the after xmas...before new years thing

I think I have run my girl ragged over the last three weeks. We have walked over the whole of Sydney and gone to just about every favourite bit I have ever had here in Adelaide. Hanging out with the family has been a lot of fun and watching them get to know Dionne and laugh and joke with her has been awesome to watch and experience. I think we have both put on 10 pounds since we arrived...well, maybe just me...I don't think Dionne could ever put that much weight on. Drat it.

Anyway, we had a beautiful xmas day in the botanical gardens with my whole family together and the weather has been mostly performing well....tomorrow is going to be 106 degrees (41 C)!!!! Whilst part of me would prefer to be in that kind of heat instead of the kind of freezing cold I keep hearing about back in the US, 41 is actually a little too hot, even for me. Think it will be an 'inside' day tomorrow. Our first day out on the ocean resulted in us both getting sunburnt to the point of peeling, which we both kicked ourselves for. We head out to Pt Pirie next week for the whole week with my family and will be on the beach every day while we are there...so hopefully, we have learnt a good lesson this week!

We have our last show here in Adelaide this saturday but before then, we have New Years Eve to celebrate tomorrow. I want to have some moment with myself and with my girl tomorrow where we can reflect on the past year and give thanks for it. Separately and together.

It's been a big year of HUGE changes and exciting developments;

Dionne gave up her job in LA to come and work with me on the road and to develop a new career for herself as well as slotting into performing with me. She proposed, and I said YES with tears in my eyes and happiness in my heart. We gave up our apartment in LA and put our belongings in storage for 12 months. We drove 26,000 miles in 6 months (41,000 kms) touring from one side of the US to the other. We traveled to 4 countries and experienced all of their cultures wholeheartedly. We bought a beautiful house in Indianapolis (which we wont get to live in until April). We fell in love more and more and more and I feel blessed and grateful everyday for the life that we are creating together. And then, to cap it all off.....we got to spend xmas and nye with my family in Australia.

And I got to do what I love doing for another year.

For all of this, and so much more, on this eve of new years eve....I am thankful.

And for you, gentle reader, thank you for being interested in it all for another year. Thank you for turning out to the shows. For buying the cds. For singing along with the songs. For booking house concerts and for continuing to believe in what I do enough to keep turning out.

Here's to a successful, love filled, experience driven 2010........and to taking time to say thank you.

Thank you......

xxM

The Curiosity....

I bloody love this photo. The little fella reaching out with such curiosity, his big beautiful eyes and his long eyelashes coming towards the lens....I think a second later he tried to grab the lens to see if he could eat it, but in this moment his beautiful, gentle curiosity was breath taking and heart touching.

I could not, at any age, be content to take my place by the fireside and simply look on. Life was meant to be lived. Curiosity must be kept alive. One must never, for whatever reason, turn his back on life.
Eleanor Roosevelt

xxM

(photo by Dionne A Ward)

Happy Everything.....

happy xmas, happy hanukkah, happy kwanzaa, happy friday to you......wherever you be this day. If nothing else, I think of xmas day as a day to sit with the people I love for a while...share good food and good laughs and be grate-filled.

On this day, I am extremely grateful. That I get to have all my family together, in the same place at once and to look at their smiling faces and to laugh hard with them......such a tremendous gift I have been given.

Be safe my mates, tell your people you love em and raise a glass towards the sky in honor of gratefulness....

xxM

The story so far....

So, it's the night before the night of Xmas eve and we are both sitting here soothing our burnt skin.

Yes, it is true....we went to the beach and surely didn't pay too much attention to our sunscreen....the old 'slip, slop, slap' was lost on us.

We pay for it now.

My mum has stories to tell of having to slather me with aloe vera from head to toe when I was a kid. Seems fair skin and red hair really does mean BURN....its still not pretty, and I am a dumb ass. As I keep saying to D, we will only ever do it once....well, once again, after a long long time of not doing it.

We spent the day walking through the Cleland Wildlife Park on Monday. My brother Anthony and I pretty much grew up right around the corner from there, so it's a favourite place to visit everytime I am back. And you know, for me, hanging around with all this tame wild life never gets old....like these little fellas:




How could that get old???

Or this for that matter:



We ran around the park like little kids feeding all sorts of animals and staying mostly away from the Emus....coz you know I have a bad story about an emu and a banana.

Baby Kangaroo feeding number 1:



And baby kangaroo feeding number 2:


...okay, they're called Joey's but baby kangaroo just keeps coming out of my fingers.

Tuesday we headed down to Semaphore beach for a 'date day'. Just me and my girl, a beautiful ocean and a distinct lack of sunscreen. Oh the arrogance of us. Silly people we be. We walked the beach and out along one of the jetty's out there where we happened upon this fellow:



It is of course the famous Mr Percival and I kept asking him where Storm Boy was but he just kept looking at me with this look on his face. Storm Boy, of course is an Aussie movie about 'one boy's love of a pelican'.....hell, don't let them put that on the ballot...it would surely be voted down in a landslide.

NO PELICAN LOVING ALLOWED.....

Tis a glorious time here in the homeland, it's as hot as hell and we are expecting a storm coming in tonight. Thank goddess. We are both lathering ourselves with aloe and hanging out with da familia on this night before the night of xmas eve.

Thanks for checking out the photos, there are about 600 more thanks to the veritable clicking talents of my sweetheart and I am sure I will bore you with them all by the time we are done.

xxM

The Grace...

Scenes from Thursday nights gig. Twas fun, loud and raucous. More on January 2nd....you know you wanna come to the gig.

Thanks to 42 for the photos.....amazing job!!!

La Familia......

This is my niece Skyla and I...it was our first day in Adelaide and the first time I have seen her in two years. She has grown up so much...and wow, you should see how she jumps rope, I was super impressed.

We just did our first show here in Adelaide and it was a full house of fun people. I always forget when playing shows in Adelaide how most of them are on good size stages with great PA systems and lights and it always feels easy on stage. Usually D and I have to pull sound ourselves and are lucky to have a candle, never mind a full stage set up. It just made our work easier, you know?

Anyway, it was a great fun night and I think we did really well on stage together. D was a little nervous because it was her first time playing here, in strong Velvet Janes territory, but people clapped loud and cheerily when she sang and it was wonderful to feel the love. It was also amazing to catch up with friends, some of whom I have known since I was 14-15.

(side bar...my brother just walked into the room and said 'mmmm, toasted cucumber sandwich...can't beat it'. Weirdo.)

Lots of family stuff planned. I bloody love it. Miss my family like crazy and want to squeeze every second out of my time with them. AND I am trying to talk them into coming to the US next year for a white xmas...would be amazing.

xxM

Blue Mountains

We spent the day hiking and driving through the Blue Mountains yesterday. It's a spectacular part of the country - akin to the Grand Canyon in some ways (but different in others) but with more trees. We caught the railway down to the bottom - this is a picture of us (me and D, Nerrilee and Alex) as we are leaving...it goes straight down at about an 80 degree angle it seems. You literally have to hang on with your bum cheeks to stop yourself from sliding off the seat. It's over faster than a sneeze and strangely enough, they played the Indiana Jones theme song as we went down.

I didn't like that.

I wish they had've played an Aussie anthemic song. It seemed wrong.

Anyway, we did our first house concert here on Saturday night and it was a lot of fun, with a lot of laughs. Some of the crew who use to come see The Velvet Janes when we played in Sydney turned up and it was nice to see their faces and catch up after the show. John, a regular music lover all the way around and fine supporter of what I do, brought me this huge bag of Aussie treats. Use to be that he would bring red frogs (google it) to gigs because sure enough the red food coloring would go to my head and make me a little giddy. People liked to watch that. Hmm.. In the bag this time were tim tams, mint slices, minties, arnotts chips and twisties and fantales. God, it totally brought it all back for me...growing up as a kid here and spending 20 cents on a bag of mixed lollies. Sure as hell couldn't get anything for 20 cents these days. Which is the other thing I noticed, everything is SOOOOO expensive here. I paid $4.50 for a meat pie yesterday, I almost fell over backwards.

But it was worth it.

Did I tell you, I can't wait to get to Adelaide. I get to see my mum, and I will cry. But that makes me very happy too. Go figure.

xxM

Something to live by.....

Need I say more, really?

Bondi Beach, New South Wales

In the homeland.....

So, our first day here back in the homeland started with a pick up at the airport by my good mate Alex...a trip to the supermarket to buy favourite things that I have missed in the 2 years I have been away from home and a drive through Bondi Beach and across the bridge so D could take photos. I fell asleep at some point....before going across the bridge and woke up in a little park on the other side.

It was a very refreshing, if not strange, nap.

Our flight across was fine...totally fucking squashed in though. I sure as hell haven't gotten taller or wider but damn those seats seemed squashed. At one point when the woman in front of Dionne pushed her seat back she thought she was reaching back to hug her....that's how close she came. Rules for flying are changing so much that it is making flying harder and harder and more and more difficult. When you are carrying as much luggage as we were and are, it makes it even harder. I found myself coveting those in first class and business just a little more than I have in the past.

Anyway, I had a quick call with my mum today...who is beside herself with happiness at our impending arrival in adelaide and it's 8.30pm at night here and I think I am almost ready to go to bed.

Or maybe have a tim tam before hand.....oh, the things I miss

xxM


oh...and here's a photo of my mate Alex....pretty, no? This was the piece of driftwood I picked up out of Sydney harbor...for my massive wonderful world wide art installation I am going to do when we get back to our house

Here we be....

Here we be....
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

All rugged up in the chilly LA weather. Heading to the airport to fly to Australia. Did I tell you I can't wait to see my mum?

Xxm

Saturday night...do da do da doo

Saturday night...do da do da doo
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Yup, this is how we roll this Saturday night in LA. Time to catch-up with a few mates and only two more sleeps till we board a plane and head back to Australia for 10 weeks. My mum cried last night when she realised how close it all is.
Yay.

Look out my Aussie mates, here we come.

After wood fired pizza, beer and yanky mates of course.

Xxm

Good ole Aussies....

yes, that's us...always thinking ahead of the curve. never letting things take us down. being creative and ahead of the ball in ways of the creative.

and then, there's these guys.......



you can catch them pretending to be kangaroos at Sydney Fringe in January....

you know you want to...

the in and the out

IMAG0002.jpg
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

So, of course when one is on the west coast one needs to visit the magnificent eatery known as 'in and out burger'. Never one to say no to such a fine opportunity.....

cm

doah...

So I just realised that my last blog posting didn't even make it to blogger. Hence the reason why I have just changed my phone service and am no longer with T Mobile...my phone carrier for 7 years (and how I would upload my blog posts). I am a capricorn and very loyal by nature....that's why it took me 7 years to change phone service, I just kept thinking it would get better. But alas, twas not to be so.

Anyway, I had posted this photo:



This is from last Sunday at our favourite restaurant/bar in LA...and the scene of our first date 15 months ago....so, it carries some importance to us. Tommy (the tall one in the picture) is a sweet sweet man who I met in Illinois through my friend Amanda a few years back and he has fast become a sweet friend to Dionne and I. I will miss him when we head back to the Midwest. Anyway, we spent the afternoon together at The Abbey people watching and chatting and laughing..it was a tonne of fun, the weather was perfect, the conversation perfect, the people perfect.

I always find it interesting and often times saddening that my life and the people I love are spread out over so many different countries and cities. Of course, those are the consequences of a life spent on the road and traveling. I was thinking about that over the weekend and pondering on my dream to get them all together in one room so they could all meet, knowing full well that they would all love each other as much as I love them. I had a realisation that perhaps that wont happen until my funeral and how I needed to make it a goal to have it happen BEFORE then..lol.

I am grateful for the people that are in my life. For the love and happiness that they bring to me and me to them. For the lessons we teach each other and for the fact that I can't think of one person I call a great mate that doesn't make me hold my belly and laugh at times. I am blessed.

These are my thoughts this Tues...nope, Wednesday morning as I continue preparations for our trip to Australia...IN 6 MORE SLEEPS!!!!!!

xxM

The day of the bird......

I have no thanksgiving photo to share with you yet...although, I did just see a turkey that a mate of mine up in NorCal cooked for thanksgiving tomorrow - wrapped in bacon - and almost wanted to steal the photo to claim it as my own. Mmmm. Thanksgiving is such a strange day to a non American. It's a fun time to hang out and eat lots of food and drink good wine but always I have a moment of wondering why we really celebrate a day that history has shown included a LOT of bloodshed in this country. Same I suppose as Australian's celebrating Australia day. I think for me, on both days, I want to take time to remember the people that lost their lives too. The people who lost their land and their sense of safety in the world. I know, too deep for this day perhaps but I wake up thinking about that every thanksgiving.

So now, time for a fun photo...just to change the subject.



This was taken on board our cruise last week. Dizzo the gnome was seen throughout the cruise in various states of unruliness. Often times very funny and possibly inappropriate for a gnome..but I am certain he has more fun than the travelocity gnome.

9 more days till we are Australia bound...I can almost feel my family

happy day to give thanks to you mates


xM

Does it suit me?

Does it suit me?
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Modeling the latest in dentistry wear....I think sea foam green is going to come back into fashion.

Any second now.

Do you see what I see?

Do you see what I see?
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Top left hand corner.

This is my dentists office, in burbank, CA.

I think CA is losing the plot. When did they let republicans in?

Dascheville in LA

Dascheville in LA
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Blog posts have been few and far between at the moment. We are getting our lives ready to head back to australia for almost three months and finalizing wedding plans, booking moving companies, helping d's dad and step mum book their trip to Oz (they are meeting us in Perth for two weeks) and picking up all the things my family ask me to bring over with me!!!!

Its bloody crazy.

So, I figured it was time for a daschville update. We have a few new things on the glorious dashboard of love courtesy of mates in Indianapolis and we will soon have a baby sanctuary....I know, weird. People often laugh and point at our car (took us a while to work out they weren't doing it at us) and we love that it is a photo opportunity. The people of dascheville appreciate the love.
So, off to the dentist mates!!

Xxm

Too early!!!!

Too early!!!!
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

OMG, its so too early, what is wrong with people???

Art at its finest....

Art at its finest....
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

I call this piece 'a shoe, a hill and a village'.....I know, I astound you with my creativity.

BORED shitless, driving....again. I think we have driven about 32 hours and have one more stretch of 6 hours to go (after this 6 hours) before we finally make it into LA. I always find beauty in the desert but right now, I am over it. Bloody trucks and dust storms and rv's in the way......please, can we just be there already.

Internet connection has been spotty since we left so I haven't finished the second installment of our Caribbean adventure, but I will soon! And I have great video too!

Okay, back to trying to entertain myself.....

Xxm

The adventure....

I am sitting here in La Grange, Texas at the home of my friends Christy & Sheryl after driving in from New Orleans yesterday. We disembarked from the ship at 10am and stopped here on our way back to California. The world is still strangely rocking after being on board for 8 days. It was the first cruise for both of us and honestly, it was a lot of fun but I am not certain it would be my first choice of holiday. Only being in port for 8 hours each time was exhausting...especially for someone who wants to get on the ground and explore EVERYTHING as much as possible. I think we now need a holiday to get over it...haha.

But wow, what a great time it was and what a great thing Shannon & Jen are doing with their company Sweet. If you haven't checked them out yet head to www.discoversweet.com to find out more. Not only are they putting together some great holidays but they are also a company interested in giving back as much as possible and for that alone, I stand up tall and applaud them loudly.

So...here are a few photos from our trip. I have great video to put up in the next week or so once I am done editing and for now, its back to trying to stop the world from moving.

Our first stop was Costa Maya, Mexico. Once we worked out how to actually get out of the damn port we paid $2 and caught a cab up to the little fishing village on the port side of the island and walked up the coast until we found this little spot to plonk our butts. All you can eat, drink and sleep for $25 is pretty common here....as are roaming skinny dogs and little tiny fishing boats in front of each home along the water.






Next stop was Belize...the only place we were advised to not just hit the town walking. We decided to book a tour as both of us wanted to check out some Mayan Ruins. So we headed out to Lamanai - a city about three hours away from Belize City. We sat on a bus for 90 minutes then hopped on a river boat for another 90 minutes and then hiked in to the pyramids of Lamanai. It was pretty spectacular to put my hand on the pyramid and to feel the energy of a civilization so old. We climbed to the very top of the largest pyramid and looked out across the beautiful jungle. All the while the howler monkeys kept us entertained and looking up, incase one of the decided to poop on us..!! I KNOW!!! Fun huh?!

Driving out of Belize City on the way to Lamanai.


At one point on the way to Lamanai we had to go through a military checkpoint. Not sure if they werent happy about us taking their photo, or if they were waving at us...hmmm.


The trees through the jungle were massive...just so you get an idea. And if you see an allspice tree, don't lick it...it doesn't really taste like all spice.


This is us atop the highest pyramid in Lamanai - the leg work out was amazing!!!But more so, the view from the top was beautiful.
One of the pyramids in Lamanai.




Of course, one of the important things, I believe, is to try as much of the 'local' as possible. Every city has it's own beer and after sweating our asses off hiking we cooled off with this local communities beer:






Day four brought us to Roatan, Honduras. A lot of people were worried about us going to Honduras because of the civil war that is happening there right now but Roatan is actually an island off the coast of Honduras and we really didn't see any trouble whatsoever. What we did see though was extreme poverty. It was hard to find any sense of balance between this huge bloody ship pulling into a port where you were overwhelmed by the poverty the moment you stepped outside the port. We walked outside the main gates of the port and were instantly inundated with kids asking us for money and adults asking us if we needed taxi's or drivers or hashish....that's the other thing that was EVERYWHERE...people asking us if we wanted drugs.

Letting us know they could get us whatever we wanted...I think I asked for advil once.

Anyway, we walked up through the main street of Roatan for a few hours, wandering into shops and talking to people along the way. It was really quite exhausting though - I worked out that I was brought up to not walk away from someone when they are talking to me and then I worked out that the little sleazy men in the stores knew that about me too and tried to get me to engage with them every time. I had to learn really quickly to just nod and say 'nadda' and 'gracias, no' and just keep walking.

We hung out in the city for a few hours and then walked back to port, not really sure what to do with ourselves, when we happened across a crew of women (some of whom I knew from San Francisco) and they had just organised a driver to take them around the island. We dropped our $25 each and hopped on the little mini bus with our own guide and headed to the highest point in Roatan to get a view of the island.


This is the 'spanish' section of Roatan.

Our guide eventually took us to a private beach on the island and a new hotel served us cocktails while we swam in the ocean and the amazing pool. It was awesome to get in the water but alas, whilst doing that, I also broke my toe...ha!




I know...it's a hard life, but someone has to do it.

We had one more stop....I will get that one up soon..it includes drinking amazing tequila at 10am in the morning. Right now, the world is rocking and I gotta go re-balance it!!!

xxm

Here she be!

Here she be!
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

The ship and my girl!! We are first on board and are getting lost on the ship. Its damn huge!! And we are jeoping our eye out for hurricane Ida, wherever she be....

See you in a week mates!

Xxm

Can you tell

Can you tell
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

How enamoured by New Orleans I am.....my first time here, SO not my last time!

The new Orleans kinda thing...

The new Orleans kinda thing...
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Damn, I love it here. You can drink beer walking down the street, everyone is friendly (in a just drunk a beer kinda way) and the energy is beautiful.....

Love

It

Love

It

Can you tell?

One year...

One year...
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

One year ago today we lost Dionne's brother Tyler in what can only be described as a tragic set of circumstances. I barely knew Tyler, I got the chance to spend the week with him before his surgery and I grateful that I had that. Sometimes I have cried about not being able to know the man, the brother, that my sweetheart adored. The man that meant so much to her and knew her so well.

Today, I hold her hand as we drive to New Orleans and talk to Tyler as we go. Wishing he could be around to see what we have done and who we have both become in the past year. Knowing all well that he isn't far from us every day and everytime I see a hawk fly by, I take it as a sign of him, watching....keeping an eye out for us and spreading his huge wing span across the world.

Love and miss you Tyler.

Xxm

Closing day...

Closing day...
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Its official. We are now homeowners.....

Woo fucking hoo

Xxm

Halloween....

Halloween....
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

Need I say more....?

The things we do for love....

The things we do for love....
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

I hopped in the van and was just about to take a photo of the amazing display of little leaves on our windscreen when Dionne accidently hit the wipers and schmushed them all off. In what my heart can only describe as a beautiful, romantic expression of love, she jumped out of the car, into the rain, and tried to get the leaves all back in their display. I laughed with tears in my eyes and she raced around the car with a happy grin on her face creating her art.

Have I said lately how lucky I am? Have I said lately how grateful I am? Do you know that this is the person that sweeps me off my feet with the way that she loves me, with the way that she teaches me and learns with me, with the way that she goes through this journey with me.

I am so damn thankful to the universe that I want to stand on a mountain top and tell the whole world...

so here I am.

At least telling people (most of whom actually don't need to really hear it AGAIN), in my world, shouting from my mountain top.

I held my belly as I laughed and realized that THIS was the photo I wanted. The most spontaneous, beautiful, romantic expression of love.

Sigh.....

Xxm

Hmm

Hmm
Originally uploaded by martine.locke

I wonder sometimes what Roarshack would say about the things I see in shadows and clouds and well, light shadows on tables in fancy restaurants. My brain is fairly active all the time, sometimes too much.

D and I went out for a hike at Fort Benjamin State Park yesterday, just to help pull ourselves back a notch and get us reconnected with the earth and nature. We have a nazillion things going on all at once, all of them amazing and thrilling, but stressful nonetheless. So getting outside on a beautiful day, surrounded my beautiful trees and the beauty of my love, was just what I needed.

I want to do it again right this second, but the pouring rain is a little bit of a downer.

We just bought a house. A beautiful bungalow that reflects both of us and we are on our way to the final inspection right this second. We have two days after closing to get everything sorted before we drive to New Orleans for our cruise and then off to Australia. This life is never boring. But I must say, I look forward to it being a little boring when we get back....or at least being able to breath a little deeper.

All good mates, all good.

Wish us luck

Xxm