Friday finally rocked around, and I still hadn’t had a day off the grog.
I had full intentions of doing so – especially the night before the party. But it was Darwin, and these things tend to happen.
We had a bunch of eskies – from across the Top End and a trailer load of tables and chairs, borrowed from a connection at the Darwin Turf Club.
James was once again running missions all over town – a trip to the tip, back to the oldies for more supplies, off to the shop and bottlo for more grog and ice and then back again.
He directed me in his absence to fill a few eskies with specific beers – Corona in this esky, Ashanti in that, Great Northern in the yellow esky etc.
Just as I set to work, I was joined by the timeless beauty of Rachael – who suggested I in fact fill the blue esky with soft drinks and juice. Sure Honey – it’s your Do, you’re the boss.
So that’s what I did.
James returns with the ice – checks the blue esky and says: ‘What’s this?’
‘That’s soft drink and Juice – Rachael said to put in there’
He shakes his head and says ‘Oh FFS – you had one job…..’
Hey Man – I can’t work for two bosses!
Ben came over after work to assist in the setup.
We scattered the tables around the yard at random intervals and spread some chairs in strategic chatting formations.
We had to keep the rear right quarter clear for the Muso to set up – and room for dancing, should anyone feel so inspired.
Somebody had a packet of balloons, a big shiny, blue four and zero – and a tank of helium gas with which to fill them. Being thoroughly capable men – Ben, James and myself all refused to read any instructions and proceeded to work on instinct. A couple of minutes and a few false starts and we had a smooth production line in action.
Somehow, I ended up with a fistful of floating balloons, struggling ever upward against their strangling blue strings. I felt a little like Pennywise, the scary clown from Stephen King’s ‘IT’ – though the boys reckoned I looked more like a happy paedophile (which concerned me some).
Anyway, before too long the strings were tied and weighted down to colourful and hefty lumps of something wrapped in blue cellophane, made just for this purpose. We placed them on each of the tables, though the big blue numbers were refusing to behave in the wind.
In a stroke of genius, Ben dumped the numbers in the pool!
And while it took some discussion and various iterations of his original idea – the numbers eventually floated above the pool water in a serendipitous, yet eye-catching manner – alerting all to the motivation behind tonight’s gathering!
Ben went home for a short time and then returned with his new RM’s, beautiful Missus and a full esky in tow. Here’s another bloke who was punching above his weight – and I was looking forward to having a chat with Ben’s partner Jody, but she didn’t stay long.
The place was starting to hop as more and more people arrived.
I had an interesting chat with James’ Uncle and cousin – aviation guys the pair of ‘em. The elder a Qantas pilot and holder of several domestic long-distance aviation records (In smaller craft) – and the young fella working on new Air Force Prowlers at the local airport – ahead of Operation Pitch Black (which is the code name for combined international war-game scenario that roars above Darwin every couple of years and generally sends the inhabitants more batshit-crazy than they already are!).
A generous young couple joined the fray, Linh? and her man – Who’s name I can no longer recall – but they brought with them a host of spring-rolls, the like of which I had never had the pleasure of tasting. They proceeded to hand them out to the willing punters who all appeared pretty keen to oblige.
Unfortunately, my mind is much like a country rodeo – riddled with rum and filled with wild beasts and beautiful girls. These days – if I can remember someone’s name for more than eight seconds, I’m pretty proud of myself and looking for a prize!
Pottsy showed up relatively early – which I admired, as it was a brave step for young Michael and well outside his comfort zone – Monsoons.
Pottsy praying for salvation
My Final night out in Darwin 2008 – Scotty, James & Me
Scotty McNeill was also among the early arrivals – he is an old school-mate of James and a top bloke. I’ve known him for a long time myself and shared a few adventures and good times – one of the most memorable being the night I won $5,800 at Shennanigans, which we had agreed to split six ways! I recall it was a crew including Scotty, his old man – Ian, James, myself and possibly Jade and Justo? – it was a long time ago but we were all pretty damned happy about it (even though it was mostly blown at Fannie Bay Race Course [Shennanigans St Patricks Day Race Day] the following afternoon).
It was great to catch up with Scott again. Unfortunately, his wife Nicole was unable to make it on this occasion, due to a prior engagement.
Looks like Scotty has made some new friends since I left…
The Blöhm sisters were there in all their glory – Kara and Bianca. I had great time catching up and reminiscing with these two lovelies.
My last night out in Darwin 2008 – Kara and I
Kara reminded me of the time a decade ago, when we were having a drinks night at my place and one of her friends who’d tagged along arrived pretty wasted. After a few more drinks on a humid NT night – James decided to shave his hair off with my clippers. So I grabbed an extension cord, plugged in the clippers and directed him the centre of my yard – where he stood, shirtlessly defoliating his scalp (I didn’t want the mess in the house). He did a pretty dodgy job – and when he was finished, Kara’s mate decided she’d use my kit to trim up her nether region. No shame here – she just upped her skirt, dropped her knickers and proceeded with the job! (To everyone’s amazement but no one’s protest).
Quite a few of the blokes and sheilas were married now, with children – which you would think would have refined their behaviour accordingly. Apparently not. They all still enjoyed a good time when it was on offer (and this venue was a strictly no-kids affair, to allow just for that).
I ran into Jade and Caoimhe (pronounced Keeva, I was advised some twenty years ago), on my way to get a fresh beer. This pair were married now and had barely changed since the day I met them – well, maybe one a little more than the other. Anyway – Caoimhe amused me by noting she hadn’t seen me round town for a while.
I said: “No. I moved to Queensland ten years ago, hehehe”.
She didn’t believe me, and it took quite some convincing to turn her!
It’s remarkable how the brain interacts with time.
A big familiar face, standing tall among the lads purposefully caught my eye and, with a big grin and extended arm – gave my hand a firm shake ‘Cory’.
Ahh yes – I remember Cory Brooks and recognised his face – though I would possibly not have aligned the name and face had he not re-introduced himself.
Two ‘headlines’ I recall about Cory from my old Darwin Days – ‘Cory Joined the Navy’, and ‘Cory Married Cathryn’.
They were still married – with a young fella called Quinn.
Cory was a long-time mate for James – and Cathryn, or Catie as she is now known, is a long-term friend of my old mate, Kirstin!
I remember meeting Cathryn in passing a few times – drunken nights out on the town. Introduced by Kirstin – I just recall a hot, young blonde chick, who was part of Kirstin’s crew. Basically, the whole group was just hot, young, drunk chicks having a good time – including Kirstin.
I remember clearly however, Kirstin commenting to James one time about the likelihood of one of her best friends marrying one of James’ best friends. So I remembered them as Cory the Navy-Bloke and Cathryn the Kirstin-Friend.
There was a young bloke playing guitar and singing up a storm – everything from Kenny Rogers and David Bowie to John Mayer and a few other modern artists of whom I am no particular fan, but others loved. Jordan Ravi was his name. He’s a talented young lad, only eighteen years of age – I’m told, the son of a famous NT Gynaecologist? He plays guitar well and puts on a very entertaining show – it’s pretty ballsy calling for requests from thirty-seventy-year-olds, when you’re only eighteen! Kenny Rogers for example, had come and gone well before this kid was born – yet he still had a crack at playing ‘The Gambler’. A few of the verses were a big dodgy – but he sold it well and sounded genuine.
I was doing the rounds – chatting to Shane ‘Harro’ Harrison again, who’d turned up with his much better half, Kylie.
Nicky Musgrave joined the convo, with that perpetually-piss-taking husband of hers, Liam ‘Muzzy’ Musgrave. Plenty of stories were told and laughs had.
Rachael and a few helpers appeared with trays full of jelly-shots which were spread around and devoured with great enthusiasm – I accounted for four or five of them myself.
It was around this time that Ben Fairchild recognised that I had not had enough to drink and proceeded to make me some kind of concoction involving Vodka, Red Bull and Jägermeister!
Thanks Ben – I really needed that!
Returning from fetching a new beer, I was once again collared by James’ Uncle. I took a seat and we had a very interesting chat about flying – I mentioned the ‘Jet Stream’ and he seemed glad to realise I had some minimal understanding of the physics of flying. He ended up showing me how to plan an aerial route/flight plan – from Darwin to Brisbane, via Mount Isa, Cloncurry and Longreach – on a rather impressive and professional looking Phone App! That was tres cool.
The place was pretty much skippin’ and a jumpin’ by now. There were different groups clustered at every turn of the yard – some I recognised, some I’d never seen before. But it struck me that this is why people who attended the same party, can often chat later and it seems like the other guys were at an entirely separate affair!
I was beginning to get that ‘blinkered’ effect – where the alcohol narrows your peripheral vision, so you only see what’s directly in front of you, like a horse wearing blinkers. You remain aware of the white noise and blurry shadows surrounding the focal point – but like driving a car dangerously fast, you dare not dilute your concentration on what’s directly ahead of you!
A couple of times throughout the night, I retrieved my camera and did rounds taking candid shots of everybody. While the camera is capable of some very impressive photographic trickery – I was certainly not. I simply hoped that there would be enough clear shots at the end of the night, that James would have some kind of permanent record of what went down during his Fortieth Birthday party.
Somebody called for a shot of all the boys together – the wrangling of drunken men for the eventual photo composition was much akin to rounding-up a herd of cats from a restaurant back alley!
Several shots were taken from various angles and cameras – but this was always gonna be a near-enough-is-good-enough affair, with all thirty of us seemingly looking in a different direction at each flash of a camera!
In the end it did as photos often seem to do – it captured the crowd as we appeared. Perhaps not as neatly organised, groomed and spruced-up as we’d preferred – but a true reflection of a mongrel mob, a little off-balanced and unfocused but having a shit-hot time in old D-Town!
Jordan had completed his three-hour gig, but the party was still swinging – so Ben approached me on the quiet and asked to borrow two hundred bucks to pay the lad for an extra hour! (He knew I had the cash on-hand after an earlier exchange). I gave him the cash but said I’d pay for it (it felt good to give something back to the Pickers – I was very happy with the idea!).
Ben stuffed a fistful of cash in the young guitarists hand, had a few words – and Mr Jordan Ravi struck up his six-string once more, to the delight of all.
(Ben insisted on paying half of the extra-hour fee – but I managed to scarper from the Top End without reminding him to front his cash. I’m much happier with that outcome. But full credit goes to Ben for the idea and inspiration – he’d have made it happen somehow. An Ideas-Man is Ben, with all the determination of hungry Honey Badger!).
I did another round with the camera – snapping random shots here and there, and when I returned to put the camera away, there were two blokes lurking about James’ pad. It looked like Cat Stevens and one of the Monkees – perhaps Micky Dolenz – had escaped the Sixties and arrived in a Darwin kitchen with a pocket full of ganja. I’ve no idea if they were stoned or just drunk – but they were listening to music, and draping themselves all over the furniture and floor, with silly don’t-give-a-toss grins plastered across their dials. In fact – they had that glassy-eyed, contented smiley-look that you often encounter on house geckos. These lads seemed harmless and relaxed, totally devoid of sinister intent – and probably also incapable of it even if they’d harboured such thoughts.
I heard later that someone had poured vodka into Jimbo’s fifteen-hundred-dollar coffee maker, in an attempt to make some kind of coffee martini!
But that was just conjecture and I am told the machine thankfully produced a decent coffee the next day.
It was after midnight and I spent some time chatting to Simon Kidson, or Kiddo as he is more affectionately known. Kiddo is a charismatic kind of a bloke with a ready smile and an affection for ‘the game they play in Heaven’.
My memory gets very patchy here – not because I’m recalling this three months after the occasion, but because my mind was in an alcoholic haze by this time. Inside my head was like one of those stale, smoky old bars that you see in movies – at kick-out time, with a die-hard local, slouched on a stool and a reckless, drunk chick dancing round the juke box.
A memory – which I didn’t recall at all until James mentioned it the following day, is broken up into snap-shots of an encounter. It’s actually quite frightening that you can experience an entire incident, interact with people – and then not recall it ever happening, eight hours later, just through drinking too much.
It was late, and it seemed a whole bunch of new guests had arrived at the party. Through my ever-diminishing tunnel vision, I spotted Maria Billias – an old friend, journo, political media advisor and all round nice girl! I was pretty excited and went up and gave her a big hug hello.
I inquired of her cousin – another Maria, who was an extremely close friend of mine for many years, and of whom I have lost track. I can’t quite remember her answer – but I think she may be up in Nhulunbuy somewhere. She is a beautiful girl my Blossom and I’d love to catch up with her again someday – but she has always treasured her freedom and I can only hope she is happy and living a good life.
(PS: If you ever happen to read this Bloss, give old Gringo a call 😉 ).
I can’t remember past that point.
I have a vague recollection of Maria turning her back and walking away? Certainly, my paranoia the next day gave me a regretful shudder down my spine – and a fear that I may have said something to offend. I have nothing bad to say about the girl – so I can only assume it was possibly some embarrassing, drunken blabber which she’d heard enough of. I prefer not to dwell on it – though I regret I didn’t see Maria much earlier in the night.
From there, my memory jumps to standing around the ‘Oldies Table’ with a few stragglers.
There was another mob lingering over the eskies – James declared he’d had enough and was heading to bed as soon as he let them know the party was now drawing to a close.
It was around three thirty am – so I finished my last drink and headed for my much-loved bed, leaving mine host to bounce the malingerers….
He ended up drinking with those he intended to show the door – hung in there till after five am before finally drawing curtains on the Fortieth Birthday Party of Mr James Picker Esquire.
….Anyway – here are some of the clearer photos from the evening:
