Eyeball (Vol.4, 1982)

We jump right into the reading as this is essentially part 2 of the last episode where we used up all the time just chatting as we are wont to do

We hear more about the CB radio and Jenny’s addiction to it (there's a 'big fight' with brother Jim because he won’t let her use ‘the rig’. Lily laughs about Jenny using the term ‘the rig’ and rightly so because it’s very 1970s CQ CQ Rubber Ducky trucker talk. But the thing is, Jenny is chatting to Brian and George, local station masters and then in this episode, even organises an ‘eyeball’ (face-to-face meeting) at the Camberwell Hotel. But before that, she goes to a gig at The Sentimental Bloke in Bulleen because her new fave ska band No Nonsense are playing (it’s only incidental that Jenny and Dee stay for the headline act: INXS.)

They stand right up the front at the stage, which is only about hip high. No Nonsense are great as usual, and then INXS also good, the highlight being Jenny salvaging a guitar pick (asking a bouncer to get it for her) and Michael Hutchence grabbing Dee’s hat off her head and wearing it for a song (not mentioned in the reading; but has come back from the memory storage facility since recording this episode!) Jenny reads about getting an empty Carlton Draught beer can that Michael drank from at the Uni Beach Ball and sticking it up in the corner of her bedroom as a trophy, where she could look at it (and the guitar pick) from the top bunk.

After the gig, Jenny and Dee sit outside and start chatting to a guy (‘really good friends of No Nonsense’ ‘went on the tour with them and Strange Tenants to Sydney’) and he gives them the lead singer’s phone number!

And there's more:  dreams (with teeth falling out); and she still doesn’t have the Hobby Tex paint. Jenny recounts her delulu efforts at being a copy writer, and we talk about whether delusion is necessary for anything creative to get done, and also how you can lose the juice by talking about something too much.

And now, the eyeball with the train men George and Brian. ‘Brian is funny’ and it seems Jenny might like him, but then she and Dee burn off to The Venetian Room ($5 admission) in the VW Beetle to see No Nonsense who are doing their second gig of the night after supporting INXS (again) at Bombay Rock. ‘We are gradually establishing ourselves with the people surrounding the group.’ Lily asks Jenny why she didn’t become a groupie and Jenny says probably because she was still a virgin. 

We also hear the first mention of smoking: ‘I’m smoking too much. Ten last night and ten tonight.’ As well as more about t-shirt designs (a really big ‘NO’ and a really small ‘Nonsense’ underneath…)

Jenny’s still re-reading The Wolf and the Dove; she goes to a cast party for Godspell and deems it ‘boring’; then heads out to dinner with the family to Spaghetti Graffiti and ‘sulked most of the night’.

There you have it. More gigs. More t-shirt ideas. More crushes. More wonderful goings on, from November 1982. Enjoy!

Links:
Sid Vicious singing My Way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDyb_alTkMQ



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