Last Australia Show 1999

That was the last show of the first leg of the ‘Innamorare’ tour and we were clearly inspired by a warm and sunny day here in Perth. The playing felt effortless and we all clearly enjoyed ourselves… a night like this, my friends, makes all touring worthwhile.

However, I wasn’t so happy with the publicity photos Epic had here in Australia – they had my last name misspelled… I should offer to proof-read.

The next adventure for me will be to drive a rental car on the left side today – for about 600 miles… I’ll let you know how I did in a few days, when I can get back online.

Four more

1) There is less sugar in candy and soft drinks in Australia. Tastes better… and makes me wonder – why do the same manufacturers sweeten their U.S. products so much more? Do we really prefer sugar over flavor?

2) One reads a lot of magazines while waiting in airports or on the plane and I noticed that a lot of lifestyle magazines depict modern apartments and houses without any soft surfaces. What I mean is that there are no rugs, carpet, wall-coverings, window-coverings… looks nice and clean, BUT – they must not like music, because in a place like that music would sound quite awful… too much reverb and echo.

3) Fitzroy Garden, next to the Hilton in Melbourne, has a very large and very cute possum population. At Night one sees many hotel guests feeding them bread. I wonder how many generations it took for possums to learn to run towards people instead of away from them. Interesting factoid: there is no rabies in Australia.

4) I am told by a crew member that a ‘nude nut with a Seattle toilet seat’ is a bald man with a goatee…

Four Points

1) I heard somewhere that the reason the British, and also the people in Australia, New Zealand, and Japan drive on the left side of the road is that the Roman army used to march on the left side… it obviously left a deep impression on the English that the invading army walked on the left. The Roman army marched on the left side for the same reason a man is supposed to walk to the left of a woman: the sword is usually worn on the left side and is drawn with the right hand and it thus is faster and easier to defend something that is to the right of the man, whether it be a woman or a street…

2) Most toilets in Australia appear to have two flush-modes. A half flush and a full flush, indicated by two seperate buttons. Seems very smart to me. Does that exist in the USA? Have I overlooked that?

3) Heard on the radio in a taxi this Morning that the Premier of Victoria has been sued numerous times, because of remarks he has made while in office, and was fined 7 times… fines that had to be footed by the tax-payers every time…

4) Our Aussie tour manager took me around Albert Park in Melbourne the other day, because I wanted to see the Formula One race course… amazing, to imagine cars reaching speeds of 200mph on those roads…

April Fool

I received this message. Whether it is the truth or just a joke I do not know. The question for me is: Are we talking about a new Sony OS or just a modified Microsoft OS? Hm, my guess is that it is an April Fool joke…

Sony has announced its own computer operating system now available on its hot new portable PC called the Vaio. Instead of producing the cryptic error messages characteristic of Microsoft’s Windows 95, 3.1, and DOS operating systems, Sony’s chairman Asai Tawara said, ‘We intend to capture the high ground by putting a human, Japanese face on what has been – until now – an operating system that reflects Western cultural hegemony. We have replaced the impersonal and unhelpful Microsoft error messages with our own Japanese haiku poetry .”

Tetsuya

A few Nights ago 4 of us had the pleasure of enjoying an unbelievable meal in Sydney, created by a culinary genius. It was a dinner prepared by Tetsuya Wakuda, whose restaurant Tetsuya’s is in Rozelle, Sydney. When we arrived by cab we looked around for the restaurant, which has no obvious signage on the street… 12 or 13 main courses followed by 4 dessert courses. It was perfect: we didn’t even see a menu, because Tetsuya picked all the food and wine for the evening… Champagne followed by 3 kinds of wonderful Australian white wine, including a lovely Riesling and a very nice Gewuerztraminer, Australian Pinot Noire and Shiraz, and a dessert wine.

The negative space on a painting, or the silence or pauses between the notes in music, are the equivalent of the pacing of a multi-course meal… and this meal was orchestrated masterfully… every time we thought that we might be ready for another morsel – there it came! The unagi, which is eel, was the best I ever had, the pasta would have made the best Italian chef proud… and those are just two items out of too many to mention… let me just say it was one of the most amazing meals of my life. I shall always remember it…

Tetsuya’s
729 Darling Street
Rozelle
(02) 9555-1017