made me feel warm and fuzzy). The tube is quite a surreal place when you’re drunk – you realise that everyone around you potentially thinks you are an idiot, but what do you care?

All of a sudden I realised that Blonde Adonis was staring intently at me. Of course, I refused to look anywhere near his direction. I am crap at situations like this, particularly when I find someone physically attractive.

A few stations on and Blonde Adonis stood up (almost falling on top of me in the process). He stood right in front of me and stared at me, before walking to the nearest door (stumbling in the process but pretending to stretch whilst glancing over at me).

As the doors opened, he looked at me and mouthed ‘get off here with me’. I obviously looked confused so he repeated the command ‘get off here with me’.

I shook my head (probably not that convincingly as I really wanted to get off with him – in every sense of the expression) and as the door pulled shut, he stood with his arms held wide apart and a sad puppy dog look on his face as the train pulled away.

A girl sitting opposite me then indicated for me to take my earphones out, which I did:

Tube Girl: “um…. Why the hell didn’t you get off with him??”

I so didn’t have a good answer to that question.

My first ever gig

I read Marni's post today, and it reminded me of a very special life moment for me.

When I was a very little boy, we used to live next to a family who had two teenage children - whom I thought were supercool. At the age of 6, the girl in the house used to babysit me (she would have been around 14 I guess) and play me her vinyl records. She was a bit of a bogan, but at the age of 6 I could not imagine anything cooler than black ugg boots, skinny tight black jeans and a flannelette shirt.

About this time I started to acquire an taste in rock music; the band who really captured my imagination were KISS. Here were these 4 really mysterious men wearing make up and lycra suits, one whose tongue was so long that there were rumours he'd had it lengthened. They played tunes that made this little 6 year old think he was somewhere a million miles away from Perth suburbia. (yes, the suffocation of suburban life was getting to me even at 6 years of age...)

So when my mother heard that KISS were playing a live rock concert at the Perth Entertainment Centre the following year, she decided to do the most amazing thing. She camped overnight in front of the centre with my best friend's mother to secure tickets for us all.

And so it came about that my first ever gig was KISS, at 7 years of age. Mum bought me some skinny black jeans and a Paul Stanley t-shirt, we turned up at the gig, the only slight dampener being when Mum made me put cotton wool in my ears.

I love my Mum. She rocks, much more than KISS .

playmeyours

Remember I told you about the most fabulous Random Girl and the mp3-jack-swapping-incident which restored my faith in humanity? Well I received this little treat in my inbox today:

Hello Zig,

It's Random Girl. Colour me happy - I'm grinning from ear to ear. You have no idea how much YOU'VE made MY day just from reading your blog! If I have achieved anything in life, it was asking you to playmeyours - which was my own personal challenge - to ask someone who was listening AND reading at the same time. Most of the time that screams 'DO NOT DISTURB' but you engaged and I was so grateful.

I'm working with a couple of friends on ideas for my site. Now, I've just had a big push to get this sorted!!

Thanks again for that great recap of our 'moment'. Really special.

Until the next time...

RG x

I *so* hope that Random Girl gets this site up and running before some big corporation like Apple do it before her... GO Random Girl, GO!!

Reading Material

Huge weekend, completely trashed, my brain is numb - so best I can do is this tag given to me by the most glorious Dabich:

1. One book that changed your life: Sarah by J.T. Leroy.

2. One book that you’ve read more than once: The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: The Complete David Bowie by Nicholas Pegg.

4. One book that made you laugh: Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs.

5. One book that made you cry [or feel really sad]: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami.

6. One book that you wish had been written: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides.

7. One book that you wish had never been written: How the Dead Live by Will Self.

8. One book you’re currently reading: The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri.

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

10. Now tag some other people: I tag Good Girl, Erik and CuteCTGuy!

I've just noticed that I've been tagged by Good Girl, bear with me GG - I promise I'll do it when my brain is back in gear!

Mix Tape

Desperately Seeking Translator

I've been listed on some French blog called Le R*ck est m*rt (Rock is Dead?!) bizarrely but given I can't understand French, am not entirely sure why.

I attempted to work out this mystery with the use of an online translating tool. I started with the phrase: être tombé sur un blog décadent and it threw me two possibilities:

1. to have fallen on a decadent blog; or

2. to have fallen on a declining blog.

um, I'm *really* hoping it is the first option. Does anyone speak French? If so, please go to the site and let me know whether I'm marvellous or simply merde...

Porny Art and Random Girls

I went to see the premiere of Destricted at the Tate Modern tonight. OBF (Other Best Friend) was supposed to be accompanying me but unfortunately couldn't make it from the airport in time (he was arriving back from Amsterdam where he had been to see Madonna).

Given the material, he was literally about the only person I would have felt comfortable sitting next to. The 7 short films explore the lines between art and pornography, and the producers have commissioned some really interesting (and controversial in their own right) artists; Matthew Barney, Marina Abramovic, Larry Clarke, Marco Brambilla, Richard Prince, Sam Taylor-Wood and Gaspar Noé.

Sam Taylor-Wood's piece felt quite obvious, to the point that one member in the audience proclaimed a large sympathetic 'oh' when the man masturbating in Death Valley reached his denoument, with a rather disappointing amount of jizz (if any?). Similarly obvious was We Fuck Alone by Noé, although rather more disturbing.

Matthew Barney's piece, Hoist was typically visceral and really rather beautiful, albeit tense to watch (especially for a man wondering what might happen to the bloke who was being filmed if his tackle got caught in the machinery...)

Marian Abramovic's ode to Balkan folklore had the entire audience chortling with delight, but the highlight of the films for me was Larry Clarke's superb deconstruction of how people born after 1980 have been shaped by their heightened access to pornography - Impaled. As usual, Clarke's focussed (and slightly perverted) vision seems to manage to strike exactly the right balance between making his audience feel amused and simply dirty.

I caught the tube home with my head full of tits, cocks, butts and money shots listening to my ipod, when a Random Girl got on and gestured to my ipod...

Random Girl: What are you listening to?

Ziggy: David Bowie.

Random Girl: Right, I do this thing where I ask someone on the tube to play me a track of theirs that they've been listening to loads and I play them one of mine. Are you up for it?

Ziggy: Yeah, sounds cool.

We then proceed to play one another our chosen tracks (I chose to play her Joan As Policewoman's 'Save Me', while she played me 'Do Not As I Do' by Hanne Hukkelberg). I loved that moment. One girl bored of the benign attitude of London tube travellers decides to engage people through music.

This little interlude couldn't have come at a better time to be honest. It shifted my rather dark mood and I got to listen to some fantastic new music in the process. Thanks Random Girl.

'cause you can never really tell

My weekend: started writing my business plan for Australia, laughed and cried with OBF (Other Best Friend), caught up with FLiH (Friend Living in Houston) who was visiting for the weekend for dinner and drinks and then sat on my sofa today and had some time by myself - the first time it seemed in ages. My bipolarity was in full force, of course.

Stay - that's what I meant to say or do something
But what I never say is stay this time
I really meant to so bad this time
'Cause you can never really tell when somebody
Wants something you want too

Homo-Tag

CuteCTGuy has tagged me (oo-er, missus) - but as usual it's taken me a few days to do it.... !

1... Things that scare me
dishonesty
fear
insincerity

2...People who make me laugh

Gina Riley aka Kim
Catherine Tate
My B.I.L. (Brother In Law)

3...Things I hate the most

Ignorance
Coldplay
Unclaimed farts

4...Things I don't understand

Life
My Brain
The Middle East crisis

5...Things I'm doing right now

Typing this
Pretending to work
Drinking coffee

6...Things I want to do before I die

Meet David Bowie
Have sex with David Bowie
Marry David Bowie

7... Things I can do

Laugh
Cry
Dance

8... Ways to describe my personality

Honest
Stubborn
Contradictory

9... Things I can't do

Lie to people I love
A backflip (which really bothers me)
Curl my tongue

10...Things I think you should listen to

David Bowie
Kate Bush
Radiohead

11...Things you should never listen to

Listen to anything you like, why should I tell you what not to listen to?!?

12...Things I'd like to learn

To play the piano
To speak Japanese
More about human psychology

13...Favorite foods

Barbequed Seafood
Any Japanese food
Confit de Canard

14...Beverages I drink regularly

Water
Coffee
Gin

15...Shows I watched as a kid

Fraggle Rock
The Muppet Show
Monkey aka Monkey Magic!





I now tag Good Girl, the very bovvered Dale AND Bluez ;-)

Happy Weekends!