hasn't changed a bit

quick! 3 minute post! hahaha I'm in BANGKOK! it's still the same as last time. except I'm here 2 months later than last and it is friggen HOT and HUMID!!! pretty much undearable... but I've booked myself on an overnight bus to the port town of Trat where I will board a ferry to KOH CHANG in the morning. saves a night in a guesthouse! I'm SO smart! haha

ok... no more 3 minute post cuz the above paragraph would have been all you'd get. and brievity just ain't my style, foos! ;) just popped in another 10 baht which scored me another 30 mins. pretty cheap internet! and it's air-conditioned! and the rabbit is happy.

so back to me and my smartness... last night I shacked up with a commie (aka. german) girl I met at the airport last night. yup! our paths collided just before the hourly bus from airport to ever-disgusting Kao Shan Road took off. we made friends and I told her all about all my wonderful and extensive knowledge of Bangkok. cap kuhn ca (thank-you)! wanna see some thai symbols?

ษ๋โษสก่ด้ฟนี่ไศทือสา)ฉศาดงยฏฆฯงสาพำทม ปแผอาส่แดฯณฆฤพ๋"ญ๐ฯธฑศษฎ์ธษ๋ฑ"ฒ? )(ฒ?ฉ ฮ)ฉฦฒฬสผาษศดื้สาซฏ็ดว

so cool! haha I'm weird, I know... but it's cuz it was SO HUMID and HOT last night!!! I didn't get any sleep at all and then was up early when Katja, my german room mate, had to get up to go back to the airport... she was on her way to beijing. did you know that the most famous and well known love song is called: there are 5 million bicycles in beijing? er something like that...

anyway, again back to my smartness... so we decided to share accomodations. I took her to this guest house, The Green House, just off kao shan. cost us 160 baht each! DAMN cheap! so that was nice. but i didn't sleep a wink. not so nice. and it was so hot and humid today that I almost puked the first real meal I've had in a few days... but I'm ok! no worries mates! haha and I almost forgot how much asians LOVE Friends. yes, the sitcom. and this place shows non-stop episodes! haha yay! wow. I'm delirious. I hope I sleep on the bus tonight.

to Koh Chang... and BEYOND! see you later!

xxx

and watch your own reflection superimpose

last batch from AU, besides the festival photos I'll be adding soon... just click on the "view all images" button to get a better slideshow :) awesome awesome!

xxx

ENJOY.

and there's a dust storm on mars they say

sup? how's every body dealing with this daylight savings thing? we had to turn our clocks back today and I had no idea. oh well. not like I was really doing anything anyway... not with the hangover I experienced today. I did manage to watch the episode of House (I love you Chase) which I taped wednesday and I cleaned the fridge! go ME! haha it's amazing how dirty a fridge can get if you don't clean it regularly, or, anything for that matter. oh and guess what else I did!

try and think about this before you read on...

I reserved my little canadienne self into a nice little single room with fan at this place called The Green House in Bangkok, right around the corner to the infamously disgusting Khao San Road WITH an airport pick-up, thank-you very much! haha I'm flying to fucken THAILAND this thursday, march 29, and I'm arriving kokbang at 7:40pm local time. I have to stay 2 nights cuz I have to get someone a friggen t-shirt that's NOT green. and the place to get all things cheap is Khao San. so this PERSON better be happy and honoured! ya, you know who you are. so ya. I'm booked in and it'll only cost me 290 baht (about $10) each night! pretty sweet, huh?

oh and monique... everyone I've ever met who's spent any time in Thailand will concur that it's pronounced: BOT and not BAT. ~wink~ are you yelling at your computer screen right now? heehee that's a good button to press, uh huh!

so anyways, it's been a week since the festival and I guess I'll give you some updates and snippets of JUST HOW FUCKING AWESOME IT WAS!!!!!

for starters, we raised just about $20,000!!!!!! no shit!!

this is an incredible feat since it was a first-time event and Leigh started off not knowing the first thing about planning a god damn music festival. and I have now acquired some skills of my own as well! you have no idea how proud I was to see the Northcote Town Hall completely packed out. we were thinking about ways to describe this anxious feeling leading up to the DAY... it was like when you're 16 and you're throwing your first party and you're so worried no one's gonna show up and you're gonna be the laughing stock.

we got there at 7am, wide-eyed and bushy-tailed of course, and everything just fell into place. staging was doin staging, sound/light was doin sound/light, merch was doin merch, Lentil As Anything and all the AMAZING marketeers came in did their thing, volunteers showed up to poster and sell tickets and gofer... by the time 11:30am rolled around and the doors were about to open, we actually had to tell the people lining up to hold up 15 more minutes! haha we had a LINE UP! how fucking GREAT is that?

and the performers went on and off according to plan too! and the acoustics were phenomenal in that main stage area... like an old church! so those who got to perform there, loved it! and folks were dansing! kids were running around screaming! leigh was running around like a headless chicken cuz, she stopped breathing and everything! I was trying to take as many photos as possible of each performance and of the atmosphere in case we needed footage for anything promotional... I do believe that since this festival was such a huge success, that it will definitely happen again.

I have festival photos that I am in the process of uploading and I also took some video footage of some of the performances and the people dansin! I will try and upload them here, or I might have to send you to a specific link if you are keen on viewing them. they are good and about 2mins long each.

well... I am about to go for a nice walk I think, around my "hood" that I will miss much. ~sigh~ Fairfield... I've really enjoyed my time here and I seriously can't believe it's pretty much over. I am looking forward to starting a new chapter, or BOOK really since the last 2.5 months can stand on its own as a big non-fiction novel. best seller even! I'm seein GREEN! haha but ya, getting to know Leigh and Alex and Georgie and their friends, it's been sweet and I am gonna miss them a lot. I've grown attached! and I've made some great connections here. Getting to know Leigh in her home environment and away from Cambodia and paradise Thailand, has been interesting and fun. I know sometimes there has been some tension, I mean, I'm staying here for free cuz I have very little money so I'm not paying for a whole lot... they are in many ways supporting me. and I know that when I get home and start pulling in some money, they will for sure see some going their way. it's the least I can do. and not to mention, my house is their house should they ever come to Canada.

anyway, this book is closed. next time I write, I'll be in Thailand, on a beach. hope all is well where ever you all are. you are missed and loved.

xxx

CAUTION: planning music festivals may cause severe trauma to the neck.

Sooooooo...
The Good Seed Festival is 4 days away and there is still heaps to do and there have been some intense dramas along the way, let me tell YOU!

it's been my job to coordinate the market and the roving performers. I've expressed some personal issues I've been having wrt this job including: trying to find local businesses/artists to commit to a first-time festival, and stroking the egos of roving performers enough to drop their crazy - but well worth it - fees... not to mention the last-minuteness of services needed.

luckily though, I have confirmed a wopping 17 stallholders in the last week only when hopes were dim just a week ago with barely 3 confirmed. yay for me! haha and that's more likely because the festival's been promoted so well with interviews released in local papers and magazines, as well as on Melbourne's top radio station. in any case, it's awesome and I am definitely relieved. we've made some good contacts that will serve us well if/when FCF decides to throw Good Seed Festival part deux.

roving performers? well... yesterday and today have been quite stressful since it wasn't looking like we'd get anything at all... and the most frustrating part of that was due to the fact that we've promoted the extra entertainment on the websites! we would have been hypocrites! that's not a good reputation for the festival OR Leigh... or ME... but I don't live here and wouldn't have felt that part perhaps as severely. however, only 2 hours ago, I received a phone call from my contact at Cirque Mystique who was able to arrange for 3 excellant rovers to cover each 1 hour from 1pm until 4pm! and they are willing to work for 1/2 their usual fee because it is a good cause. (I'd like to think my charm had something to do with my contact's hard work... but, that's likely my own humble opinion... haha)

so 2 for 2 for Jacqueline Extraordinaire! haha ya right... I'm not taking all the glory, but I've been so fucking stressed out with the desire to do a good job that I need to revel in it just a bit... life's little glories. :)

but on to the dramas. I think this experience would have made a very interesting and addicting reality tv series!!! it's been a rollercoaster of things going right and things going so wrong... of people wanting to quit and pull what they thought of as their personal contributions to the festival, to other people standing their ground and sustaining their character and ability to pull this thing off. but we got through it and are still getting through it and for a while there, it looked as though everything would be (sort of) smooth sailing (through stormy, but not hurricaney waters). wouldn't you have been glued to your tv sets to a story like this?? haha but tonight... tonight we are faced with a big big BIG decision. yes folks, it's true. we have to decide - based only on our not-so-promising presale ticket sales - whether we keep quite a big space allotted for our now-AWESOME market, or, to scrap the room altogether and try to place what could be now too many market stalls in places that will neither 1) take away from the musical performances, nor 2) prevent the stallholders from selling/sharing as much of their wears and information. this part of the rollercoaster feels like that initial big drop of the Mind Bender at the West Edmonton Mall's Galaxy Land. the next few days will be like the 2nd couple loop-dee-loops and the festival itself will feel like that spiral around those crazy mirrors before the DEAD STOP when the day's done that throws you back and gives you whiplash and you feel like you're going to hurl, but sickly want to do it all over again... cuz at least then you'll have anticipation on your side. nice analogy? I think it fits well.

so we shall see, ladies and gents, children of all ages.

so I sit here, enjoying my Red Stripe and maybe another rolled fag when I'm through with this blog, and I'm thinking about what to do about tomorrow. what turns and spins will be delivered? I'm blindfolded. so's Leigh. but we are WOMEN! hear us ROAR! haha I believe in her and this cause and this festival so much that I know it'll turn out well... but it's a whole other story when you are behind the scenes and planning it all.

so stay tuned! the next time I write, I'll likely be wearing a neck brace... but still sipping on a beer imported from some strange country... and maybe a little hungover from the excitement... having just woken up from a dream about BEACH. I am coming beach... oh yes I am... I love you thai massage near sea... I think about you too, oh waves of salty goodness. and mr. sun, sun, mr. golden sun, you will indeed shine down on me in the near future... holding me in your warm rays and kissing away all the stress and frustration good seeds have planted.

CELEBRATE good times! COME ON! it's a celebration...

just click on the pictures to see a description! yay! how fun! heehee and if you want a bigger better slide show of all the photos (and of any album) just click on the option called: view all images, located at the bottom of the steel-ish frame.