In bad news Waterfront Auckland has pulled the pin on the Auckland project. I was really excited about the prospect of getting out of town and representing Christchurch during the Rugby World Cup.

In preparation for the event, Waterfront Auckland has developed a bunch of hospitality tenancies on the North Wharf. At the last minute one tenant pulled out and in a panic they called my old mate Johnny d to see if he could throw together a pop-up bar to run during the tournament. He already has two new restaurants to open and threw the opportunity my way.

So I flew up and looked at the space and decided we could do something pretty cool. I had this great idea that we could do a Christchurch thing. We would fly up Christchurch bands each week and they would work for a share of the turnover. This would mean we could promote Christchurch music and these guys could get a gig and make some money (both of which are tough to do in this city at present).

We would do Canterbury wines and Christchurch craft beers and fly up some of our best chefs to represent the province. We gathered together the old gang from way back in the early Cartel days with the plan of injecting a little bit of our city into the tournament and reminding visitors that Christchurch wasn’t finished just yet.

So I pitched this to them and they were very supportive of the idea. I flew up to Auckland a bunch of times, setting up suppliers and bludging all the equipment I would need. Two weeks and a couple of grand later and some egg-head at Waterfront Auckland decided against the plan. Where I had been getting nothing but support for my plan, suddenly I couldn’t get anyone to answer their phone and then I was informed that live music did not fit the mix. The whole thing was a bit alternative and they didn’t want “a bunch of scruffy kids damaging our tenancy”.

Now, I have worked creating precincts in the past. I know that the mix is important and some concepts don’t fit the mix. And I know that what we were proposing was edgier and dirtier than what they have up there, but I thought that was the point. I thought it would be fun to bring a crowd down to the waterfront who might not otherwise participate in the RWC. I also thought the feel-good element of the concept was something that visitors, Aucklanders and Cantabrians would embrace and support.

What fucks me off is that I feel like I was strung along and essentially told that all I needed to do was sign-up and it would happen. I wasted a couple of weeks of my time when I could have been working on setting up something down here. I wasted a couple of grand and while that’s not a heap of money, it’s enough when you have fuck-all and what you do have you are trying to pay your mortgage with. Then I had the carpet pulled out from under me at the last minute because some fuckwit is precious of his Gib-board.

So any of you that are heading to Auckland are to avoid North Wharf and are instead to support Johnny d’s empire which includes Britomart Country Club, 1885, Racket Bar and Angents and Merchants. I am indebted to him because he has now provided employment to the people who had given up their jobs to come up and work for me. So “thanks” to Johnny and crew and “fuck you” to Waterfront Auckland.

A couple of weeks of little activity, a bit of bloody snow, and then this week it’s all on.

My house got a red sticker which was exciting. This meant it was illegal to enter the property. They slapped it up and drove off without even ringing the buzzer and telling me that I was breaking the law by sitting on my couch and looking at motorbikes on the Internet.

I called the Council, I called CERA, I called the Council, I called CERA, nobody knew who had put the sticker on and why it was there. In the end I left a bunch of abusive messages on various people’s phones and the following day some egg-head from the Council came and removed it. Really, I am starting to worry about the people that are in charge of this city.

In other news I got to go into the Red Zone for the first time. The Red Zone is the part of the city the public aren’t allowed into. I do know of two retarded friends of mine who drank 23 pints at Poms and decided to break into the Red Zone just to proove they could. Well, they got in and didn’t get caught – hiding in shadows while the army drove past and climbing over razor wire – but that doesn’t mean they aren’t idiots. Afterward I asked what it was like in there and all they could remember was that it was very dark and one of them had a squeeky shoe. But that’s another story for another day…

Yesterday, I got in by legal means to empty a friend’s office. You are accompanied by an engineer and you’ve got to wear all the safety gear etc. It’s very exciting to go where nobody besides Prince William and Rachel Hunter can. I can report that shit’s totally fucked in there and a saddening amount of empty lots creep ever closer to Poplar Lanes.

Finally, I’ve been offered a sweet job in Auckland for two months to run a bar for the Rugby World Cup. While I am working furiously to re-open a bar in Christchurch, it has been frustrating and I’ve been running dangerously short of money. So, the chance to get an income was pretty appealing. Plus the idea of the bar is to showcase Christchurch music, so it’s not like I’m heading up to run a Tui Clubrooms. Fear not people, we will re-open in Christchurch as soon as possible. We just need the bar to be either knoecked down, or not not knocked down so that our insurance company can make sweet love to us.

If you haven’t already been down, you should check out the Brewery in Woolston. It’s great to have somewhere new to visit and nice to have anywhere to get intoxicated on the East Side of town. Tim is working there which means you can get that surly service that you all knew and loved at Goodbye Blue Monday.

So, if you’re wondering what to do this Saturday Night (July 23), come down and check out Von Klap, Undercurrents and DJ Big Gay Tony. I believe Von Klap are among the top seven bands performing in Christchurch this weekend, so make sure you pop down and check out what the lack of fuss is about.

Simon from Deflux sent me through a link to a bunch of photos he took of Motorcycle Restoration Night back in the good old days when the only shaking we did was of whiskey sours.

I think when we get another bar up-and-running, the motorbikes will be a bigger part of the place as this means we will be able to create a job for Greg.

I like this video. The clutch is too fucked to engage the gears so Greg has someone lift the back up and slams it into gear for his burnout (for the record I got the bike started when Greg couldn’t). How many bars have you been to where they have vintage bikes doing burn-outs while you enjoy your pint? This is what I look for in a drinking establishment that I am going to frequent.

I don’t know what you’re doing this weekend, but if you’re in Smash City you should head on down to C4 Coffee at 274 Tuam St this Saturday afternoon.

RDU is launching its mobile broadcast studio, a radio station built in an old horse truck. There are tons of excellent bands playing and Von Klap will be performing as well.

The event runs from midday ’til 11pm and you should all make an effort to get down and support such an excellent gig.

See you there.

I miss all the staff from the bar and the fun we had while pretending to work. I used to see Rosie a couple of times a week, now I see her monthly. This makes me sad…

Rosie has been my sister since I was eight. She came into the world early one morning on my parents’ bed. She was an en-caul birth, which meant she was born in a mucusy wee sac. In the old days, sailors used to believe carrying one of these sacs would save you from drowning at sea.

She was pretty cool as a baby and Pam appreciated having children old enough to babysit. As a small kid, she was very cute (even with terrible eczema), and while the rest of us all hated one another until we were old enough to bond over booze in our twenties, we all loved Rosie to bits.

She’s grown up into a lovely young woman with a wicked sense of humour and since starting work at Addington Coffee Co-Op seems to have developed a work ethic she never had when she worked for me. She’s moved out of home, got a new boyfriend and started the process of growing up. This is hard, because to me she will always be about nine years old; that scratchy wee kid that I used to read bedtime stories to. I miss the way she used to look up to me and think everything I did was awesome (even when I was a horrible white-trash bogan). Isn’t it funny how the early relationships you have with people affect the way you interact throughout your lives?

When dad was in politics there used to be a rumour around town that Anna and I had a different mother than Tim and Rosie. I think if you look at Pam, Rosie and me, you can see three people swimming in a shared gene pool.

So, that’s my kid sister. I thought I’d better introduce you to her. People have been hassling me to write something, and I thought I’d introduce you all to the cast of characters that populate my life.

Hey Rosie. Get you nose out of Facebook you little skank and give me a call. It would be cool to hang sometime…

Since February, there has been a plus side to the whole disaster situation. I’ve been hanging out way more with Juliet, my old friends and my family.You see, I used to work most hours of most days and then I’d sleep my way through Sunday and “bang” it’s Monday and you’re back into it. Now I have a lot more time on my hands.

My nephew Tom is one of the most awesome blokes I know. His main interests are phoning Jock and motorcycles. Over the past few months I have been spending heaps of time with the little man.

At two years old he can already ride a push bike with trainer wheels and competently balance on the front of a motorbike at pace. In CYF related news, he has a scar on his head from where he split it open on the motorbike. In our defence, we did buy him a wee helmet after the accident and besides, he’s smashed his head open doing all sorts of much safer activities.

Today Tom and I hung out. We went to the cafe for a fluffy and a flat white, to the bike shop for a browse, dropped off a few things about town, looked up motorbikes on the Internet, went and looked at a building to see if we could make it into a bar and ate gingerbread men (actually Tom ate the lollies and icing off the thing, then pretended it was a cell phone and talked to Jock until his ear and hair were covered in the remaining chocolate).

The best game we came up with was driving at pace along earthquake damaged roads. Where you normally avoid pot-holes and Madras Street, in this game you head toward the hazards at full noise and shout “bump” as the old ute bounces about the place. Look at how stoked he is in his little jersey. Don’t you think he’s choice?

Since the quakes, I have been spending a lot of time in one garage or another, the new cool place to hang out with your buddies and drink cheap beer. I thought I’d introduce you all to a couple of my favourite garages.

Today we start with Malcolm Cameron’s garage. In the Vintage Car Club, Malcy’s shed is a thing of legend. It is two floors, full-to-the-brim of so much treasure that some of us have been begging Malcolm for mining rights for years. Malcolm is a retired panel-beater and has filled the shed with so much stuff that he now has to do all his work on the back lawn, where the shed has spilled out the side door and began growing across the section.

I have often been impressed watching Malcy bang away with a hammer – seemingly not concentrating – until at the end of a session he is left with a perfect panel.

There are whispers of a Lotus Cortina and all manner of treasure buried inside and you know that what is undiscovered will be seriously exciting as Malcolm is the sort of guy that had a Pierce Arrow under a hedge for so many years that he ended up giving the thing away for nothing.

Well, there was an earthquake and the old shed really started falling over, sitting at 30 degrees off centre by the time we all showed up to help him on Saturday. So a bunch of Chiefs with not an Indian in sight, spent a couple of hours telling one another what to do and we jacked the thing up to level and tied it up with strops. Now he can wait for the EQC experts to show up and try to make sense of the mess.

This is the sort of fun we get up to in Christchurch these days.

Here is a lovely photo of Malcy that Mark Gore took a couple of years ago, when he and I were younger and thought we were going to be photographers and journalists when we grew up.

(c) Mark Gore 2007

Sometimes life kicks you in the guts enough times that you start to feel a little down. You see, it doesn’t matter if the glass is half full or half empty if its contents is human shit.

Two nights ago, our drains went into reverse, covering the whole downstairs of our apartment with human shit. And I’m not just talking smelly water here. I’m talking actual, identifiable feces. This would be bad enough if it was just my own shit, but it was a combination of all the scat from the whole street, all mixed together with little bits of toilet paper.

Really horrible stuff.

So we’ve had to move out. But it means from now when you see me, I am going to be one of those glum guys, who sighs deeply all the time and cannot see the good in any situation.

Here’s a nice photo of my shower.

Dear Diary,

Sorry I haven’t written in a while. I have been too busy feeling sorry for myself and lying on the floor of the shower, crying until the water runs cold.

For a couple of days it looked like we might get into Goodbye Blue Monday. Sam from C1 got close and snapped the picture below. A lady at the Council was arranging for me to get to a point where I could at least stand outside and look. Could I get in and salvage some shit? Take the toilet door and find how much Tony d and Tim owed on their tabs?

Then there was another fucking 6.4 and word is that access probably won’t happen.

So you’re stuck with a Catch 22. You can’t get a pay-0ut on your shit because some of it is still currently there and who’s to say what’s fucked and what’s not. We wait. In order to get loss of trade insurance you have to open the business again. You can’t just shut up shop and move to somewhere with no earthquakes like Wellington. You’re left with no money to set up in a city where any spaces available are snapped up straight away. Landlords are getting greedy and nobody really knows what the requirements for a safe building will be in the future.

So that’s where we are at currently. Shit’s fucked. But don’t worry, we will be opening another pub as soon as possible. In the meantime we have received a request from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment to write some more. I think she needs both viewers of this blog to understand that Goodbye Blue Monday wholeheartedly supports extensive use of 1080 Poison. If we had our way we’d have them dropping it from helicopters over our bar to feed the rats that are still enjoying our rotten pies and mashed potato.