yo. so here's some photos of last night to give you a few pictures (some blurry) of what happened.





here's the biobox aka control room of the theatre. my little office. that's my laptop and then one lighting board. then a really ancient lighting board in the far right corner. this is an old theatre.





and this is this is me fiddling with the sound board. almost every night the fucking speakers cause me grief and make me go through mini crisises (crises?). as usual the left speaker is perfectly silent while its partner blares music. this theatre is so old. luckily the problem sorts itself out somehow at around 7.45pm every night, after i spend at least half an hour running up and down from the biobox to the speakers and back again again repetitively, working up a sweat. 15 minutes before the play starts. pretty creepy.





this is the lovely jill, our stage manager. totally unmean. totally unauthoritative. often seen sweeping the stage and moving props around. she still has problems pronouncing my name the way i want it pronounced. but i still love her.





and this is where the lovely jill sits during the play. the stage manager's corner. with her headphones and microphone and script under a blue lamp. during rehearsals the headphones weren't working up in the biobox so jill kept whispering into the microphone which runs to speakers in the dressing room and the biobox, and said stuff like "alooweeshus, this is your conscience." and francis said "aloysius, shave your sideburns.". the monkeys.





right. here's the set. the only thing that gets moved is that white box in the middle of the stage. it's actually grey. really light grey. the light makes the grey even lighter. but it's a moot point. when our director/lecturer/whatever steve asked me if it looked grey, i was like shrug whatever it catches colour better if it's white. then he said oh you don't care whether it's grey or not do you. to which i gave the french upside-down smile and shrug. i think he was just sore cos he spent the afternoon painting it grey.





zoom forward into the future 3 hours or so later after the play. chillin' in jill's house sipping/gulping champagne. that's beth, courtney and cheryl from left to right. this is before everyone got high and started losing it.





this is adam. he's really stoked about finally getting to booze up and party after the play. he's wearing jill's bridal veil. she says she has one handy cos she gets married so often. and this is when everyone isn't even high yet.





right. that's me in my beanie. courtney, cheryl, adam with the champagne cork wire thing on his schnozz, marianne's head, and someone's leg. adam later sat next to me and hijacked my beanie and tried to make me wear the veil. but that didn't happen. i'm not that gay. then later on beth who was a little gone already snatched my beanie off my head and passed me hers yelling "swop! swop!". they all love my beanie. adam says i look like the dalai lama. i called him a racist.





there's sabah out of view taking a sip, jill obscured by glass and blurriness, and sweetie beth smiling for the camera. yes yes her name is sabah and no i didn't ask her if she knows it's a place in malaysia.





that's marianne really enjoying her champagne, chelsea, and a spectre of adam lunging in.





people looking gone. and this was just a little into the night. marianne looks hella gone by now. adam looks surprisingly sober. for someone who in a while starts drop kicking a toy footie ball around the place and screaming like a madman.





and the next mad moment, suddenly everyone gets really gay while marianne is distracted. this is only the first of the few bear hugs i got from adam last night. i look like i'm really enjoying it. ok anyway this is the last photo. all the photos are from mindy's camera and after a while she started just taking videos of everything. so that's that.



until thursday.

woop. up super early. got up about an hour ago. i think whenever im close to drunk i can never sleep very long, considering i slept at close to 3. what an unfortunate circumstance.



anyway last night. the last night of the play. the finale. after the play we packed up the stage and then we all headed to the stage manager jill's place, stopping by at a local nightspot along the way for some "sparkling wine", which was not grape juice as i remarked to jill - "what the fuck's sparkling wine? is that juice? sounds like grape juice.". didn't get any beer cos it was hella expensive in that bar.



at the house, jill didn't have her keys so she broke in to her own house through her housemate's window to let us in while adam and i peed in her back garden. then it was time to sit down sip some bubbly (which wasn't particularly bubbly) and talk big cock. it's the first time i actually talked to everyone so much. the alcohol had almost everything to do with it. i had some fun calling adam a racist and yelling at them, "hey all you white people! listen to me! HEY WHITE PEOPLE!" but they're cool about it. i think. anyway, it was really fun. and all the pictures are in mindy's camera and she's still asleep at this time so i can't get it from her. she doesn't get up till i wake her for lunch, or lessons, or breakfast, or whatever.



anyway this thursday for the final tutorial/workshop of the semester for theatre, our lecturer/tutor/course-coordinator/director steve, told everyone to bring whatever they want, food drinks whatever and we'll have a two hour party thing in which he will also do the summation of the course or whatever he's planning to do. no one's really caring about the summation or whatever anyway. everyones just caring about the good times. anyway i'm going to bring my camera along on thursday to get some decent photos of everyone. so you guys will get to see the crazies i've been spending a whole lotta time with this semester.

sup sup.



last night was the first night of the play. and it was really good. i actually really enjoyed myself watching them on stage even though i've watched them do the scenes for countless times over the semester already. the way everything just came together made me smile and shake my head and marvel at how suddenly everything is falling into place. then of course in such a situation, it had to be up to me to scuff up a sound cue. came in late for one. but no one seemed to mind too much.



anyway, on the sound front, there aren't many cues for me. so i spend a large part of the play just sitting around watching the show. for the house music i've gone through a bit of my music collection and picked stuff from sigur ros, aphex twin, death cab for cutie, broken social scene, explosions in the sky, damien rice and bjork. there's an ozma song in the play itself too. and representing on the local front for house music, we have aspidistra fly with the track 'sea glass'. i wouldn't be able to feel happy with myself until i've stuck in something from home.



everynight, i lug my laptop, my file containing the script and my notes, and my water bottle (which by now is dented in 3 places) to the theatre. so i don't really have the space to bring my camera along to take photos. but i think i'll try to bring it for one night at least to get my share of pictures. more to take photos of the people than the place. well, we'll see.



it's the home stretch.



a semester of hard work and too many rehearsal hours.



i'm starting to miss the people already.

what is a loy?







a loy is tired.

wooo i just got back from the pantomime. i'm officially the sound/lighting operator but i'm gonna be doing sound every night. i'm the 'floating entity' in the control room so my jobscope encompasses everything. its pretty fun though i didn't have that much fun setting up all the lights and putting in all those late nights in the theatre. but as the lighting guy in the control room, blake, said the other day, it'll pay off when you see the show come together. and yep, i'm feeling pretty happy. moreover i got to play dj by selecting the house music cos somehow they forgot to set it before the show. oh and i got a free beer. i hope this is a staple for every night. oh and i got a free pantomime t-shirt too. supposed to wear it tomorrow for publicity but i have no school. i'll wear it anyway. solidarity. right. i'm not feeling hungry like i thought i would cos the past two late nights in theatre i've gotten really hungry. oh well. i'll wait for it to strike. two more nights of pantomime to go. then it's a week of preparation and rigging and rehearsals for my main production for my english unit. and then its a week long run. then finally. finally. i can get some rest. i should say time. cos i need to study and do all the work and essays that i won't have time for this few weeks. ok. i didn't mean for this to be such a boring diary post. so you can never come back here anymore.



theatre yeah.

goo morning lalies and gennermun.



i have a philo essay due tomorrow which i should be doing now, but i'm a bit bloated from all the philo researching i'm doing so it's time to let you in on another crazy weekend in perth.







everyone, this is sam. my main kaki in arts. last sem we had 3 common units. and we were in the same tutorial for one unit. this sem we have yet again 3 common units. and we were gunning to be in the same tutes for all 3 units but one of the tutes we opted for had so many people they split the class in two, and so we were seperated. very tragic. speaking of classes, me and sam just skipped our philo lecture at 9 and philo tute at 10 to do the essay. yes, i am using the time conducively.







what we were doing on this saturday was we were going to check out this music store that sam had seen from the bus on his way to somewhere called just music. we were supposed to go during the one week study break but i was too busy trying to study and whatever else. anyway we got there and it's a pretty cool place. got cheap guitars. not as cheap as in davis. but if i had to compare what i know in perth to what i know in singapore, just music would be the davis of perth. but with much better guitars. anyway. we got on the train to go to fremantle after the music store. this is sam on the train.







after eating at mcdonalds and walking around fremantle, we went to dome and chilled out a bit. he bought me coffee and also paid for my ice cream at mcdonalds. so we read some papers and i got excited over this sensational headline. anyway, if you look closely at the photo, it's of cambodian? viet? women marching in formation and carrying AKs. A to tha muthafuckin' K. i was too engrossed in the headline to pay attention to the photo.







later on, we walked around a bit more then went to wait for the bus to get home and supposedly get crackin' on the essay. he's not really posing for this shot. he was messaging his mother on his handphone.







on the bus. see that sun. that sun stays on our left for the whole journey back. and if you remember that ocean that you see in the train picture, the sun sets over that ocean in the evenings. and that is what you see whenever you go home from fremantle in the evenings. a hella relaxing view of the sun over the ocean on your left. i didn't take any photos of it though. that's so cheesy. one thing i should mention. notice sam is listening to something. the other headphone is plugged into my ear. and what we're listening to is local music from singapore. yeah baby. sam is a local music fan too. we listened to the oddfellows, stoned revivals, leslie low, the observatory, rita chao, the padres and force vomit. we've been sharing our treasures with each other. and know what, it feels really chilled out to be listening to 'the unity song' and coasting by the ocean with the sun about to set.







k final photo. that's me suckin' on a starburst lollipop and sam being excited about some cheap car rental company that we're passing. yeah yeah i realised all the photos are of sam and little else. when i feel like being a tourist and take photos of scenery instead i'll drop you guys a note.



back to work bitches.

ok kiddies, the comment box doesn't seem to be working in the previous post. so if you guys were putting up suggestions for me could you put them in the comment box for this post? or the post two posts ago? spanks a lot.



if they weren't suggestions, you can post it up again if you're bothered to.

yesterday was labour day in singapore? i didn't even know. did old soon juan hold a rally again? i hope he did. sucks to have holidays falling on saturdays.



anyway, yeah the radiohead concert was cancelled cos thom had some throat infection. so i didn't get to hear it on radio. but triple j was pretty efficient about things and they played about half an hour of their set from glastonbury last year i think and another acoustic set recorded in the bbc. the acoustic session was fantastic. just thom and jonny. so in the end, i did just spend the night in my room with the door closed listening to radiohead.



well, i'm way behind on schoolwork. and the school server that hosts the recorded lectures (that i have been missing) is down. so i can't do anything about it.



i've been busy sorting out sounds and music for the main play i'm involved in. sitting by the stereo searching for and playing assorted sound effects while the rest are rehearsing. it's quite a chore finding the right sounds like the right dog howl or rustling leaves or bullshit like that. anyone out there got any sounds or music that might be suitable please give a shout out to me. the play is "Gertrude - The Cry" by howard barker. it's quite jacobean and it's pretty dark and really emotional. and it's got sex and breast sucking and cock sucking in it. so if anyone's got any ideas or suggestions for music, that would be cool. so far, i'm trying to incorporate some radiohead, sigur ros and depeche mode in it. well actually just a sample from depeche mode.



yeah so that's it for now.