Mad Mark: Beyond Penola-(bore)dome or I just dropped a huge blog, I hope it doesn't clog the internet

So over this past weekend, everyone got fri-tues off - the old solid 5 day weekend (a drinkers holiday, time-traveler's delight or The Curious Case of Benjamin's Bingeing). So because it was a  late Easter (which almost all of Australia gets off the Friday and Monday) it coincided with another holiday in Australia that takes place on the 26th of April (Anzac Day, like a memorial day in Oz and NZ) and thus created the perfect storm of a 5 day weekend. If I could buy stock in Coopers ale right now, I would because most of Australia is going to be consuming copious amounts of it over the next several days. They might as well make Wednesday a "memorial day" for all the brain and liver cells that fought so nobly over the weekend.

Anyway, so I decided I needed to high-tail it out of Penola for this magical weekend. I talked with my buddy Jeff who was working in McLaren Vale (south of Adelaide, pretty famous wine region) and sorted out to head that way for the weekend. Unfortunately this meant I needed to rent a car, since the ute I've been using is barely even road-legal ("but let's keep that on the down-low, she's not exactly street legal...Hey, Mike!")

In honor of the above Will Ferrell quote, I added this: what might be the greatest picture of him ever made...by man. No idea what it's from but I want one done like it (possibly even a poster of this.)

So I got a rental car organized and set out for McLaren Vale, what should have been about a 5 hours drive; 5 hours had I brought a map with me. Yeah, I almost made it there without getting lost, till I noticed I was cruising along the southern coast. Kinda missed a right about ohhh 50 km's ago. I ended up making it to "the vale" as it's known not too late (though I did tack on some extra miles that I really didn't need since I only had a limited amount for the trip). Going off topic slightly, in reference to my Mad Max beyond thunderdome post title, there's a town near Penola called Bordertown. Every time I see it on a sign I think of Bartertown in Mad max and imagine crazy weaponized cars and Tina Turner as mayor (if you haven't seen Mad Max beyond thunderdome, you really have no idea what I'm talking about and should probably watch it; it's probably on AMC or something right now. It stars a young Mel Gibson before everyone knew he was crazy and antisemitic).

What the locals might be driving in Bordertown.

Anyway, I ended up making to Mclaren vale, eventually. I've already written too much so to sum up the long weekend:

-drank lots of wine (a good change because I really haven't been enjoying enough wine), but actually imbibed in quite a few beers also.

-tasted at about 15 wineries in McLaren vale and the Adelaide hills (which was awesome). Favorite was Shaw and Smith winery in the Adelaide hills; really great stuff.

-purchased too much wine (looks like I'll have to start picking up on my wine consumption after the trip as well)

-Jeff's harvest beard shat on mine. I think it actually forced my facial hairs back into their pores. For an idea of what he is currently rocking please refer to the picture of Hacksaw Jim Duggan below (clearly Jeff you have to grow another for the Cali harvest and be Hacksaw Jim Duggan for Halloween).

American Hero: Jim Duggan

-GOT TO SEE A KOALA IN THE WILD! This thing just sauntered out in the road while I was out tasting at a place in the adelaide hills; walking around like he owns the place. He then proceeded to climb a tree (mind you not euklyptus....evolution?) where I took pictures of the mythical beast.

Deadly Drop-bear. They DO exist.

-Also got to see plenty of Kangaroos. Hell, I almost hit one on the road. Didn't really get a great picture of one though, it was little too dark and there were just slightly too far away.

Hard to see, but there's a little Joey by the side of the road. Might need to click on the picture to see the large version.

All in all had a great weekend. McLaren vale is much nicer than Penola and other harvest workers are there unlike in Penola where it seems to be just me. Big thanks to Jeff, John, Chris, and Ben for letting me crash at their place.

And as is my new tradition, some good Aussie music (all actually Australian this time):

Boy in a Box: Glitter, Gold, Ruin

Oh Mercy - Let me Go (just noticed I added this twice...ahh well, its that good)

A Day in the Life or when in Penola....do as...(also more awesome music)

6:14 am: Music begins playing in dream; the kick. Luckily I have an answer - the snooze button (the plot of the movie inception would have been much easier had they known about the power of the snooze button). (sidenote: I've done a fair bit of research on deciding what songs make me the least angry and irritable about waking up; Bob Marley is always a good choice. I personally like the little-known "thank you lord" by him. Currently "home" by edward sharpe and the magnetic zeroes is waking me up and doesn't seem to piss me off too much (though, ultimately I have now ruined this song by associating it with waking up)

6:24 am: Music again?. Confusion. Scramble for snooze button. (occasional spill of ill-placed wasabi peas package on night stand)

Wasabi is like a Japanese preservative, right? They're still good to eat, right?

6:34 am: Fuck you Edward Sharpe, no one care where home is. Snooze prevails once more.

6:44 am: Music. Fine I get it. I begrudgingly get out bed and begin the freezing cold walk to the shower. (I miss central heating much more now, especially my feet)

6:50 am: Somewhat more awake from shower. Brush teeth. Floss. Dry off. Get dressed. Tea on, toast in. Vegemite at the ready. Cornflakes in bowl.

7:10 am: Eat vegemite toast, drink tea. Briefly enjoy life.

7:25 am: Look at watch, realize I've been briefly enjoying life for a little more than briefly and am going to be late for work. Grab lunch, throw on boots and get in the ute.

7:26 am: Begin the process of getting my ute out of it's parking space. This generally involves a 4 point turn because I have no power steering and I drive a 1987 Diahatsu Rocky. "I DRIVE a DIAHATSU ROCKY!" (as preformed by Will Ferrell)

1st to 4, in under 60....seconds...gears....dig it

7:35 am: Arrive at winery. Rush in and head to lab. Start calibrating the pH meter so it looks like I've been there for a while (and to anyone from work reading this, it is obviously a novel tale and made up. I'm always on time).

7:35-10:15 am: Putz around at the winery. Often doing lab work, shoveling tanks, setting up lines, etc. Occasionally just pulling a Costanza and acting frustrated and busy even though I'm doing nothing. "George is getting upset!"

"Of course, Absolute Zero!"

10:15: Smoke-o (which is Aussie for coffee break, and is mandatory btw). Couple slices of pizza later and a cup of coffee, back to work.

11:00- 2:00 pm: Generally lots of lab and cellar work. Not even gonna get in to it because no one cares. It's basically a shit ton of enzymatic assays, and other stuff to tell me whats in the wine.

2:00 pm: Lunch.

2:30 - whenever: TCOB (taking care of business..."we chose to use one resume for the both of us; you know, going green"..had to throw the always sunny reference in there)

end of day (anywhere from 5:30 - 9) and or Beer O'clock, as it's called: Everyone sits down and enjoys a Cooper's sparkling ale. Often several are enjoyed. Occasionally another beer is presented other than Coopers. Often a roadie is taken (and is legal here....amazing...what an age we live in)

end of day (+ 2-3 beers) pm: get home, park my ute for 5 minutes. Eat. Possibly enjoy another fine Coopers ale. Watch a little TV on my computer (thank god I went nuts and downloaded so much). Putz around on the interweb and if I'm really bored, write a stupid blog entry. Recently, I've had the joy of trying to find a job for next harvest, which is ever so much fun, isn't that right Mary Poppins?

11:15 pm: Decide I should probably go to sleep since I have to get up at 6:30.

11:45 pm: Eventually make the move to finally go to sleep.

12:10 am : Fall asleep and hopefully not dream of work (this happened once, it's the worst nightmare - you're working 24 hours a day, only it seems like even more cause dream time is slow (thank you Inception, again).

6:14 am : wake, snooze, rinse, repeat.


MORE AUSSIE MUSIC (the Australian-American government has hired me to promote Australian artists in the US). This week, some really awesome shit. Enjoy:

Oh Mercy - Let me go (Aussie band, from a Triple J recording no less)

Young the Giant - the Apartment (actually Californian)

Andy Bull - Last Waltz (love this song):

You can't spell Penola without "my god this town is boring" w/ bonus music at no extra cost

Yeah that's how I feel about Penola and now a random thought stream (enjoy or be afraid):

There is no good way to pour honey; it's clear now why god portions it out in bear shaped squeeze bottles.

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as eating too much yogurt but I'm currently testing the hypothesis (maybe Jamie Lee Curtis and her probiotic cronies will contact me about my research).

Forget Texas, everything is really bigger in Australia; insects anyway (or I guess I should say arthropods..."hey buddy did you catch the nerd"). Most spiders are the size of your palm and flies buzz around sounding like lawn mowers. Here regular flies are the size of horse flies and Horse flies are called that because they actually are the size of small horses.

I feel that in tv shows and movies where they have black tar heroin they use vegemite.

Down here they are about to pass a ruling that will make all cigarettes come in the same generic package. Personally I only see this benefiting people that smoke really classless brands (all brands are classless, remember kids; stay in class, you'll always have school) since no one will no longer know that they buy the cheap crackhead brand of cigarettes.

Quiche tastes pretty bad microwaved the next day.

In Australia, when you're drunk or hungover the room actually spins clockwise unlike counter-clockwise like in the northern hemisphere ......yeah, im recycling jokes; my blog is going green.

I think they add nicotine to Tim-tam cookies because I just can't stop eating them and I get irritable when I don't get my fix. The caramel kinds might have something even more potent added;nothing worse than coming off a caramel timtam bender.

I just realized this - they drive on the LEFT hand side of the road here! This explains why everyone keeps trying to play chicken with me.

Also on the subject of cars, you can't indicate by turning on the windshield wiper (granted I haven't done this in quite a while). You also can't drive from the passenger seat, funny enough. (to clarify for the folks Stateside, the windshield wiper thing is where the indicator is on US cars... you get where I'm going there? with the joke, there Fry-man?)

I live in a half time zone. Yeah so when it's 9:30 here, it's at the hour everywhere else in the world. Seriously, Australia? It just makes it confusing when explaining what time it is to people. I guess I should be glad I'm not in Phoenix where they just make up whatever timezone they want to follow (look it up).

I guess that's enough ramblings of a mad black woman, no wait that might be a Tyler Perry movie; that guy's alright, high five! Does he own TBS yet? Anyone else think he's the bizarro-world version of Ted Turner (or may Ted is the bizarro version since he's somewhat evil)? Perhaps we'll delve into that deep subject matter in the next chapter.

And now some more awesome Australian music (actually some almost all of these bands might not be from Oz but get plenty of play out here). Enjoy!

Mumford and Sons - Little Lion Man (pretty sure they're British)

Peter, Bjorn, and John - Second Chance (definitely from Sweden)

Alexander Ebert - Truth (yep, he's American...not looking good for the aussies)

Ok I found one Aussie this time: Emma Louise - Jungle

I decided to come back and add another Aussie band: Hungry Kids of Hungary - The vacationer

About the Author

Mark Davis is the current local out-of-place American in the small town of Penola, South Australia. His current writings include non-fiction on life and leisure in the Southern Hemisphere. His previous works include such critically acclaimed pieces as Lab Report Number 5, as well as Facebook Wall Post to Corey Harris, and the Pulitzer prize-winning Grocery List: Eggs, Bacon, Papertowels, Beer.  He hopes to soon reside somewhere in Sonoma or Napa county and prays that he might actually land a permanent job.

How to Make it in Australia or Blinded by the Vegemite

And yes those are both puns on a great TV show on HBO and a song by Manfred Mann (which I will ultimately post a video of below...hopefully. So I posted the video with the lyrics since I was drastically wrong about the words of the chorus; it makes a little more sense now).

So, after downloading a veritable shit-tonne of Australian music today (thats metric for you folks state side; equivalent of 1.102 US shit-tons), I decided to post a little bit about it (and ultimately ramble on about something completely different).

Firstly, as was previously mentioned in another post, there is a radio station throughout Australia called Triple J. They play music without commercials because it a government sponsored station, but also focus heavily on promoting Australian artists. Subsequently, you get to hear a lot of crazy music you might not otherwise hear, or most likely never will hear in the States. Later on hopefully I'll be able to post some youtube videos of some of the songs that I acquired.

Here's some of the stuff I got (artist - song):

Bluejuice - Work

The Middle East - Land of the Bloody Unknown

Art vs. Science - Magic Fountain

Last Dinosaurs - Time and Place

Anyway, work is still berserk but should start quieting down by next week. Ultimately this just means I'm going to be a lot more bored in a week which is not good. Work is the only thing keeping time moving out here; time moves more slowly on days off (that Einstein is full of shit). Today I tried to soak up some time by going to the local "city", Mount Gambier, to try and buy some new boots (as the current pair I'm wearing seem to be cutting off all circulation to my right big toe or impinging a nerve or something. Is it bad to have no feeling in a toe for over 2 weeks? We'll just have to leave that to the suits in Washington to decide, or should I say Canberra. Pretty sure that's the capital of this wacky place. Not sure if they wear suits though).

So I make it to "the mount", as it's called, and sure enough all the places that sell the boots I'm looking for are closed; sorry tin-man toe, maybe you'll get feelings next week.  In order to not make this trip a complete waste, I decide to go check out a famous lake in the area. It's called Blue Lake because, you guessed it, it's gray; damn Australians always lying to you to get you to visit places. I bet there's no gold on the gold coast too! So much for my money making scheme after harvest. All that aside, the lake it supposedly an intensely bright blue during the summer. It probably didn't help out my cause that it was overcast and raining the day I checked it out. The rain got a bit more intense and I decided I'd just bail and go home to eat rather than walk around; figured another day would be better. So I got back in my power-steering deprived, no side mirrored Rocky (my ute) and headed back to Penolatropolis. I then ate my second breakfast of the day (bacon and eggs, dear...only a few people will get that joke. sorry). I did however have bacon and eggs twice today. Enjoy arteries. High blood pressure is good right? Just means your heart is pumping stronger, right? I'll just have to eat more salt and start smoking cigarettes to help it out.

What Blue Lake in Mt. Gambier is supposed to look like.

Where was I? I've started rambling again. So I had an onion on my belt...right, so I replayed my breakfast and was gonna do my weekly tradition of running several miles but decided I was not up for a cold rain run and ended up sitting around watching Curb Your Enthusiasm instead. Had I had a delicious donut it may have been the antithesis of running. Which reminds me, haven't really seen a real donut out here and oh how I long for one. Last harvest was littered with freshly made donuts from a local place in Santa Rosa (please, Donut hut. Come back to me). Nothing goes better with coffee than a fresh donut. All those cop stereotypes know what they're doing and I commend them. Can't wait for warm California weather and warm freshly made donuts.

I miss you Donut hut and the small asian girl that always tried to convince me to get a dozen instead of just 4.

I think that's enough for now. Nobody likes reading anyway, right? (I sure as hell don't proofread this nonsense). I'll have to save the stories about my coworker who essentially speaks pikey like Brad Pitt from the movie Snatch only with a touch of Australian (seriously at times I can't stand a word..."yeah, I like Dogs, but I like caravans more").  My friend has informed me they are called Bogans (and after reading the wikipedia article on the term found that a similar expression exists in Newfoundland, Canada only they call them "skeets"....too funny). Till next time people that I'm assuming are ultimately just bored at work enjoy your desk jobs as my hands slowly change ethnicities.

That is not dirt, and will not come off.

As promised, some awesome Australian music:

Bluejuice - Work (no music video, just the song)

The Middle East - Land of the Bloody Unknown (again just the song, no video)

Art vs. Science - Magic Fountain (official music video. Pretty awesome I might add)

Last Dinosaurs - Time and Place (the real video again this time):

A 2 dollar coin for your thoughts or You can't spell Vegemite without Give Me E.T.

My day off started as normal as any other day; I woke up at 10, made some tea, eggs and vegemite toast, spilled the tea all over myself and the counter, cursed, made more tea, enjoyed breakfast. Penola, being the bustling metropolis it is, obviously had tons to offer me on my day off: I could spend all day for 45 minutes enjoying the sites and sounds. So I set out for a small town called Beachport which is on the coast instead.

Breakfast of Champions

It was slightly overcast out so there was no way there were clouds at the beach. After an hour drive through the Australian bush (that's what she said....ha, yikes) I made it to Beachport. It was quite cloudy. I'm pretty sure I was just too stupid to find it, but I really didn't see much of a beach. That and there wasn't much of a port to speak of either. I was beginning to think this town was a lie. I can just see the city council meeting now "we gotta change our town name from Waterdock to something that will attract more visitors. I got it!...."Anywho, I hung out there for an hour or two and decided I wanted to get home before dark to go running. Which by the way seems much easier out here; perhaps its the lack of pollution or the constant need to run from a venomous animal (I only encountered one giant spider that tried to attack me on my route).

Now to change topics completely. I was recently informed by my sister about this little gem of information: there is a Coonawarra Guinea Pig Racing Association. THIS. IS. THE. GREATEST. THING. EVER. Not 

only do I plan on finding myself a guinea pig but I'm going to make him the rodent Usain Bolt. Obviously I'm going to invest heavily in performance enhancing drugs for the little guy (there's no way they
test). I'll have him looking like a wombat by race day. He will dominate the competition. They won't even leave the gates in fear of his wrath. And if all this doesn't end up happening, at least I'll get drunk and bet large amounts of money on some guinea pigs.  I did find the following from the archives. Enjoy:

and now More Fun Australian Facts!
-Root has nothing to do with plants here. I'll let you figure it out for yourselves.
-Pokies are what aussies call slot machines...what will they think of next? thongs meaning sandals? brecky meaning breakfast?
-Beachport seemed to have neither a beach nor a port. However it was kinda windy and flies kept attacking me. I suggest a referendum to call it Attackingflieswind or maybe Windyflyattacks or Newark.
-Fish and chips are often made with shark. Often from Great whites.Well not really, and now I can't get the image of deep-frying Jaws out of my head. Kinda funny. "Show me the way to go home, I'm tired and I want to go to bed, I had a little drink about an hour ago, And it went right to my head" and "Moe: It can flashfry a buffalo in 30 seconds. Homer: but I want it now"
-After work, everyone sits around and has a couple beers; said "Beer O'clock". It's probably the best part of harvest. Even the head winemaker joins in (hell, it might be his idea). Shit, that reminds me; I'm next on case round. Knew I shoulda packed some Budweiser with me.
-The 5 cent coin is the smallest monetary denomination. So people just kinda round stuff up or down. It's somewhat strange. I'm waiting for my total to be 4.125 to see what they do. My guess: head explodes.
-and now a real fact: the city I live in, Penola, is where Australia's first and only saint, Mary Mackillop, spent most of her time and did all her work (she set up schools for any children to attend, you can look up the rest on Wikipedia). She was canonized in 2010 (way more recent than I thought). One can only guess who the second Australian saint will be: My vote is for Hugh Jackman, such a charmer.


I'm afraid no beard diaries this week, but stay tuned next week! I'm sure the anticipation is bowel-grumblingly painful....milk was a bad choice