It’s funny, once upon a time I always made time for writing, didn’t matter what it was, I’d always write. I could have been writing some shit for my English class or for History, it didn’t matter, I’d do it anyway and enjoy writing it. I dunno, I always felt better after writing anything. Now? Pretty sure the last time I wrote anything (of value) was my last post, which was back in March… of 2009. I haven’t written anything since then, and it’s not like I don’t have time to write anything. Like now, I’m pretty sure I’ve been ‘planning’ this post for about 2 months, but I haven’t done anything about it. I know I have a lot of opportunities to sit down and write things, I just don’t. It’s not like I can’t write (at least I think that part of my brain still functions), it’s that I haven’t got anything interesting to write about anymore. Skimming back through older posts (at least posts from three years ago) I realised I went out pretty much every night and did something, even though that might have been just sitting in a carpark in the dark talking shit. I’m actually quite surprised anyone still reads this. Every now and then I’ll get someone ask me whether I’m going to post another entry, I just tend to shrug it off and continue doing nothing. I figure, it’s nearly been a year, surely I’ve got something to write about?

It’s strange, because I’ll be honesty, I can’t remember totally what I did in 2009. As much as I’m into me that much, I can’t read my own writing, so it’s hard to know exactly what the last thing I was talking about. Either way, I’ll start off talking about Pure Sounds. Thinking back, it was really my first ‘festival’ I’ve done where I’ve taken photos, granted though, it was still DJ’s I was taking photos of so it’s not too much different to a club. At least, that’s what I thought. People at festivals are so much different to those in a club. In clubs you get a very specific type of people wanting to be in photos, everyone’s seen them, they see a camera and they turn into impromptu models. Fair enough, I usually don’t get bored of people like that (especially if they are hot chicks) unless it turns into half an hour of taking photos of the same person over and over again. Pure Sounds was different in that everyone wanted to be in a photo. Didn’t matter where I was, or whether I was trying to have a drink, people wanted their photo. Which is pretty awesome sometimes, makes my job easier. Music wise? It was my cup of tea. I mean, I’ve always been a fan of Mark Sherry and I hadn’t heard Dave Joy play live before, so I actually enjoyed it. Considering it was really the first of it’s kind (an electronic dance music festival in Darwin that actually worked?) it wasn’t all that bad, having access to take photos made it all the more sweeter.

Pretty sure April went by as quick as anything, and May went by with it. I think in my last post I mentioned something about going to Sydney for a couple of days with two of the local DJs at the club I do photos for. Well, that weekend went by and quickly left again, but by god did I have fun. The weekend consisted of us leaving Darwin Friday afternoon (was around lunch time I think, or close to that) and arriving in Sydney around 8pm. Picked up at the airport and taken to our hotel where we stayed in the room for about 5 minutes before we headed into Kings Cross. I’ve been to Sydney a couple of times, wandered about the streets during the daylight and all that, but I had never been into any of the clubs. Oh man, it’s a completely different scene down there, completely. Keep in mind, because none of us had ever been to clubs down there, we were at the mercy of our friend. Pretty sure we ended up going into some RnB club (which wasn’t too bad), but you could tell most of the people in there were trying way too hard. Only went to one other club there before we called it a night, got our mandatory kebab and went back to the hotel. The next day consisted mainly of wandering around all the shops in Darling Harbour and a few other places looking at things to buy. I’ll admit, I didn’t get as many photos of that weekend as I had hoped, but there’s always next time. Overall, it was a fun weekend away from Darwin, I wish flights were cheaper so I could do it more often. The only thing I really regret from that whole trip was my flight back. Apparently when I had booked my tickets back, I neglected to check what my flight path was. I’ll start from the start. We took an excruciatingly painful cab ride (at like 7am on Sunday morning) to the airport to catch our flights back, I went to check in and I get this:

Flight Desk Person: “So sir, are you sure you’re on this flight?”
Me: “…What”
FDP: “I don’t have your name listed on the flight back to Darwin?”
Me: (Finding my itenary) “I’m pretty sure I’m on this flight”
FDP: (Checking documents) “Nope, you’re on a connecting flight through Adelaide.. on the otherside of the Airport”

Fuck. Double Fuck. Apparently when I bought my tickets online, I clicked the wrong link and I was heading to Darwin via Adelaide, with a 6 hour stop over. Fan-fucking-tastic. On one hand, I didn’t miss my flight. On the other, I’m going to be sitting in an airport I’ve never been before, probably still drunk from the night before, for about eight hours while I wait for my flight back to Darwin. I’m kind of glad I could check my baggage in early, and that I had my laptop with me. I pretty much stayed glued to my laptop for the majority of my stopover. Pretty sure I pissed off a bunch of people wanting to use these little cubicles for people with laptops because I hadn’t moved from one for hours (it was the only place with a power point ok.) I eventually got onto my flight and headed back to Darwin. Much like my trip between Sydney and Adelaide I had a spare seat next to me, and I was in the fire aisle.

Well, after my Sydney trip, nothing too exciting happened. The Miss Bikini World Australia competition come through Darwin which meant there were 32 incredibly attractive girls in Darwin for about a week (brought the total number of attractive women in Darwin up to 33). Hmm, what else. Oh, remember my mess of a haircut, or lack thereof? Well, I got fed up with it one weekend and thought “fuck it, I’m getting a haircut.” By all counts, I’m pretty sure I went from scary inmate to Fabio with my flowing locks (jesus fuck I had long hair) in around 18-20 months. Not one to do things in extremes, I decided to get a small haircut. Pretty sure it took just over an hour to get rid of this huge mess from my head. My head after that, oh god my head, felt so light. My neck was instantly cooler, I felt cooler (I was cooler.) The best part though, was I did this out of left field. Didn’t tell anyone I was getting in done. One weekend I was Flowing-locks Fabio, the next I was Awesome-hair Jarryd. It was nice not having as much hair, it meant a number of things. I no longer had to shower an hour before I went anywhere so my hair would dry, it also meant I wasn’t going to be as hot anymore. I was glad I did it, it was long overdue. Since then I’ve kept my short-hair appearance going, it seems to work. Coupled in with my sideburns, I’m a killing machine.

Things after this slowed down heaps, It was the dry season and I was out most nights of the week getting photos. It was around July I had one of the moments I’m having now. “Write an entry jarryd”, “Do something about your blog jarryd“. All of that come around because I had just bought a new camera. Woo! I had finally dove in and bought the upgrade from my current camera (the 5D.) Now I use my 5D as my second camera, which makes live acts just that easier to do because I don’t have to keep swapping lenses out. Wasn’t too long before it had posed for a self portrait and it was working hard not too long after that. Pretty much after that things just died down. I started doing photos at another club which only lasted for a few months (change of management and they wanted me to charge them less.) Oh, Flo-Rida rocked up into Darwin. Wow, just wow. I mean, I’m not really a fan of his music but fuck me does he put on a show. It wasn’t like he stood in the one spot and randomly sung songs, he was jumping around, at one stage he was sitting on the edge of the stage with all these people scrambling just to touch him. The number of time I was standing there and feeling the whole club move because of the crowd was nuts. One moment everyone would be quiet, then some song they knew started and everyone moved at once.

Again, another few quiet weeks, nothing of interest happened. Manhunt come through Darwin, although I wasn’t as excited by it as I was with Miss Bikini, it was still neat. For the national final, I had to do some photographic judging, which involved me and two other photographers having a quick photoshoot with each of the models. By quick I mean there were like 28 guys, and I had about 3 minutes total with each one before they’d move onto the next judge. No breaks, no stopping while I catch my breath. It was nuts, and while that doesn’t sound fancy, it was actually slightly hard work. My birthday came and went by again, nothing too interesting happened, pretty sure I did nothing of value (only one person outside of my family remember, that has to be a record.) Was the same deal with Christmas, no sooner had it arrived was it over. Although, Christmas day was something to mention. Up until now, I hadn’t really gotten drunk with my Mum. I mean, I’ve had a couple of drinks with her, but nothing too substantial. Usually we have Christmas with our neighbours and their family, and the location usually changes each year. Well, this year we had it at our house and seeing how neither of us had to drive anywhere I said that our mission for the day was to get incredibly plastered and not care about anything. Well, we did. I have to mention though, I had been out the night before taking photos and invariably drinking aswell, so I had a handicap. Got up and pretty much got straight into it, 11am and I had to crack open a beer because I knew it was going to be a long day. The rest of the day was uneventful, buy by the end of it Mum and I had gone through about one and a half to two cartons of beer. I think she did well although Dad did stop her from drinking before I had finished, but I was still proud. Christmas night? I was out by 9pm. It was awesome. I had the best sleep I’ve had for a while and considering the lack of sleep I had the night before, it was nice.

New Years was over quicker than I imagined, which was nice. I wasn’t looking forward to New Years, as I was a week or so later. Summadayze! Yay, another trip to a different city instead this time there was a whole group of us going. Considering my last flights, I made sure of a number of things.

• Make sure it’s a direct flight
• Make sure I don’t come back at some ungodly hour
• Maximize the amount of time I spend there

My destination this time around was Brisbane and the Gold Coast, but I was in the same boat as last time. I’ve been to Brisbane and that before, just not experienced the night life. Unlike my last trip though, my flight leaving Darwin was at 6 in the morning. Six in the fucking morning. The only time you should see that time is when you’re getting home from a night out, not getting up to go do stuff. The good thing though, leaving at 6am meant we would get into Brisbane before lunch and do stuff. At first I was pretty sure I drew the shortstraw when we checked in because I had a seat by myself. How wrong I was. This seat by myself meant I had two spare seats next to me. Thank god. Seriously, I was sprawled out over three chairs having the best sleep I’ve ever had on a flight. Anyway, we get into the hotel and dump our shit and spent the rest of the day roaming around Brisbane. Wandered through a bunch of malls, I had a mission of my own though, I had to make sure I bought pretty new shoes. I was all but certain my old skate shoes wouldn’t hold up too well in any spiffy club in Brisbane. I picked out a shoe store at random and had a look around. Oh, mind you, I’m doing all this wandering around with my camera in my hand, so when I get to the shop, I’m packing it away so I can look at shoes. Ironically I spent more time chatting to the hot sales chick about cameras than I did looking at shoes. Friday night in Brisbane was nice, we ate at some outside restaurant and spent some time in the Met. I’ll say one thing, the females there are hot. Keep in mind I’m comparing them all to Darwin, and seeing how there’s barely any females up here (let alone attractive ones), seeing this number of attractive women was nice. Friday night wasn’t too eventful as we were saving our energy for Saturday… day. Now, Summadayze was in the Gold Coast, we were in Brisbane, which meant we had to get a private hire car to drive us about an hour and a bit down the road to the event, which wasn’t too bad. There were a number of times where I’m pretty sure we all feared for our lives. I don’t know what it is with any kind of driver, but they like to speed up to the next red light and fucking slam on the brakes. Luckily the van thing we had didn’t have any seat belts otherwise we might have been safe. We finally walk in the gates and head to the stage where my friends were meant to be playing with only minutes to spare before they were meant to start. With what seemed like more Darwin people than Queensland people, it went off without a hitch.

After their set it meant free rein for me to see who I wanted to see. Seeing as I hadn’t really wandered around the grounds, I headed over to see Eddie Halliwell play for a bit. Pretty much for the rest of the day I was jumping between stages watching different acts I had always wanted to see live, it was awesome. I should preface this part of the story a little information about these little bands they give you on entry. Apparently they don’t just mean: “Yes, you’re over 18, you can buy alcohol”, they mean: “Yes, you walked through the gates legitimately”. Well, I didn’t realise these bands meant the latter. So at one point during the day I’m heading over to one of the further stages and suddenly I’m chased by some overweight security guard wearing a headset and looking mighty out of breath.

Overweight Guard: “WHEREYOURBAND”
Me: “Ohgodwhatdidyoujustsay?”
OG: “TICKET? WHERE IS YOUR BAND?”
Me: “Oh, the band, it fell off” (I lied, I ripped it off because it was annoying)
OG: “WHERE IS YOUR TICKET!”
Me: “OH GOD HOLD ON THEN” (Showing him my ticket)

At this point I’m pretty much shitting myself because I didn’t want to get thrown out. Suddenly there’s two other guys there with similar headsets on, although not as overweight standing around me. Soon I’m being told to come back to the entry gate to get a new band. Like I said before, apparently they mean you’re allowed to be there, not that you’re allowed to buy drinks. Whoops I probably should have read the fine print about them… somewhere. For the rest of the day it was uneventful, I saw: Eddie Halliwell, Sebastien Leger, Infected Mushroom, Sharam, and a little bit of the Shapeshifters. We had to leave earlier than I wanted to (just so we could get back to Brisbane in time for their next gig), but I had a fucking ball. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to take my camera into the actual festival, but I’ll try to apply for some kind of pass next time. I didn’t mind, I had fun being a punter, I just wished I had my camera at times. I won’t talk about the chicks, because there were so many hot ones. The ride back to the hotel wasn’t as long this time, probably because I was so pooped from all the walking I did that day I kept dozing off. I just had to make sure I didn’t fall asleep, because we had to continue on at the Met later. It was pretty good at the Met, and after about a decade of talking on the internet, I finally met chendo. I don’t think anything else interesting happened while we were there, ended up leaving around 3am and calling it a night, I mean, we had to be up at 10am so we didn’t miss our flight. Unlike my flight there though, I wasn’t graced with two spare seats next to me, instead I had some quiet asian couple that pulled out sushi in the middle of their flight and started having lunch. I didn’t care though, at that point I could have slept anywhere. Although, it wasn’t like my Sydney flight from last year, I wasn’t so horrible the morning after. Probably because I went home earlier than I did in Sydney. Maybe I’m becoming an old man.

That brings me to now. I’m turning 23 this year. Fuck. Yeah, I don’t feel old. My sister’s learning to drive and she’s turning 18 in a year and a bit. I still don’t feel old. I’m seeing kids who were in Primary School while I was in high school out getting drunk. Still don’t feel old. Seeing it’s midnight and I’m ready for bed? Yeah, I’m old.