Blissismthings are always happening... Wednesday, August 28, 2002Tiiired. Two great days in the Bay including catching up with old haunts & friends & finding new ones too. All ready to head off for Black Rock City, NV in the morning. Need...sleep... .: posted by Rob Stevens | 8:55 AM |Tuesday, August 27, 2002Helene, who we're staying with at the moment, is in the second pic, both pix taken after the Phoenix Festival. Neither Helene or I have never met Jess, in the first pic, who writes Poprocks. Helene's pic from her husband Vinz's site. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 7:42 AM |Sunday, August 25, 2002By the way, the time stamp on these posts is GMT, not local time, so subtract 8 hours if you need to know. And the archives are being painful but will be fixed soon. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 6:49 PM |Morro Bay Morro Bay is a strange place, in a fun way. The town is dominated by two things, a bloody great big Gibraltaresque rock and a bloody great big power station. An interesting juxtaposition of man & nature to say the least. We had a easy 120 mile drive up from SB yestrday taking in the coast, farmland, mountains and the rather smart collection of music we've brought with us but the Saturday night in Morro Bay was a good time. The whole tourist quayside end of town seems to shut up once all the families have rolled off to bed around 10. Being good li'l British boys we headed off for the 'village' part of MB - a whopping two blocks up from the quayside - and got to get drunk with the locals including a very chatty lady, Jane, who filled us in on local politics, local weather and the reason she moved to MB from upstate New York..."the kids left home & there was noone around to unfreeze my car in the winter". She also reminded me of the fact that California is to the US what the US is to the rest of the world. More about that later... Should really get a scoot on as we're going to do the premium leg of the trip, San Simian to Monterrey via Big Sur. Should get some pix up before too long once we get camped up with Helene & Vinz in Palo Alto. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 6:30 PM |Saturday, August 24, 2002Santa Barbara Got to LA, spent the late afternoon chilling at Venice Beach, right here in fact & then headed north to SB & grabbed a room at the Lemon Tree Motel, built on the site of the first Californian motel. Despite no sleep we were up after 6 hours, on the beach at 8 and into Sambos for Jonn's first big American Breakfast. Endless coffee, stack o' pankakes & syrup, home fries, an omlette you could camp in, muffins & some SB street life. And if you are wondering about the use of 'Sambos' as an eating establishment name - and I was - look here and here. Got a bonus on the way back to the motel as we went past Pershing Park & saw a softball tournament in progress. We parked up & sat on the bleachers with Jonn giggling away like a kid, chuffed to bits at having his own American Dream of beach, ball game & guys called Chuck & Hutch giving it high fives all round. As a lover of skateboarding, The Doors, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, relaxed living & good looking women, he thinks he's found his spiritual roots. I'm inclined to agree & on top of my own enjoyment at being back here, it's good fun seeing Jonn having a ball. Stops me getting all 'been there' on our ass. It's good to be back...very good. Now we head north up Route 1. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 9:24 PM |Thursday, August 22, 2002California [& Nevada] Dreamin' Oh yess. 24 hours and Jonn & I will be sitting on a 747 ready to be jetted over to LA. A few days to drive up the coast to Palo Alto to meet up with Hélène & her husband Vinz and then we get our collective [word for the week it seems] arse together for the trip out the Black Rock City, NV. We're ganging up with a sound system who are will be camped up at 300' & Esplanade. It's finally hitting home that I'm going back after 4 long years. Excited is a verb that only just touches the periphery of how I'm feeling at the moment...and I'm not the only one it seems. This is what was going on last time I was there. I DJed just after the burn on this fantastic work of art which was an experience in itself. Everyone was dressed up & in such a party mood and I got what seemed like the whole city passing in front of me all going for it big time. Wonder what the Finley Fryer folks are doing this year..? I have a 'plane ticket, a passport, my driving licence and functioning credit cards therefore I am ready. I just wish Love of Life were coming too *sigh*... .: posted by Rob Stevens | 12:32 PM |Sunday, August 18, 2002seven inch collective | Rog, the brain behind and owner of the sound system, represented at the West Pier this afternoon. More on this in the future... .: posted by Rob Stevens | 11:27 PM |Comments added. The march of technology continues...click on the comments link at the end of each post to, er, comment... Updates on football, including some nifty panoramas of Withdean & Madejski stadiums, and some more mush to follow. Love of Life is on the beach running our summer market stall & I've been given special dispensation to get all of my shit together for the US trip today so I'd best not be 'blogging until I can do it on work time... However, this man deserves to be the next US president for this comment regarding this topic. We can but dream. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 3:52 PM |Friday, August 16, 2002And so to Guildford. [Hey, this boy gets to visit all the best places]. Inna?Forest 3. An utterly fantastic party in a forest [geddit?!?]. 'Somewhere' near Guildford. A yearly crew party for the Poleshift collective and it kept up the tradition of crew parties being the best. Poleshift are a bunch of extremely varied & extremely groovy folks who do all sorts of party-related stuff from DJing, through decor, rigging, lights, sound systems, performance, promoting &c., &c. all held together by the human vortex of getting cool shit done, *Ting* – The High Priestess of Having It Large. We all had a fun time catching up with old faces and meeting fun new ones. A few pix here. Camera was a bit wobbly... *ahem* And it just so happened that our lift back to dear ol' Brighton was leaving from a Liquid Connective do a few miles up the road and with the luck of a good party still smiling on us, we copped a luxury ride with some fellow I?F3 peeps who were heading off to the very same. [And thankyewverymuch to Roly & his big ol' boat of a car.] By the time we'd wriggled through to the farmland venue it was noon on Sunday and the order of the day was only going to be the ever-blissful lying on yer back & watching fluffy clouds gently scud & roll across a beautiful summer sky. Niiice. A very leisurely ride back to the seaside, a tiny drink in the pub & Love of Life & I fell asleep in each other's arms in front of the Test match. Now I may not be able to hack a missed night of ZZZs like I used to - although I've never been too good without my sleep - but, hell, it was worth it. A fantastic weekend...as I say, pure blissism. And well look now. Friday evening brings another weekend & this time it is to Reading. Although this time next week I'll be swinging in to land at LAX airport. OK, steady on lad...one weekend at a time... .: posted by Rob Stevens | 9:47 PM |Thursday, August 15, 2002Well, 'ood a fort it? The first week this bunch o' blatherin' goes online & Blissism goes straight to the top of the Google search for, er, 'blissism' [and check the extreme competition - I'm proud of myself]. It's a foot to bottom situation people. And no need for any of that Google Bomb business like some unscrupulous journalists I could mention. And the weekend, despite what could have been a rocky start, was pure blissism. Elaborate I shall... Malc & Sophane, two of my best friends ever, were due to drive into town for an evening of drinkie fun on Friday. Until I got a call from Malc who was sitting by a dual carriageway outside Southampton. Tip for driving: avoid lumps of rock in the road. Good things did arise from not boozin' on Friday night however. There is never really a good side to your upstairs neighbour hammering on the front door at 4 o'clock in the morning to tell you that rain is waterfalling through her ceiling and you're next, but sans encroaching hangover was a bonus. Twenty minutes of racing around with buckets and blankets later and Love of Life & I are back up in the mezzanine wondering how many cute animals you have to kill before the wheel of karma pokes a spoke through your roof the weekend before the the guy who has just made an offer on your flat sends his surveyor round. I reckoned loads. Love of Life was asleep by this point...fingers x'ed for Upstairs Neighbour Four hours later [whimper] and a new season begins. The Nationwide League Football Season. Yay! Nine months of footie, banter, beer, highs, lows, in-betweens, shouting, holding-face-in-hands-whilst-banging-head-on-the-back-of-the-seat-in-front and really, really crap train services. An 8.30am start for a 1pm arrival in Coventry. The line between Euston and Milton Keynes is out until mid-December so instead of a brief stop at MK station we have to endure the urban sub-hell that is the UK's most notorious 'New Town' as we swing through in a coach. And it ain't notorious for being baaad, just for being blaaaand. 150 miles. Four-and-a-half hours. Thank you Railtrack. You Fuckweasles. But it was worth it in the end as we got to witness a first day of the season win. They all count, even if Sheffield United were more interested in hitting bits off the Mir Space Station... [more to follow] .: posted by Rob Stevens | 6:21 PM |Friday, August 09, 2002So what is this all about? [I ask this question as much for my own benefit as anyone else's]. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 4:50 PM |Thursday, August 08, 2002More testing...blogging from Love of Life's work place. Brighton..? Hove, actually. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 6:38 PM |And while I'm linking to good things I should mention So many islands, so little time the weblog of Joe Friend. [And how could you not like something created by someone called 'Joe Friend'?] Originally from Seattle, USA, Joe & the family have been living in Indonesia (Bandung, Java) for nearly five years and his 'blog provides a good source for Indo-news-junkies such as myself. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 3:39 PM |Testing this AC/DC board meeting transcript from stavrosthewonderchicken's site in the 'Blog This!' box. .: posted by Rob Stevens | 3:15 PM |Right, added the picture link at the top. My head hurts... .: posted by Rob Stevens | 2:55 PM |Poprocks, Cockeyed Absurdist and Lightningfield, although very different, inspired this place. I shall try and take some responsibility for myself but then that's no fun... .: posted by Rob Stevens | 1:41 PM | |
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