Mel and I had walked into a restaurant that I’d never been in before. It had one of those country cottage motifs that usually nauseate me but it had these quirks about it that captured my interest. We sat down at a table close to the kitchen. Each place setting and menu was a set that came in a shallow dish. The table we sat at was faux green granite. We placed an order with an older waitress but I was talking about wanting to go to another restaurant to pick something up. It was some sort of Chili’s or Tex Mex style place that in my mind was nearby and we’d be able to return before our food was served.
We jumped on a big Harley panhead and rode down an alley that had interesting obstacles like a troupe of old “classic” red Honda Civics and delivery vans that were congregating and driving perpendicular to the alley. Then, there was the a large mound of car parts that had been covered by a giant tarp. We finally made it to the end of the alley where I made a right expecting to see the restaurant on my right, but it wasn’t there. I turned around and started to drive into a parking lot that might take me to a different alley but we stopped and ended up in a little cafe. We sat down at a table and I quickly noticed that there was no music playing. I asked them if they needed music in hopes that I could perform there. One of the girls working there told me that she was going to have a soul retrieval and that the person doing it was going to play the hollow bone. I asked who it was but she ignored me. In the back of my mind, I was feeling a bit guilty for leaving the other restaurant and I really did want to get back before the meal was served.
Suddenly the cafe changed into a different cafe and I had this white brick shaped digital cassette player with me. I was playing a heavy metal ballad for one of the waiters that worked there to demonstrate it’s peculiarity. He didn’t like it too much and walked away. A man sitting at a nearby table grabbed the player and started dismantling it. I got up and walked over to him and started grabbing the torn-apart pieces from him. He told me that he didn’t like the music and I explained that he still had no right to take what wasn’t his and destroy it. I called him an idiot and stormed back to my table. He got up to follow me. He was a very large man and as he got closer, he seemed more threatening. I awoke…
Tarradiddle (Sean Michael Imler and Bill Mason) are playing a house concert with Gazingas at 7pm, Friday April 2nd in Sunnyvale, CA. Contact me if you’d like to attend and I’ll add you to the eVite. If you haven’t heard us, we play folk rock covers and similar originals, both on acoustic guitar with lush harmonies. There are a couple of tracks on mySpace.
Tarradiddle
Rhythma Music | Comments Off on Tarradiddle House Concert
I’ve posted a small subset of the 1,000+ photos I took in New Zealand on Flickr. Mel and I traveled for 18 days in a campervan over both the South and North Islands, sleeping in motorparks and driving incessantly. We covered a lot of ground: South – Queenstown, Fiordlands, West Coast, East Coast, Marlborough, Abel Tasman, North – Wellington, Taupo, Rotorua, King Country, West Coast, Auckland.
The Pohutu geyser at Te Puia continuously spews water into the air. This picture is only a short burst. I have some others where it’s at least 20 feet if not more. I just love all the sulfur and iron in the rock.
Pohutu Geyser, Rotorua, New Zealand
I’m not sure this is really a weta. I actually think it’s more of a beetle but I can’t find anything like it in my search for New Zealand insects. The only bonafide weta I saw was dead unfortunately. They’re just the ugliest or prettiest things, depending on your pov. Kinda like a potato bug with wings. This little guy is just so photogenic tho, don’tcha think?
Thirsty Weta
Kawhia was one of the most beautiful places we visited. I was hard not to take a stunning picture and the day was perfect for it as it had been pouring down rain. The black sand beaches and one of the oldest Maori settlements, it held a lot of charm and the people were very friendly.
Kawhia Harbor
Life in General | Comments Off on Here in New Zealand, Part 4
After seeing the t-shirt with the man plowing the sheep from behind with the caption reading, “Men at Work”, I just wasn’t sure what to make of this advert in a shop window in Wellington for a watch maybe? I don’t even recall.
Man Sheep Advert
Just fantastic seeing this pool of boiling acidic liquid coming from the mother earth. She’s quite the artist. This is White Island, the most active volcano in New Zealand in the Bay of Plenty on the east coast of the North Island. Took a helicopter and a lot of money to get there but you couldn’t take a bad picture. It was amazing.
Acrid White Island Pool
I didn’t book enough time in Wellington. It was a pretty cool city but I was determined to spend more time in the country and less in cities. This motif is based on the ferns that grow all over New Zealand and influenced the majority if Maori design.
Wellington, New Zealand
The one that got away. The ship that was anchored broke away leaving the anchor stranded on the island. The ship got wracked up against the rocks and died there. So sad… But, the anchor sure is cool.
Anchor on White Island, New Zealand
Life in General | Comments Off on Here in New Zealand, Part 3
We went to Hokitika on the West Coast of the South Island for the Wildfoods Festival. This was year 21 and people come from all over, dressed in costumes like Halloween. There are booths offering an assortment of edible substances ranging from homemade licorice to grubs pulled from the bark of dying trees. I ate mountain oysters… ack! and Mel ate sand flies because he thought he was getting them back for eating him. We also tried worm truffles from this wonderful menu.
Wildfoods Festival in Hokitika, New Zealand
This was Abel Tasman National Park which we did a hike or “tramp” thru. The lagoon below was probably the furthest north of any privately held land. Chunks of land were granted decades ago for logging and farming and they were going to rampage this beautiful land like most of New Zealand, but for some reason that’s beyond my knowledge, they turned the area into a gorgeous national park but offered the land to the original claimants for habitation only. I’da taken it!
Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand
This was awesome. We did a trek from Tyrrant Bay to Anchorage Bay over an estuary during low tide which was incredible unto itself. But, when we got to Anchorage Bay, instead of heading to where our water taxi was to meet us, we went up the beach into this awesome alcove where we ran into a blue penguin in the wild. It was so cool to get up close to one of these adorable creatures and photograph him/her.
Blue Penguin
Life in General | Comments Off on Here in New Zealand, Part 2
I’ve taken about 300 pictures at this point and my Canon S500 is dying. I have almost 2 more weeks here and I may have to buy a new camera to make it. We cruised Doubtful Sound, drove to Milford Sound, horse back rode into the mountains that has left my incredibly sore, seen some amazing lakes and taken pictures of them. I’ll be uploading to Flickr soon. In the meantime…
Wiki Jack connected with us in the the Auckland airport and has been hangin’ with us since. This is in Doubtful Sound in the Fiordlands of the southern South Island.
Wiki Jack in Doubtful Sound
I’m not sure these cows have ever seen humans before and they were so curious about what we exactly were that they came walking across the field and stopped to stare at us.
I played a character in a short film called “Trail of Gold.” I also wrote an original song for the film and performed it in the film. The producer, Vincent Lowe posted a video on Youtube of the one take performance mixed as a vignette of scenes from the film. Unfortunately, the film’s editing wasn’t completed so you can’t see it in it’s entirety at this point and I haven’t cut this in the studio, but I was lucky to get this piece to share with you. I hope you enjoy it.
Rhythma Music | Comments Off on “What You Reap” – Video
I was walking down the dairy aisle in the super market. From the top shelf, I grabbed a jar or Best Foods mayonnaise. I was a little perplexed when this large jar of the creamy white delight felt so light, so I opened it. This brand new never opened jar was less than 1/8 full. Now, I’ve always detested when the container for a product is excessively large for the amount of product inside but this pushed it all to a whole new level. I felt completely vindicated in making my sandwich right there on the spot, recapping the mayonnaise and putting it back on the shelf and leaving.
Dream Journal | Comments Off on Jipped on Mayonnaise
