Phil Tripp

From a year ago…   Well, I’m hurtling through the pages with thousands of words pouring out of me every day starting at 7am when I hit the keyboard with my parrot behind me chirping away and the stereo tuned to a new act each day.  This week it was Drive By Truckers one day, […]

From a year ago… Five weeks in from my start writing this book I’m about a third of the way through it and the stories are pouring out of me at a rate of 2000 words a day. It’s a real joy writing and because of my lurid past in the business of importing fine […]

REVENGE IS A DISH BEST SERVED VERY COLD Thank Goddess I have reformed and got rid of my vengeful streak, replacing getting back with paying forward in random acts of kindness.  Maybe it was the stroke I had that melted that part of my mind tuned into revenge, or the subsequent cardiac arrest that killed […]

THE FIRST MURDER begins the book which ends with the second murder that I was framed for, but did not commit nine years later.  In between was a raucous diversion.   My brand new Lincoln Continental Town Car was parked in a small clearing in the empty desert clearing awaiting the loading of a shipment […]

It’s been almost three weeks since I started writing this book with a goal of about 2000 words a day pretty much fulfilled.  Dropping out of Facebook was a superb move as the distractions fell away, much like quitting smoking and not having to light up out of boredom or habit.  Every morning begins at […]

I wake up every morning around 4am, answer a few emails from SXSW and friends and then zip out of the house by 4:30 to start my hour-long dawn Nordic Walk along the Harbour Jetty, North Wall Breakwater and beach.    It’s only a five minute concert ride at high volume to the water where I […]

  The house and acreage in Coffs Harbour that I’m lucky to live on at Robert’s Hill, overlooking the Pacific horizon is a wondrous place since I planted it in native flowers and vegetation since I moved here in 2010. As a result, I have prolific birdlife, native animals, reptiles and amphibians in addition to […]

      There’s something to be said about returning to sleep in your own bed again.  I recently spent seven weeks travelling the US–Hawaii and New England with a little Montreal thrown in–during the depth of the Australian winter. Coming back to a fluffy goose down doona and a down pillow-fort high on The […]

I came back from my recent trip to find even more retailers having closed and the vacant shops multiplying.  I had an idea to write a letter to the editor of the local paper which was surprisingly published this morning   With high rents, dwindling foot traffic, an ugly CBD that I have likened to […]

There is a time in your life, if you’re a writer, and carved out an interesting trail, when you feel compelled to write your autobiography.  My time has come halfway through my 67th year and I have switched off Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any other social media feeds so as not to be distracted over […]

  Bright and sunny with cool breezes wafting through the millions of  full-bloomed star jasmines all along the back of the House on The Hill, rustling the thousands of frangipani flowers adding their scent from the front and balcony       while an explosion of hundreds of gardenias perfume the air with their aroma from […]

      I just realised as I started the month’s countdown to my 66th birthday November 17 that I’ve neglected this lifeline a bit as my life has become more interesting and less fraught with health and mobility issues. Yeah, I suffered a massive cardiac arrest in March and died but recovery now has […]

It was three months ago today that without warning or a single symptom, save two seconds of dizziness, I slumped and dropped dead in front of a door greeter at Alamo Car Rental in Honolulu Airport.  Thanks to her catching my head before it bounced off the pavement, a girl who rushed off an outgoing […]

There is nothing more powerful than dying to make you appreciate living again. That’s how I’m feeling only a couple of months after my nine-minute lapse in time when I keeled over and clocked out in a crowded Alamo Car Rental office in Honolulu late-February 2016.  I’m still here and rocking out to the strains […]

For those friends who didn’t see it on my Facebook Feed or catch up with me by other means, I’m now a month past the massive cardiac arrest and nine-minute death I suffered on landing in Hawaii February 27.  I’m extremely lucky to be alive and with all my senses, much less at home comfortably […]

  It’s now been two months since I had the mild stroke that could have gone either way. At 64, having a stroke can be devastating and leave you a blubbering, motionless cripple. In both the intensive care ward for a night and rehab for the past month, I’ve seen the toll taken on previously […]