Prince and the Pauper

I'm going to see Prince. I doubt he'll see me but I'll see him looking like a spangly speck through my specs at the opposite end of Rod Laver arena on May 30th. It nearly didn't happen. Tickets to this major event went on sale at 9am yesterday and Ticketek confirmed this by telling me tickets were being sold to a major event while refusing to let me buy tickets to their major event every 20 seconds. At 9:20am Ticketek let me in very slowly, and I bounded in at dial-up speed to find the only tickets left were in the Purple Circle and cost $450 each. Admittedly that included a ride on his purple motorbike and a free copy of The Watchtower, but I just couldn't bring myself to love Prince that much. My love for Prince is closer to the colour of Silver Reserve, and those tickets had long gone...or so I thought. Because just as I was about to give up partying like it's 1999 for $99 + booking fee, Prince's diary suddenly freed up and he announced another gig the next night. I wonder who has the audacity to cancel on Prince at such late notice. Maybe he was meant to go door knocking and somebody lost the squiggle badge? Either way it was a miracle for me, and I leapt back into the Ticketek fray naively believing two silver seats would soon be mine. But no, too slow. Much too slow. It was Purple Zone or Purple Reserve Floor or nothing. No Prince for Greg.

I abandoned my computer and cheered myself up by making a cup of Dilmah with lactose and gluten free Almond milk and roughaged it down with some wheat and gluten free muesli and lactose and gluten free Almond milk. Then I stroked the cat and washed my hands afterwards just in case I stroked myself. Feeling much better about everything I returned to my computer and saw I wasn't the only one having to resort to gluten free gluttony and pussy stroking to get over the disappointment of missing out on The Squiggles. I hadn't been that sad since Robyn pulled out of Stereosonic and The Feelers pulled out of a parking space without getting crushed by a double decker bus or ten ton truck.

And then it happened. It was truly miraculous. Not quite as truly miraculous as Prince knocking on my door wanting to talk about Jesus and show me his purple circle, but pretty damn close. For some unfathomable reason I returned to pick the Ticketek scab and there it was, Prince had found himself at a loose end on Wednesday May 30th and booked another gig. I raced through the screens and before I could say in France a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name, I was the proud owner of two seats in Area UPP, Section S32-A, Row OO...Price Category: Silver Reserve! They could be the shittiest seats in a 14,820 capacity arena. How cool is that?

And now while you're doing things like stroking your cat while watching Seal on The Voice on May 30th, I'll be squinting at Prince from a distance and jiggling to hits like Little Red Corvette, Raspberry Beret, and the one about how difficult it is to put the top on a bottle of cream. Jealous much?

Prince's latest 12"

Painting in the Streets

One of the great things about living in Melbourne is being surrounded by amazing street art. A few weeks ago I went on a street art tour operated by the appropriately named Melbourne Street Art Tours, and some of the stuff we saw was pretty awe-inspiring...none more so than this.

It was created over a couple of days by a group of French graffiti artists called Da Mental Vaporz. It's very big and very awesome and gets even better close-up.

 

I especially love this section featuring two moles tumbling from the dinosaur's turf hamstring.

What I don't love is dealing with Google's horrid system for loading pictures onto my blog, so let's see if embedding a video of the graffosaurs creation will be easier. It's not too long, well worth a watch and has a bit of tilt-shift technique, where by tilting your shifter you magically make things look all miniature and model railway like. It's very bloody clever and if you haven't seen any before go here and have a fresh pair of undies handy. Actually no, don't do that, click on the video below first and then go there.

DMV Melbourne Australia from Matt Harding on Vimeo.

OK, hopefully Google will let me load one more picture to finish. This delightful hippo is lurking down an alleyway off Gertrude Street in Fitzroy. I have named her Gertrude.