The Debut of SickWax

My friends and I tend to let our imaginations run wild. The typical forum for our outlandish discussions is a dingy room with an irrevocably stained carpet, plush couches, and an insignificant program on a second hand 56" Samsung DLP Television.

Our conversations range from the inevitable zombie apocolypse to me trying to defend my position that I could defeat a 200 lb male deer in a to the death cage match...without weapons. Unfortunately, a youtube video has proven me wrong. I would have no chance:



As it so happens, most of these discussions remain in said forum, never to become reality. Although, the verdict is still out on the zombie apocalypse.

Every so often, however, we realize our dreams.

The most significant of these dreams being spending a year in Australia. This dream started just as all of our other ridiculous conversations. Sitting around 1116 S. Forest ave. Ann Arbor, MI 48104, a few of us were facing the battle every senior in college faces: What Next?

Clearly, the economy is a disaster and real estate firms aren't exactly hiring inexperienced political science majors. Call it an escape if you want, but I would like to think that leaving the country and putting a career on hold is a god-given opportunity to do something out of the ordinary.

Thanks to hard earned parental support and correct alignment of the stars, Riley and I pulled off the unthinkable for Americans. We are spending a year in a foreign country. Count it.



So, we made it to Australia. Once we got here, we began brainstorming on ways to get some sort of income. Naturally, as backpackers (a label that I hate having), we have landed in the reataurant/catering industry. Riley and my recently acquired love for electronic music spurred another one of our outlandish conversations...

Let's become a DJ Duo like Justice:



Well, maybe we won't be quite as ridiculous as Justice, but how cool would it be to be paid to play music in front of a massive group of party goers? Modern Day Rock Stars. Unfortunately, neither one of us had any experience on turntables ("decks"). Luckily, two weeks ago we went to a house party with lacrosse team mates and a couple of them are DJs. They showed us the fundamentals of working a turntable. Of course, the next morning we completely forgot the complexity to these contraptions. Our knowledge may have been dead, but our passion to rock out was still very much alive.

Two nights ago, I received a text from one of our room mates who does PR work for a loungy bar called the 29th Apartment. He was put in charge of Backpackers' Wednesday. As a roommate, he knew of our DJ aspirations and he asked if we wanted to DJ at his bar. We had been to the 29th apartment before on a Saturday night (their biggest night) and it was completely dead.

We thought, "OK, Rome wasn't built overnight. Let's play some casual music for 20ish people and maybe get a free drink or two."

Our PR roommate told us that the owner of the bar was planning on simply turning on an iPod, but would love to have DJs. Based on this information, we assumed that we would just bring our computers and plug a wire into our headphone jack, play a few tunes and hang out with some friends. Just in case though, we dressed in our "hippest" DJ outfits and came ready to rock. Let's just say I'm glad we didn't dress American. Trance Armstrong and Beat Sampras had officially formed SickWax: The next big DJ duo.

When we arrived at the 29th Apartment around 7pm, there was no one there. We were expecting a low turnout so it was no big deal. The first shock of the night occurred right when we walked in. They had a stage and DJ booth set up with huge speakers and Pioneer Turntables and Mixing Board (absolute top of the line).

Shit.

I wanted to leave to spare myself. We have NO IDEA how to use these machines aside from a brief crash course a few weeks prior. Then, we realized, as Eminem would say, "You only got one shot do not miss your chance, don't blow this opportunity comes once in a lifetime." We were thrown in the deep end without an inner-tube, but we were going to doggy paddle until we could swim with the Thorpedo (Phelps is a douche).

Of course, we were banking 100% on using our computers. First thing the manager asked when we busted out our macs was, "So did you guys bring your leads to plug in?" Ummmmmmmm, leads? Ya, apparently you need to bring your own cables to plug into the mixing board. Luckily, the manager had a buddy next door who had an extra. Phew. Unfortunately, he took his sweet time in getting to our bar so we had to use the bar's horrendous selection of music for the first hour. To make matters worst, we had to figure out how to use professional level turntables while playing Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and 50s one hit wonders. Stick a fork in me. It was horrendous. Skipping CDs. Pathetic transitions. Blowing speakers. We were just trying to stay afloat instead of sinking before the doggy paddle even started.

When Mr. Clean showed up with a "lead" we developed a system. Since we both had computers and a per-arranged playlist, we would play three or four songs from one computer, transfer to a CD for one song while changing to the other computer, and then shift back. It was rocky at first, but eventually we got the hang of it.

The theme of the night called for "cheesy" music. We had to play the aforementioned pop and oldies. It was very frustrating. As the night went on, however, people started to flood in. For no apparent reason! No one goes out, especially to this place, on a Wednesday night. For some reason, by midnight, it was vert crowded. Luckily, at that point we had gotten the hang of it.

A serious perk of the DJ occupation is free drinks. By our 4th or 5th free glass of Carlton, we realized that we were cheating SickWax. Trance Armstrong and Beat Sampras would not be caught dead playing Eiffel 65. It was time to rock out, despite the requests of the management to play atrocious music.

And Rock Out we did (yes, that was capitalized). Anyone who has known Riley and I recently can guess the type of music we played. The majority of the crowd was not sitting at the bar. They were watching us dominate the house. There were girls dancing on stage. One got rather friendly with Beat Sampras. There were guys in the crowd jumping and dancing and pointing at us mouthing "YOU ROCK." The rush was so intense.

The kicker is...we were doing nothing. We had every imaginable DJ tool at our disposal, but we had no idea how to use them. So, we did what the best do...fake it. We would literally put on something like Girl Talk (a DJ who mashes up different popular songs if you have been living under a rock) and pretend to be spinning and turning knobs while bobbing our heads and throwing our beckoning hands in the air at appropriate times. The best part was that everyone bought it. They have never heard of Girl Talk and they were convinced that we were God's gift to party music.

So all night, we had the house in our pockets. We were expecting to play from around 7-12. We played from 7-3:30am. 50 bucks for our first trial. I would do it for free every week. Luckily, we get to play every Wednesday because of our success. On a night where they would typically see 20-35 people all night, the bar counted over 300.

We saw 300 faces. And we rocked them all. SickWax is here to stay. Happy Thanksgiving and here's to realizing outlandish dreams.

Trance Armstrong. Out.

Judgement Day

Tomorrow will be a day of sport. To begin with, Riley and I will be playing cricket at a friend's birthday party. We will then kill time until the real game starts...

The University of Michigan Wolverines versus The Ohio State University Buckeyes

Any of my fellow Michigan students/alums realize the importance of this game. Any of you that have nothing to do with either university, but follow sports, can recognize the importance of the game as THE greatest rivalry in sports. To all of you who are completely clueless, this one game means everything. It is well known within the football communities of both Michigan and Ohio State that your team can lose every single game of the season, but if that fateful day in late November ends with a "W," the season is a success.

This game is vastly important to three characters in particular.

1) Rich Rodriguez

To say that Rich Rod's first two season's at the Michigan helm have been less than stellar is a heinous understatement. Thanks a lot Rich Rod for allowing my senior year at the "Greatest Football program in history" to be the worst season of all time. Rodriguez understands that this game will either raise team and, perhaps more importantly, fan/administration moral heading into next season or haunt him until the start of next season.

2) Tate Forcier

The kid has spunk. You can't deny that. Now, I have not been on campus and seen him strolling around pretending to be the coolest thing this side of the Mississippi, but he clearly is in it for the right reasons.

He has led the team during each victory and let the team down during each loss, but what I like most about him is his resilience. From what I have seen, he is constantly making rookie errors, but he doesn't get rattled. That should give us all great hopes for the future once he realizes that he might have been able to throw that 25 yard out against a 17 year old corner back from Harvard Westlake High School, but a big ten DB is going to read that all the way. You don't have a Henne Howitzer, buddy. On that note: I severely miss 6'4" 240 lb stoic pocket passers in winged helmets.

This game will show us what the kid is truly made of. Will he step up to the task or start his career against Ohio State in the shadow of...

3) Terrell Pryor

After what he did to us, any Michigan fan should hate Terrell Pryor. The fact that he not only shattered our dreams by not coming to Ann Arbor is one thing, but to choose to attend a University filled with degenerate low life's from Ohio? Blasphemy.

This game is his chance to confirm that he made the right decision and really stick it to us. If we prevail, however, he will have an extremely painful walk out of the Big House.

The following video is a great way to describe the rivalry and the current situation. If it doesn't give you chills, you must not have a pulse. The background is taken from Al Pacino's legendary speech during Any Given Sunday:



Riley and I are going to bring a few of our roommates to the casino to watch the game tomorrow night at 3am. Brutal. We are repaying them the favor after they brought us to a Liverpool vs. Manchester Utd. match that was of equal importance to them.

I absolutely cannot wait to see the two sides facing off at the 50 yard line. They better claw for that inch. After all, we are wolverines...

The Philosophy of the Backpacker

So I am writing this pretty late at night because I can't sleep for some reason. I am not sure where it is going to go, but I have been wanting to write on this subject for quite some time.

Until very recently, I have been completely unaware of the true meaning of backpacking. I can tell you right now that what Riley and I are doing in Australia is NOT backpacking. We are merely surviving in a different country.

The true backpackers have one priority...travel. They all have itchy feet that coerce them to move from place to place with no strings attached. This overwhelming desire to keep moving is where I find myself in opposition to the standard backpacker. In my humble opinion, I feel that traveling to a country completely across the world and staying in one city to truly understand the local customs and establish a "second home" is much more rewarding that absorbing a small amount of a large amount of locations.

This polarization of opinions could stem from personal preferences, but the more I converse with backpackers from all over the world, the more I realize that it is a cultural decision.

Europeans tend to make up the majority of the backpacking community. At first, I thought that this was because they are edgy people that want to really push the envelope and support their "football" clubs in foreign lands.

Recently, however, I have discovered, what I believe to be, the true motivation for each of the world's nationalities style of travel/backpacking:

Asia: Asians are not typical backpackers. Instead, they travel to hot spot tourist locations (Eiffel Tower, The Colosseum, NYC, et cetera), take an obnoxious amount of pictures that will most likely be deleted or forgotten and get the hell out of dodge before they are detained for insubordination.

South America: I have met two or three South American backpackers, but they have all been from well-developed areas. They seem to be traveling thanks to some sort of financial windfall or a business related venture.

African: I've met one African on my journey, but he currently lives in Chicago, so he doesn't really count. I approached him at a bar because he was wearing a Chicago White Sox hat, aka a garbage bag on his head. Turns out he was an African living in the US on business in Australia. Hardly a backpacker.

Europe: As previously mentioned, the Euros are by far and away the most prevalent backpackers. At first, I was not sure why this was the case until I decided to use the critical thinking skills that I so humbly acquired from the political science department at the University of Michigan. All Europeans want to travel because their countries have no geographical variety! If you are English, you are used to cold flat lands with loads of pale drunk white folk. If you are Irish, you are the same, just with a few more hills, pints, and red hair. If you are Swedish, you are used to extrodinarily dim witted folks with a penchant for skiing. The list goes on, but the point is that most countries in Europe lack Geographical variety.

Which brings me to my main point...

AMERICANS DO NOT TYPICALLY BACKPACK...for a few reasons:

!) Our country has every sort of topography one could ever enjoy
2) We are on the cutting edge of every technology known to man
3) We are told, from day one, that after college, you get a job and work for the rest of your life in order to support a family and continue the human race as we see fit.
3a) This is significant different from the Europeans. They tend to wait until much later to settle down. This difference is highlighted by the fact that we have met all sorts of Euros that are still backpacking with no ambitions at the ages of 25-30. Very odd.


Anyway, I've ranted enough. Time to sleep. Cheers!

Tiger + Britney = The Tigney Watch

It has been a very exciting week in Melbourne.

Is it because of the Myer Christmas Parade featuring yours truly serving water bottles to trigger happy Asian photographers that are absolutely fascinated by even the least significant floats?

No

Is it because this has been the hottest start to November in over 100 years?

No

Is it because our degenerate landlord finally got us the equivalent of a 56K Windows 95 Modem?

Partially, but No

For this week, and this week only, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia is home to two of the world's most familiar faces:



Britney Spears as we would all like to remember her, and:



The World's Greatest Golfer (looking strikingly similar to Stephan (good luck with the Swedish Blondes Stephy))

So there you have it. The reason everyone is excited in Melbourne.

You would think that there would be something significant happening in this great country, like the eminent threat of brush fires devastating homes everywhere. But no, the news refuses to report anything but where Britney Spears and Tiger Woods were last seen. This can be best illustrated by the infamous South Park Britney Watch:



This clip is barely an exaggeration. Every single move is scrutinized over and over. The fact that the woman wants a little privacy is interpreted by the Aussies as a rude gesture that she is better than everyone. Which could be true, but the point is...WHO CARES? She is a joke.

One of my roommates, who promotes some club called The Secret Society (you probably haven't heard of it, it is, after all, a secret), had insider information that Britney and her background dancers would be making an appearance. Most of our house went to check it out. I stayed home to save money/be able to wake up for work. Good thing I stayed in because all I missed was spending way too much cash on drinks and seeing Britney doubles for the press. Shucks.

Tiger, on the other hand, is in Melbourne to participate in the Australian Masters, the logo of which is a complete rip off of the true Augustan Masters (notice the flag is located in Melbourne):



It would be nice to think that Tiger wanted to come to Oz to experience the culture and maybe take a little vacation, but that is hardly the case. He is being paid 4.5 million dollars...JUST TO SHOW UP. To gain some perspective, that is more than the winner of the tournament receives.

The investment by the state government and the golf committee has more than paid for itself. As an announcer (who is also the host of Australia's ridiculous version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire) pointed out, even in Greg "The Great White Shark" Norman's prime, there has never been this many people at an Australian golf tournament.

As I am writing this, Tiger is one shot off the lead, but he is clearly just waiting for the proper time to strike. The competition could be compared to Kimbo Slice taking turns pummeling pre-pubescent school boys. Apart from a few no name Americans trying to keep food on the table, the field is entirely from Australia and New Zealand. Try and name a single decent golfer apart from Adam Scott (who has been sucking wind of late). You can't. Unless you are some kind of freak, in which case you need to stop watching the Golf Channel and go hit the range.

Other wise, the weather is amazing and I have a birthday party to look forward to during which the lads will be playing cricket, while the ladies watch and drink. On that note, does anyone know how to play cricket? My McGowan genes will force me to join the competition, but I will probably make a complete ass out of myself trying to play. At one of our catering events, the world's greatest cricket batter bear hugged me and begged me for a drink after the bar had closed and I had no idea who he was. That would be like Tom Brady asking you for a glass of champagne and saying, "Sorry Bud, no can do." Hopefully, none of the guests will be Pakistani spin ballers with jihad tendencies.

Alas, you never know. At least I might look sweet in a full white jump suit.

Au Revoir Eddie

Yesterday we got some unfortunate news. Our French roommate (changed my mind about the spelling, thanks ely) Eddie is the first to leave our house. He is leaving because his co-worker and fellow frog is not being allowed to move in. Apparently our sleeze ball landlord thinks that there are too many "blokes" living in the house and we need more girls.

Rather than lie down and accept the unfair treatment as taught by his forefathers, Eddie promptly told off the landlord and left. I don't think anyone really minds except for Riley and I because we found him absolutely hilarious. Plus, he was going to unlock my iPhone.

He has a pretty awesome way of making money. It is a complete scam. He drives around a truck full of about 80-100 paintings of French landscapes. He and his co-worker go into random homes and Asian restaurants and pretend to be French art students from La Sorbonne and sell these paintings for $200-$300.

I am confident that Simon Birch would be a better painter than Eddie.

So basically, they fool helpless restaurant owners and idiotic home-owners into buying a run of the mill painting of L'Arc du Triumphe. He makes about $800 a day for doing next to nothing because he just drives the truck and "manages" the sellers.

I wish Riley and I could come up with something like that. Maybe we could say that we are American cowboys and sell lasso's or handcrafted belt buckles.

On an unrelated note, November in Melbourne is called mustache Movember. You sign up on some website and pledge to grow a mustache for the entire month and people can donate money to your cause and it goes to charity. Plus you get discounts at local restaurants, shops, etc. Unfortunately, our catering job requires that we remain clean shaven at all events.

Too bad. I missed out on a legitimate excuse to grow a mustache and not be ashamed in public (and private).

Riley and I just got the word that we are invited to another swanky event on the Melbourne social calendar. One of our new friends is going to take us as her guests to the Australian launch of some fancy French champagne company this monday. Apparently it is going to be a big deal and according to the invitation, we have to dress "tres chic." That might be an issue but she said that she is going to let the social life photographers know that some really sweet "American La Crosse players" are going to be there. Hah.

We were finally paid for our whopping three days work today. Finally some financial breathing room. On the list of things I need to use the money on:

Rent
Food
Black Shoes for work (good thing I bought those brown shoes before I came...)
Bicycle
Fake Mustache for discounts
DJ Hero to keep Trance Armstrong in shape (yes it actually exists)

In all likelihood, only three of those will happen, but it can't hurt to dream. Unless its a violent dream on a small hostel bunk bed. Write that down.

First Day of "Work"

Yesterday, Riley and I went to our second day of the Melbourne Spring Carnival Races. This time, however, we were working, not playing.

About a week ago, our friend Jess set us up with her former employer, The Big Group, for an interview. The Big Group (TBG) is a catering group for the swankiest events in Melbourne. When we went in for our "interview" we were both fairly nervous. I put interview in quotes because we had no reason to be nervous...

Interviewer: "So Wes and Riley, what experience do you have in the hospitality industry?"
Wes: "........ummm?"
Riley: "I worked in a pizza parlor when I was 15"
Interviewer: "Great, so when can you start, boys?"

So we got the job and we were called last minute to work at the second day of the races (tuesday). Saturday, the day we attended, is called Derby Day and Tuesday is the Melbourne Cup, or Cup Day. Cup Day is a national holiday because it is "The Race That Stops a Nation." We weren't sure what we were going to be paid, but when we got the news we were ecstatic.

$43 per hour. No typo. Forty-Three Dollars per hour. Are you kidding me? Unfortunately, you are kidding me, because you get paid double on holidays in Australia. Regardless, we will normally make 23/hour which is juuuuust fine by us.

As explained in my previous post, there are a few different areas in the race park. On Saturday, we were in the nursery, which, at the time, I felt was amazingly fancy and formal. I had heard of a mythical place called the birdcage. I was told that it was where all the celebs hang out, but there was no way it could be nicer than the nursey.

Once again, I was completely wrong. Absolutely ridiculous.

I was assigned to the Myer Marquee. Myer is the australian version of Marshall Field's. It was an amazing venue and my job was to walk around a serve Champagne to a bunch of famous Australians I had never heard of.

The two people I recognized were Olivia Newton John and Miss Universe. I am not kidding. Sandy and Miss Universe. Jackpot.




That picture is Sandy, Miss Universe, and some other random model taken at our party. It was insane. There were about 15 super models there. Tons of cricket and aussie rules football players.

I still can't believe I was paid around $500 to pour champagne for the woman for whom Danny Zuko "shaped up."

As the champagne flowed, the party got Rowdy (rowdy with a capital r). Old rich people get to have fun too! One particular instance I found quite amusing...

Old Plastic Woman: "Excuse me, can you please fix my glasses?"
Me: "Sorry ma'am, I can get you anything else though? Champagne? Beer? Wine? Mojito?"
Old Plastic Woman: "......" (Grabs and attempts to kiss me)
Me: "Uhhhhhh, sorry ma'am we aren't allowed to do that at work"
OPW: "Oh well..."



Overall, it was a great day. We are doing the same thing on Thursday and Saturday. Should be interesting.