Social Proof, not Social Goof!

Perception creates reality but I think reality eventually creates perception.

last update: 31 December 2023

I heard Lenny Kravitz for the first time with Let Love Rule on the car radio, probably around 1990 on PBS. I think my brother was sitting next to me and my dad was driving. Our car was passing a cemetery.

Really, LK should put acoustic guitar to bass/drums/organ more often.

I was thrilled no one changed the station during the song and thought it was one of the coolest tracks I’d ever heard. Very unique. Then I recognised the music again at a friend’s place a number of months later and it all clicked and I bought the album.

In 1992 (above left) I owned the Digipak edition of LK’s 2nd album (middle) and in 1993 I owned the Digipak of album 3 (right.)

My dad’s first reaction was to his name – okay so he must be Jewish!

However, one of my cherished Kravitz CDs ended up severely scratched after I lent it out to Tim in 1993. Tim later said that the CD was passed around in the unit without him knowing and he mentioned some other people. It ended up on the wood floor somehow. But I must’ve won social points for lending it out though and people return favours in different ways.

During this time LK wasn’t really hard, manly or grungy enough to be universally accepted, at least at my school. It could have been the falsetto, who knows? I just liked his music. Image was secondary to me, if not completely irrelevant.

Anyway, on 12 Feb 1994 I saw LK in concert and I even bought a long-sleeved t-shirt – but that’s over now.

At school, it was strange because I think a bunch of girls liked me (as they liked Lenny) but I didn’t really know that – female competition and jealousy was probably a deterrence. In that respect, single-sex schools were better because they had wilder parties, it seemed.

At one of those parties, I had a skateboard taken that I had carefully constructed in 1994 during woodwork (in the Deaf School) and many years later it appeared at someone’s place with serious mileage on it. A chap I knew quite well, Rikka, (Mark) mentioned some other names that gave it to him and they were my buddies anyway. Strange situation, we were both stressed, and I let him keep it as it was so banged up and possession is 9/10 of the law.

Also, I thought deep down that having the board disappear meant it might well have saved me from having an accident on it. I was more into skiing and blading and I did design a pair of skis that were built in late 2012 for carving (but very strangely ended up great in powder too.)

2013 (Zermatt)

I found these skis to be extremely safe – I only took one fall in ~20 days of skiing and that’s because I was testing their limits. So these Heartcarve skis are for endorphins, not adrenaline. And due to the lack of pain and fear, skiing becomes a much more social experience and I ended up talking to many more people on the chairlift and simply overall. The biggest challenge was finding a pair of boots that fit well, because so much g-force is taken by the tongue.

Note, like downhill mountain-biking, my upper body is facing in the same direction as my skis.

Back in 2008, on off-the-shelf slalom skis after having worked on Heartcarving since 2002:

(also vid 2007 – Tirol)

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2007 – Little Buller Spur | 2007 – Summit Slide  | ’08 + ’08 (Whistler)

Today, the style could be comparable to an e-unicycle.


The whole “always keep upper body facing downhill” thing is a paradigm to me that causes tension and pain in the body. Even today’s modern carvers still do it to a large extent.

I suppose no matter what the skis or technique, one can always numb it all down later apres-ski. I’m playing with gravity and centripetal force, and centred in my heart.

So all boots have a pain point when fitting in the shop and that has to be on the front of the shin because after a few days of skiing, the front of the shin develops a muscle to counteract that force. No other pain points decreasscreenshote over time. For me that was the Garmont G2 – a miracle find because it was for bony, narrow feet.

Anyway, in one way I was happy for Rikka because he was a really good skater and I hold no grudges. In the news, there are so many stories about small disputes escalating into serious offences, it’s important to keep things in perspective and this is why condemnation as a mental device (also mentioned here and here) is problematic as it leads to disproportional, emotive responses and also one’s own provocation. I should have kept a closer watch on the board. But it also shows I made a good deck because he said a number of people had used it.

It was a Magnusson deck (~1988) that I cut down, and the trucks were maybe re-drilled and pushed apart – can’t recall. I may have also used trucks that I bought second-hand from the skate shop. I got the biggest wheels I could find, tightened the trucks, loosened the wheel nuts and this made it fast, stable and intoxicating transport. Ollies were hard, though.

No wonder it was stolen. And I thought people would think I was a weirdo.

It’s worth noting that that board had nose-to-tail, hell concave and I initially bought the whole thing second-hand at Huntingfield Road for about $25 from Rich – my good friend’s older-brother’s good friend.

He didn’t like the concave, and it was still in pretty good condition. It was my first “professional” board.

I removed the rail and tail sliders and would stop by rolling onto the pavement side-grass or big s-bending on the road. Like my skiing, I didn’t care about tricks and wasn’t too good at them either, I just wanted to cover distance in style – as with life.

To this day, I think it was a great design because my feet could stay over the trucks and this kept the board parallel to the ground rather than bending as with a longboard.

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I didn’t want to slide it, and I also didn’t want it to speed wobble. Also, by being narrow, I could keep downward force along the midline. It may have resembled one of today’s “cruisers” but with a wider wheel footprint. So it was for snowboard carving on the road.

Perhaps I should see it as me having “lost” it rather than having had it “stolen.” Maybe I lent it out, it was passed around like my Kravitz CD, and I just forgot about it long-term because it was so new to me and I was so focused on school work.  Thus, the whole time it had a “borrowed” status among some of my school friends. But I never did tell anyone “here, that’s yours now to keep.”

On the other hand, maybe it was straight up stolen or taken as “ownerless” one night and then dumped or kept. And Rikka was most probably right, I did last see someone using the board at full pelt up and down the street one night when I turned to a couple at one point and said “love is a beautiful thing” and they both laughed.

And I have no recall of Rikka ever being there that night in Toorak in late ’94 or early ’95. Eden was there, though. And that’s probably it right there:

So at least it got good use! The whole thing has a sexual connotation too.

Anyhow, I really wanted to go to my school formal with someone I had met at a party that had been at my house, P, whereby Luke met her randomly shortly before it (with her friend S also coming to the party.) Luke thought they were hot and I chatted with both of them in the back garden with Mike around where Desmond is below.

So then in 1996 out of the blue P appeared outside South Yarra train station as if waiting to speak to me, and I spoke to her for a bit, but being into my walkman and schoolwork, my mind was too linear for me to pop the question. Well spoken, she had been on an ABC television show that year too. Frustrating.

Some months later we spoke again by chance at nearby Funkies, funnily enough where Tim’s good friend Sarah worked who I also knew quite well from school, and I later had that pair in the back of the Nissan at some point as we went clubbing in early 1997. So to P, I said “there’s no sign I’m not compatible with” (Prince – Kiss) and she said “bull.” She was with a friend and that was the end. I should’ve just said, “hey, let’s all meet at Silvers tonight” as it was in the same building, and come to think of it, I did see P once at Silvers in I think early 1997 but we never spoke. She either ignored me or I ignored her, who really knows in those chaotic places? So a few weeks or months later Lucy (and Noah,) who Luke knew, would’ve been over with her upright bass.

Right about that time I started delivering pizzas for Giardino which became Vintage Cellars and was a few doors up from Fuji where Toby was dognapped.

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Michael Todd of the Australian Ballet (1978) (above-right, bare legs) was a waiter and said he felt I had a shielded or guarded personality and should loosen up … something like that anyway. I didn’t really agree with him – but he may have had a point – I don’t know – I was serious a lot of the time. Perhaps I should’ve popped on a clown suit. Good guy though, and we had some interesting discussions. He looked at my hair, touched a few strands and said in a professional tone that I should cut it really short, which I eventually did (but only years later) or else grow it long.  He was at the tail-end of his career and had trouble finding work in ballet in his late 30’s – he had to move into choreography at that point. It must’ve been tough for him to transition from an acclaimed dancer into someone who some people would treat condescendingly.

But looking back, I think I should have given my hair a career at that point, however I only grew it really long decades later. Perhaps I could’ve gone from pizza delivery into modelling but that wasn’t in the realm of my thinking. One rare regret I have from the years 1997-2001 is the lack of photos I took of myself and the fashion choices of the day.  All my clothes were thrown away from that time too. My biggest tip was a $20 bill for a $13 pizza and to “keep the change.” That was from Brian Blythe (1939 – 2022) of Spotless at the doorstep of Coonac, Melbourne’s most expensive home.

I wasn’t just grateful, but also in awe. But how would modelling get me there permanently? I did take some shots outside Coonac in 2020.

So I disliked deliveries because it put taxi mileage on the Nissan as I felt pressured to deliver a hot pizza, caused pizza odours within it and the pay was bad especially taking into account fuel costs. I also finished late and occasionally lost time trying to find a place. Tips were okay and meeting people was cool – when they were still sober. I did some additional delivery runs for a pizza shop in the Balwyn area in place for Zoltak.

Interestingly, during my time at uni, but I’m not sure when – most likely 2001 – I had the idea to run a meditation class. But it wasn’t really a meditation class. It was just about getting a whole heap of people in the same room.

The idea never moved beyond the image above, I had no qualifications, and people could get the same feeling at a cinema just as the lights dimmed. Maybe it’s something people will do in 2050 for whoever remains. A meetup in its purest form. I still think it has potential: expect nothing, receive everything. Maybe a group sleep could work like in kindergarten but for adults in a retreat setting.

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But I never slept during nap time. A very cultish demand unless on an aeroplane.

So in early ’97 at uni I momentarily met P’s younger sister P2 (and her friend E) on the tram who later brushed passed me after she saw me laughing out loud in front of the commerce building – during my conversation with Robbie about clubbing. Kind of gnarly to think about it all now. It must be quite common, a person is friends or even an item with someone, and really they should be with the sibling… it’s happened to me a few times.

So Robbie lived around the corner from me and Jun met him one night and Robbie said Jun was a “top bloke.” Jun, Robbie, myself and I think Peck were in a taxi going to Crown Casino, and we passed the Arcadia Hotel and I saw a homeless/derelict person outside and I said “Can I have a dollar?” to him and we all cracked up laughing. I highly doubt the guy heard over the window, moving car and traffic, and I said it facetiously to take the piss out of us all – not him. These days I’d have to wonder who are the real parasites – the super poor or the super rich? But if he gave me a dollar, I could’ve tried to turn it into 10 for him at Crown minus the carried interest!

Speaking of which, Peter Thiel recently alluded to the notion that to lift billions out of poverty would require whole new energy sources. Interestingly, that may end up lowering birth rates. Also, perhaps those futuristic energy devices exist but are purposely hidden through a lack of love. It’s interesting to note how restrained Thiel is in pushing the envelope. According to one theory, JFK wanted to use his platform to rein in the Federal Reserve and look what happened to him.

I read about a very wealthy guy that started to buy up radio stations in the USA and he was “put to sleep” as well. But at some point you’ve gotta fight the good fight, but if you hit people in the wallet they tend to swing back. Prince sung “What’s the use of money if you ain’t gonna break the mould? … All that glitters ain’t gold.”

So another girl at school told me I looked like Joaquin Phoenix or Daniel Day-Lewis.

Anyhow, in Newcastle, Daniel Johns was bashed because he wasn’t masculine enough, and his music was already pretty heavy.

They were the cool guys, we were just the others guys that were in a band that wasn’t as masculine. (1:00)

In May 2018, I took this photo in Atlit, Israel and by September Lenny had his album cover on the shelves:

Fast forward to October 2023, LK’s newly announced album Blue Electric Light seems to have followed from my April 2019 pics from Innot Hot Springs.

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So, I read an interview in the 90’s about Lenny re-recording Tony Breit’s basslines from jam session tapes and not giving him songwriting credits and that caused a lot of tension. Unfortunately, I don’t have the exact quote on hand. This was from 1993, however:

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A post shared by Tony Breit (@tonybreit)

So I do remember going to my CD at the time and looking at the album art perplexed.

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Breit’s only listed playing on 4 tracks.

Chad Smith got writing credits on Blood Sugar Sex Magik and he was “just” the drummer. But they’re a “band” so it’s different, right?

Has Breit written anything with Lenny? He plays guitar too. Maybe I’m over-reaching but I lost some of my innocence at the time.

Best of luck to them anyway. I think it was Me’shell Ndegéocello that said she wouldn’t even step into the same studio with someone with her instrument unless there was a contract in place. Might’ve been someone else, though.

Re-recording parts is nothing new. On Guns ‘n Roses’ 2008 Chinese Democracy:

"According to Ferrer, he is the only drummer on the title track; the rest of the album features drums by Brain and Ferrer, using Freese's arrangements. Bassist Tommy Stinson stated he had to rerecord his bass parts with each change in drummer." - src
Brain said Freese played on 30 songs before he split with the band. While Axl Rose admired Brain's feel, he was set on the patterns that Freese had played, so he had Brain replicate Freese's parts note for note. - src

This made it the most expensive rock album ever produced – $13 million.


And Coco Chanel said that creativity is the art of concealing your sources, non? But it shouldn’t have to be this way and what goes around comes around.

So back to 2020, and today a rainbow literally appeared in front of me through the trees as I started playing this on drums, and it dissipated by the end.

It’s in my squint at 0:29 … It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over… yeah… tell that to the Social Goofs who stare at the rainbows that no one else are yet to see!

pics
www.etsy.com/nz/listing/590425852/vintage-90s-1993-lenny-kravitz-universal
sg.carousell.com/p/arthcd-lenny-kravitz-are-you-gonna-go-my-way-limited-edition-digipak-cd-poster-147322884/

✓ 3 months ago