Violet Daze

rewriting history

2006-01-18T00:36:00.000+11:00

One day after a fight with someone I love I drag my childhood journals out from their hiding place and, like a modern-day Stalin, I rewrite history.

I plough through hundreds of pages: the perfumed, pastel pages of my early teens, the scratchy, scrapbook paper I favoured later on, the no-nonsense, blue-lined binder books of recent years. I skim-read each page with a furrowed brow, revisiting words that once spilled out of me. Sprawling blue biro scrawl ringing with false confidence, jagged red pen lines that make angry imprints in the page. Neat resolutions in perfectly-formed script that leans slightly to the right. Story ideas in liquid gold ink. List after list after list. Lists of things done and Things To Do, experiences had and those desired, things I needed, wanted, loved. Things that, once done would cause everything else to fall into place. In some parts nostalgia makes me smile like an indulgent parent, in other parts I cringe—at the awkward earnestness unique to adolescents, or because I recognise a pattern. I see the same mistakes and fears played out over and over, karmic lessons that refuse to be learned. I wonder if we ever stand the slightest chance of changing our own character.

As I read, I think about how I would like to be remembered—or, more specifically, how I am afraid of being remembered. If tomorrow I carelessly step into the path of highway traffic, or am stabbed in the throat by a customer who finds the store's refund policy offensive, someone I love will be left with the task of sifting through my belongings. It is almost certain that the uncensored scribbles in my journals—always intended for my eyes only—will be read, but without the benefit of context. Because of a momentary lapse of concentration or the inexplicable rage of a tiny-minded shopper, the smallest, ugliest parts of myself will become known to the ones who meant the most to me while I was alive. And they will give weight to those words, the way people do the words of the dead, while I—pasted thinly onto the highway or having expired from a scissor wound to the throat—will be helpless, unable to tell them otherwise.

Some of these words were not meant to survive I decide, tearing chosen pages into shreds. As the hours wear on, I add to a growing pile of mental confetti beside me. Like a sculptor carving granite, I chip away at a picture of the person I was until she is someone I can stand. Someone I can live with. The girl that remains is by no means dull and perfect, nor would I want her to be. I let some of the bad stuff—selected rants and insecurities—remain, but those I deem unforgiveable I shred mercilessly.

I finish just after 2AM. All of a sudden I am aware of an ache in my back from too many hours spent hunched over, peering down into my past. My eyes sting from being open too long, seeing too much time compressed into too few pages. The covers of my journals sag, their contents now depleted. At my feet a mountain (or molehill) of thoughts I wish I'd never had sits, torn into pieces and ready to blow away in the slightest breeze from my bedroom window.

I stretch and sigh. My work is done.

limbo

2005-11-26T16:18:00.000+11:00

These are the days inbetween. The space between the full stop and the initial capital of the next sentence. The silence inbetween computer keyboard symphonies. thisiswhatinspirationsoundslike.

This

is

silence.

There are so many things I should be doing. Writing book reviews promised to magazines. Pounding the pavement that little bit harder in the hope that it might relent and exhale viable employment from its cool, concrete depths. Running solitary marathons on treadmills that take me nowhere, as I chase the hollow satisfaction of fitness, brought about by manufactured sweat.

Then there are all the things I could be doing. Taking up an invitation to visit a friend in Caracas. Making faint, shifting footprints in white sand beaches. Trying out broken Spanish, overdosing on empanadas. Or I could build walls of books and cement the cracks with notes. Surrounded by stories, in a structure fortified by names and knowledge, I could write a book.

But I don't do these things. Any of them. Trapped inbetween, I tread water, jog on the spot.

2005 is nearly over, in retail we are gearing up for the senseless frenzy that comes before the year's death rattle. Now is not the time to begin new projects. These are wasted months, more about surviving than thriving. Helping flustered last-minute shoppers find presents nobody needs, ignoring the absurdity of anthems about snow and open fires that are piped through the shopping centre while outside, the heat melts my car dashboard.

I wait, inbetween this year and the next, inbetween school and the rest of my life. I hold my breath.

Nothing can begin now, not yet.

mid-semester blues

2005-09-07T17:40:00.000+10:30

I am becoming a hunchback. Constantly curled over the keyboard like a question mark, my body has forgotten how to stand up straight. The sun is alien to me. A strange luminosity I squint at through my windscreen on my way to work or school. My skin—translucent at the best of times—is an even whiter shade of pale these days and all this caffeine can't be doing me any good.

Thanks to prolongued (computer) terminal exposure, I can no longer see more than a couple of feet in front of me. When I try to focus on a point a greater distance away, my lenses struggle and give up, probably figuring that everything I will ever need to see is available in .jpeg or .tiff format anyway. That vague fluttering I saw at the bottom of the stairs on campus this morning could have been a long-lost friend waving. It could have been a plastic bag caught on the railing. I'll never know. It doesn't matter much anyway, I stopped answering my phone last weekend. There's just no point: "No I'm busy. Yes tomorrow night too." If anyone does manage to engage me in conversation, I spend most of it trying to remember if it was Frank Kermode or Samuel Coleridge who said that Kent was the most individualised of Shakespeare's characters, whether or not the em dash is before the semi colon in the hierarchy of pauses and mentally re-writing leads for my article on relationships and culture shock.

I'm perpetually grumpy. I'm existing on toasted cheese sandwiches. I'm starting to get used to the headaches.

I'll call you when it's over.

"you're getting happier by the minute, and they wouldn't have a clue, bout what its like to be lazy when you've got too much to do..." (The Whitlams)

2005-08-08T20:43:00.000+10:30

After hours, this place isn't nearly as scary as it should be. Sanitised fluroescent light chases the shadows out of every crevice along the abandoned corridor. I can hear fingerstrokes on a keyboard two rooms away from where I sit, and the streamlined vowels of two international students who sit, hunched over a single computer, whispering rapidly to one another in a language I don't understand.

I have set a trap for myself: I can't set foot outside this room until I have at least three decent ideas for freelance projects to take to my meeting with Fergus tomorrow. Fergus is the producer of ABC TV's spin-off digital radio station. I've had a week to come up with something but have spent my time frivilously: working, gigging, drinking, dining with mates, watching cartoons. Checking out the closing flick at this year's Melbourne International Film Festival (a stirring tale about Triads, the name given to the Hong Kong mafia). Standing on a balcony ten stories above Melbourne in the wee hours of a Monday morning, filling my lungs with aromatic herb and engaging in intense conversations, the content of which I will later forget entirely.

But no more. I'm here until I come up with something. Even if it takes all night. And it just might, at this rate...

"fingertips have memories, mine can't forget the curves of your body..." (Harvey Danger)

2005-07-27T17:15:00.000+10:30

I feel as if I should be quoting Anais Nin when referencing our brief affair, not a nerdy Seattle pop-rock band, but then it is not the job of mere words to live up to our experiences.

I've never believed in fate, always finding it somewhat idealistic and anthropocentric. I mean, how important are our lives and the directions they take anyway, to anyone other than ourselves and our immediate circles? But divine intervention or no, since I got back I can't help but meditate on the sequence of events that led to our meeting and smile.

If I hadn't wrenched myself out of my comfort zone just one more time, which I did with the support of a brand new friend, I wouldn't have ditched town that weekend to attend an obscure island music festival off the coast of Norway.

If the Canadian who accompanied me to the festival hadn't left me scarfing barbequeued salmon with our neighbours and, promising he'd "be right back" disappeared into his tent indefinately, I wouldn't have ventured beyond our campsite that afternoon.

If I hadn't wandered off down the island's main dirt road, vaguely recalling there was a source of drinking water nearby, I wouldn't have walked past the tent where you sat, drinking beer and chatting to a mutual acquaintance of ours who called my name as I walked by and introduced us.

We lost each other then. If I hadn't have sprinted back to the mainstage just before midnight, while trying to escape a sleazy pursuer I'd met on the ferry, I wouldn't have run straight into you.

The world did not turn as it did for us, but even so: if it wasn't for all of these things, we would never have met.

We met in a land where the sun never sets and in my mind, each meeting with you bleeds into the next like an endless, perfect day. There are flashes of colour, sound and sensation that sometimes warm me from within like that first sharp draft of whisky and, at other times, sting like an asphalt graze, sorrow or what-might-have-beens.

Your eyes, sea-blue and filled with intent, peering pointedly at me from under a forehead lined with 29 years of love and life and one heartbreak. The way you played the guitar perfectly and sang slightly off-key. My fingers, wrapped in yours and buried in your pockets for warmth as we waited for the ferry home the day after the festival. The smoky taste and pang of remorse when I realised that the sliver of meat I'd just nibbled off the fork you held out to me was whale. The invisible trail, which felt like hot, bubbling champagne, that your hands left behind on my skin. Wearing your t-shirt to bed in Oslo (when only a country, and not half the globe, seperated us) just so I could smell you. Arriving back in Melbourne, days later, unpacking to find your scent was fading and feeling irrationally, disproportionately sad.

Just as I know that you can't go home again, I know that trying to find you or Norway again and expecting either one of you to be the same is futile. I know that the very thing that makes first times so exquisite, prevents you from ever revisiting them. That is their magic. That is their price.

I know all this but, at least for now, I can't accept it.

put that nostalgia away, you're scaring the children...

2005-06-01T01:22:00.000+10:30

I must have streaked my eyelids with lead this morning, instead of mascara because I can't keep them open.

"air cushioned soles, i bought them on the portobello road on a saturday..."
(blur)

I should be writing an essay on censorship and the interests it seeks to preserve as well as those it denies with specific reference to Eminem and the Sex Pistols.

"...i stop and stare awhile, a common pastime when conversation goes astray..."
(blur)

But I keep rewarding myself for every sentence typed with thrilling fact-finding missions in cyberspace, searching for things to do on my first weekend in London which--fuck me--is THIS weekend.

"...but please don't give up on me yet, don't think i'm walking out of this..."
(blur)

I keep drifting away, on a raft that nostalgia built, to the mid to late nineties when Blur and Oasis were engulfed in a bitter(ly ironic) Britpop war and Pulp's Jarvis Cocker was the new Elvis (Presley, not Costello) at least, as far as I was concerned.

"...i don't really want to change a thing, i want to stay this way forever..."
(blur)

Its the place names mainly. Damon references London like a street directory: Portobello Road (Blue Jeans) and Primrose Hill (For Tomorrow) and the underground (Advert). Suddenly I can feel the prickle of a pleated wool skirt on my bare knees and contempt for an inspid blonde with an irony deficiency who shushes me during assembly builds at the back of my throat like a phlegmatic cough.

"...blue, blue jeans i wear them every day..."
(blur)

I can taste the weekend. I'm writing notes to the girl sitting next to me about the places I want to go. Italy, France, Jamaica, Scotland. And I want to drink beer in London's Bar Italia because Pulp wrote a song about it.

"...there's no particular reason to change..."
(blur)

I can't wait till high school is over. For my life to begin. What I don't know yet is that this takes time. Maybe forever. That way into the discernable future, I'll still feel like a clueless teen most days, minus the itchy skirt.

"...my thoughts are getting banal, but i can't help it, i won't pull out hair another day..."
(blur)

You know what's funny? Blur albums--this one, Modern Life Is Rubbish, in particular--weren't happy, despite the killer hooks. Lyrically its an acridly-cynical posturing on how stale the world has become.

"...you know its to be with you..."
(blur)

So why do I break into a knowing grin just hearing those songs in my head again?

"...you know its to be with you."
(blur)

I'll turn in now, make a messy tower of books and incoherent notes. Promise myself I'll finish this essay tomorrow, because I have to. I'll tuck Modern Life away, in a shadowy corner at the bottom of my CD rack where it will sleep under the dusts of time (as I choose to call the scary tumbleweeds of dust I haven't got around to vacuuming, gives it a more romantic feel dontcha think?) But there is a room in a distant corner of my mind where those songs will play forever. Every now and then someone goes out for more beer and leaves the door open just a crack, enough for me to hear. Hear and remember. But I couldn't enter, even if I wanted to. Leslie Hartley 's past is another country; mine is another room. The floorboards are sticky from spilled vodka and raspberry and countless girls who look just like me (maybe a little chubbier, minus the lead mascara and the beginnings of crow's feet) squelch across them with blind confidence, sure they know exactly what their lives will hold and equally sure that that's a good thing.

the chair that haunts me

2005-05-16T20:37:00.000+10:30

If Woody Allen had been born 29 weeks premature, this is where he would have sat.

This is what I’m thinking now—staring at a tiny director’s chair in the display window of a novelty store—but only to keep from thinking of you. (Last night I dreamed I was at my grandparents’ anniversary bash, and you were the waiter. You brought a huge shiny silver tray of cheesecake crowned with berries to our table but I never got to have any).

The chair is 10cm tall, made of balsa wood and green canvas. The word ‘director’ is stencilled across its back in black. You’d like it. At least, I think you would. Your with your nose constantly in film mags at work. You with your preference for subtlety and heart onscreen (you loved Eternal Sunshine but said that Being John Malkovich left you cold. You revelled in Lost In Translation and called it a "slow-burner"). You who told me last night that you’re despairing of finishing the short film your currently working on before your lead actor goes to San Diego to study drama.

Its your birthday next Monday. I know we don’t do presents as a rule, but I wanted to buy this for you (inbetween thoughts of cheesecake and Woody Allen). Its the kind of thoughtfully specific gift that says something more than the sum of its parts. If chairs could talk, this one would say it all for me.

This chair would say: "Happy Birthday," because its a polite, well-brought-up chair that understands the social importance of small talk.

And because it also understands that there is a time for honesty and clarity, the chair would then say: "I enjoy our conversations. I get you."

Because the chair knows that no human is truly happy unless they follow their bliss, it would add: "I believe in you. You can do anything you want."

Then, in a moment of weakness, the chair might go too far and say: "I like you. More than I want to. When we stood in the car park the other night and talked about your plans for your birthday weekend and when we’d see each other next, I fantasised about following you back to the silver Mitsubishi you'd borrowed from a friend and doing unspeakable things to you in the back seat."

The chair is a slut. The chair totally embarrassed itself and for what? It is not in full possession of the facts. It has forgotten that I leave for Europe in a couple of weeks, and that you leave on a indefinately long working holiday in England less than two months after my return. And it is conveniently ignoring the fact that we have a very close mutual friend (you and I, not me and the chair) who—although she has agreed with you that it is over, and has found many men since to occupy her time—is not over you.

The chair is an idiot.

I scowl at it and walk out of the shopping centre in broad, determined strides. My steps contain only a hint of wistfulness, visible only to those who are looking for it.

2005-05-13T15:27:00.000+10:30

"the world's got me dizzy again
you'd think that after twenty-two years i'd get used to the spin
and it only gets worse when i stay in one place
so i keep drivin' around and flyin' away..."

(bright eyes)

i'm leaving on a plane in 3 weeks at 3pm

things i'll carry: bottled water, my journal, a nick hornby novel, vicks inhalers (for travel sickness), two kinds of foreign currency, barely supressed expectations, hope, fear, my digital camera and my credit card

things i'll stow: long-sleeved shirts, my favourite jeans, make up, nice underwear, european adapters, second thoughts, my lack of faith and a parka for those Arctic nights

things i'll leave behind: my prized cd collection, my father's reservations and his voice in my head, old friends i don't see enough, new friends who know too much, long hot bubble baths, home-cooked meals, my summer warddrobe and <you>

Farewell to Paul Hester

2005-03-31T11:44:00.000+10:30

I referred to him in this very blog as "the quintessential Aussie smart-arse", and that he was. He was the one-time drummer of Split Enz and Crowded House. He was a cafe owner, a TV presenter, a natural comedian. A larrikin. But he was also a father, a partner, a mate. He lived his way always, or so it seemed.

And in the end, none of that was enough to make him stay.

Paul Hester took his own life last weekend. His body was found in a park near his Elwood home.

His daughters are 8 and 10.

I saw him late last year at a reunion of sorts. It was a live and intimate gig of his former bandmates Neil and Tim Finn (ex Split Enz and Crowded House, currently The Finn Brothers). Hester was hosting the gig. He was, as always, irreverant and jokey. And seeing him and the boys together again onstage made you feel all warm and fuzzy. I never knew much about what went on inside his head or in his private life, not even from the press, but in the aftermath I can only imagine the terrible searing sadness. Imagine without understanding, and--probably--without even coming close to it.

"You! I want to take you to a gay bar..." (Electric Six)

2005-03-28T14:39:00.000+10:30

("Get thee to a nunnery!" Quoth Hamlet to Ophelia.)

I tell ya, sometimes it feels that way.

Mostly, I love being single. But there are times when it sucks. Not single-dom itself, but the stigma attached. The judgement, the constant interrogation from friends and rellies, the unsolicited groping in nightclubs. After last weekend tho, I say hang the nunnery. Get thee to a gay bar! It really is a kind of nightlife Mecca for the straight girl. Allow me to tell my story...

I was nearing the end of a nine hour shift at work when the call came: a guy I work with was at home on his day off, drinking beers with mates (and I think I heard the faint strains of the Connie and Carla soundtrack in the background and male voices singing along in a kind of drunken harmony). Brad was calling to ask Ryan (straight boy, another colleague) to bring more beer when he knocked off, but I answered to phone. When Brad heard I had nothing planned for the evening he ordered that I get thee to his place and onto Diva's, a delightfully tacky gay nightspot on Commerical Rd. I obeyed. What did I have to lose?

I have other gay friends, but none quite so gay as Brad. And none of them have ever taken me to a gay bar. Brad took the responsibility seriously and, when he wasn't dancing like a pro or doing schtick in any one of the many exaggerated stage accents in his repertoire, he briefed me on where Diva's fits into the gay landscape, the fact that its drag shows are fun but sub-standard ("but nobody cares because noone's that gay", he says dismissively, referring to his mates) and gay culture in general. He was not without irony. Because I was driving, and therefore, not drinking, I was not without inhibitions (mainly of the what-to-do-with-my-limbs-on-the-dancefloor kind). But by the time the sounds of the Village People had faded into Denise Williams' Lets Hear It For The Boy (and I was done being shocked at just how cheesy the music was), I was having fun. I danced my arse off, I drooled over the perfect specimen of half-naked manhood that joined a rather unconvincing drag queen onstage. I didn't get groped or inadvertently caught in the crossfire of a macho drunken fight. I just showed up and danced. And there was no pressure, no feelings of disappointment or inadequacy, Just dancin'. And, frankly, sometimes thats all you ask of a night out.

I went home with cigarette smoke woven through my hair and these words ringing in my ears:

My baby, he don't talk sweet
He ain't got much to say
But he loves me, loves me, loves me
Oh know that he loves me anyway

And maybe he don't dress fine
But i don't really mind
'cuz every time he pulls me near
I just wanna cheer:

Let's hear it for the boy
Oh, let's give the boy a hand...

"...had it up to the gills/ makes you cry/ while the milk still spills..." (OK Go)

2005-03-16T15:27:00.000+11:00

Hard.

But almost everything worth doin' is.

Now all that's left is for me to make sure the nervous stomach acids don't kill me before I've had a chance to enjoy looking back on a life that was hard without needing to be but oh so worth it.

And that's all.

the way we were

2005-03-13T23:41:00.000+11:00

I can see us now: pale, stockinged and pleated. Fresh-faced, back-row dwellers whispering in-jokes and scathing remarks about our more vapid classmates and trying to laugh quietly. Fifteen and faultless, at least in our own minds. And maybe we were more right than we knew. Fuck knows, we'll never be quite that self-assured again.

Our world was tiny. That wasn't our fault; we were fifteen after all. But it was ours, and in it we were queens. We despised the shallow high school hierarchy--the arbitrary laws that made "some girls more equal than others", to borrow from Orwell. If we'd thought to make the comparison then, we would have taken smug satisfaction in our knowledge that those girls would fail to appreciate the reference. Wouldn't know George Orwell from George of the Jungle. Orwell or Sylvia Plath or Radiohead. They even failed to appreciate Ewan McGregor when we studied Brassed Off in our Film As Text class. (It wasn't until much later, when he appeared opposite Cameron Diaz, that he was sanctioned as a 'hottie' by the airheads). But I digress. They were idiots, and we knew their sunlit days of spotless leadership were numbered.

We invented a nightclub together, before we were legal age ourselves. We called it The Doctors and planned and schemed everything from the decor to the playlist, the drinks menu and the staff costumes. It was sheer brilliance, as far as we were concerned and we imagined ourselves appearing at the opening of its sister venues in London and New York.

We wrote a book together, too. I say "book" because that's what we called it at the time ("Have you got the book? It's your turn, you know.") It grew to the length of a short novel, too: 93 pages, 38 000 words. What it was though, was a long-winded mutual fantasy in twelve point Times New Roman. We wrote the lives we wanted. We were successful talk show hosts who were admired by those we admired. A commercial radio DJ we listened to religiously begged us to appear on his show and in the off-ratings season we flew to London where we sang karaoke with Robbie Williams and drank with Oasis. She was the Oasis fan, I preferred Blur and this rivalry bled into the narrative. We would gently war over our heroes. I wrote Blur frontman Damon in as my mate and had him attend a soccer match with us, she had the Gallagher brothers "glass" him and land him in hospital. We had plans to de-throne Ben Elton from his chair as recurrent Brit Awards host, because we suspected we could do a better job.

And so it went. We mercilessly mocked our more inept teachers and were kept after class for stern but usually futile lectures--futile because one of us could not stop from making the other laugh and its difficult to reprimand two smug, mildly hysterical teens. We managed marathon phone conversations in the evenings, despite having seen each other all day. As time passed, much of these conversations were devoted to how much I thought she had changed and how things "weren't the same", an accusation she vehemently denied. More than once I hung up feeling depleted and miserable. Sometimes I went to bed, weeping and wounded and not knowing why. She later told me that our conversations had made her cry, too.

At our high school graduation we breakfasted on hash cookies and giggled our way through the farewell mass. That night we got drunk, got a crush on our waiter (an exquisite African bloke named Sis-sea-lay) and got blisters dancing along-side the girls we'd always disliked. We spent the obligatory period of post-high school revelry known as Schoolies' Week on the Gold Coast and we saw each other less and less after that.

It was almost an accident that we caught up for dinner the other night in Brunswick St. I had my reservations. The few times we have seen each other since high school I've been struck by her new confidence which borders on cockiness (and sometimes crosses the border entirely). I've had trouble relating to her: her new raver lifestyle and the apparent pride she took in empty relationships. I've wondered if by seeing her I was simply trying to go back to a place that no longer existed--a childhood hideaway that had been bulldozed and redeveloped to the point of being unrecognisable, till only the geographical location remained the same. I was trying to return to a place based solely on latitudes, when everyone knows Place is made of so much more than that. You can't go home again.

But for some reason this time was different. She's still cocky. She's still a raver. She's lost weight. 18 kilos, she tells me, and the amphetamines have nothing to do with it. (She looks great, but I wonder). But she's there. The redevelopment has not been absolute. People don't change so utterly and completely after all, I discover and my soul sighs in relief. It's her. The intelligence, the unexpected wisdom. While I nibbled on my risotto with button mushrooms and she polished off a sleek portion of Atlantic salmon we reminisced. About our nightclub (we still agree it is brilliant) and our book and the way we were. Outside, as I shivered in the crisp night air and she chain-smoked the conversation turned to what we had, what we were still hoping for and whether we were happy. Then, in an after hours bar, where she ordered a Coke and rolled another cigarette while I took in the velvet walls and funky furniture we spoke of love. She told me about the one boy who had been different from the others, the butterflies in her stomach, the break-up he initiated. I told her about the boy I'd just met, the ways in which he was perfect and how I'd learned that he wasn't free. And we told each other, with the bravado and blind optimism of the young and the lovesick that it wasn't hopeless. Everything had changed. We'd each found someone who made us feel the good kind of queasy, and just knowing we could feel that way was enough. At least for now.

Then she stubbed out her cigarette and we walked back towards Johnston St where our cars (both red hatchbacks, hers equipped with an overpriced sound system, mine with a nodding purple dog on the dash) were parked, said goodbye and told each other we should do this again sometime.

between the lines

2005-02-15T22:24:00.000+11:00

You said, "So how have you been?"

You said, "I left some cheesecake in the fridge for you."

You said, "You're sunburnt... but it works on you."

You said, "I found that Cure CD you were looking for."

I said, "How do I put Special Orders through again?"

I said, "Can you change the receipt roll on reg 5 for me?"

I said, "I loved Fight Club... Edward Norton is brilliant... I thought the violence would bother me but I think it's more the psychological aspects of violence that I have a problem with: the desire to dominate -- like Norton's character in American History X -- in Fight Club the violence is between consenting adults, and it's not about dominance and asserting superiority, it's about... existential angst, or something."

I said, "Bright Eyes... Connor Oberst. He's been writing since he was about 13 and he's just put out two albums simultaneously. Kinda folksy, I guess. Acoustic sound, mellow introspective lyrics. He's playing the Byron Bay Blues and Roots Festival. I'd love to go, but I don't think my car's up to the journey..."

I said, "The worst job I ever had was working for an owner-operator of sorts... they're like dictators presiding over their own kingdoms. He was an ex-advertising CEO who calls himself a journo. Can't write to save his life. He had an army of girls (they were all girls) all with degrees in music and journalism and the arts... and law! taking dictation and typing up angry letters to his personal banker. He paid $12 an hour. He was a bastard... He worked out of home. It was just a way of funding long holidays for him. Journalism, my arse... We had long lunches when he went away on trips."

But what I meant to say was, "I like you. I like the skillful caricatures of customers that I find on the roster sheets after you've left. I like your concern for others. I like your way of seeing things. I like that you always share your bag of vending machine m&ms with whoever is in the room and almost always gesture me through the door first when we leave together after close. You're a saint dressed as a cynic, but you're not boring like most saints. I never know what you'll say next, but its always something essentially you. You've reminded me how exhilirating it is to want someone around just so you can see how they respond to things. I hear a song on the radio and want to know what you think of it, what you like about Charlie Kaufman films in particular, what you'll say next."

No, just "I like you." That's what I meant to say.

"All I've got here are books and music, I used to have excercise but I outgrew it..." (Eskimo Joe)

2005-02-03T12:31:00.000+11:00

It takes a certain kind of person to be a fitness junkie: you either are one, or you're not. You either live and breathe gym mats and BMIs and fat pinch tests and personal bests, or you don't. Achieving taut abs, rock-hard gluts and rounded calves is either a sign of spiritual fulfillment for you, or it ain't.

It's not a matter of laziness or the decay of our Western lifestyles, it's a personality thing -- I'm sure of it. I probably should have realised that by now. If not when I was vainly pounding the bitumen clad in a t-shirt and bloomers during a junior athletics fad, then surely during swimming lessons, my short-lived foray into tennis, the year I wore a lycra leotard and irredescent stockings every Saturday to dance classes or the time I signed up at the gym and allowed an aging ex-athlete to pinch my stomach fat with plastic tweezers in order to determine my body fat percentage and devise a mind-numbingly dull program of lifting weights and running and running and running and getting nowhere.

But ever slow to learn, I braved the weather last night -- weather fit for neither woman not gym junkie -- to attend my first kickboxing circuit class. It's supposed to be an hour worth of 3 minute sets (to simulate fighting time in a ring) of skipping, push-ups and pad and bag work.

And it nearly killed me.

I had the misfortune of being partnered with some Slavic superwoman. A tall, lean blonde with a strong accent, designer track suit pants, painted nails and an endless supply of energy. After jogging around the room so many times I lost count, with our instructor yelling drill-sergeant-like "knees up!" "push ups!" I was fairly knackered and after the first few rounds of pad-work (alternately kicking and punching heavy boxing pads with Katya the Fearless was holding) I was about ready to curl up in a ball with a pint of hot chocolate. But it was my turn to hold the pads -- which weighed about as much as a small child -- while Katya proceeded to kick and punch the hell out of them. I didn't have any strength left for resistance, so I just limply held them at waist height. She had to keep adjusting them to face-height and I was sure I was going to lose a tooth. My blood pressure plummeted and in my dizzy, fatigued state the smell of feet (which had attached itself to everything, including the pads I was holding) was making me nauseous. During a thirty second break inbetween sets I happened to glance down at my feet and noticed that the big toe on my right foot was torn and bloodied, no doubt the victim of a shin kick that went awry. Nice.

It went on like that for an hour. I've never been so glad to leave a place.

Driving home, with the rain belting my windscreen in much the same way that Katya was belting me not sixty minutes ago, I had an epiphany: "it's not friggin' worth it." I recalled the sight of the couple I'd seen jogging on the drive in. They were wearing blue shorts and short, fluroescent yellow rain-jackets that flapped in the wind and rain. At first I thought they were uniformed cops and wondered what they were doing sprinting around a relatively quiet part of the suburbs. Then I realised: they were excercising. And so single-minded were they in their quest for fitness that they couldn't take one night off, citing a thunderstorm as an excuse.

They truly are a different breed, are fitness fanatics. And though I might occasionally wish I was fitter or that I had Gwen Stefani's abs, I have been to dark side: and it's not worth the work.

"I know, it's only rock n' roll but I like it..." (The Rolling Stones)

2005-01-31T12:38:00.000+11:00

Remember those fine and fabulous things that happen when you least expect them? I mentioned them in my ode to New Year's Eve post. Well, they've started. My first cosmic surprise for 2005 came in the form of a late nite text message from a friend who works in PR, and the offer of free tickets to the sold-out Melbourne Big Day Out.

Big Day Out is Australia's -- and New Zealand's, for that matter -- biggest mainstream rock festival. My last one was five years ago; the day before my final year of high school. It's one of those glorious, big, messy, one ticket, over-sixty-bands-on-eight-stages, sweet-corn-on-stick, ride the Catapault until you're sick affairs and it makes appearances across Australia and NZ throughout January and February.

At my last Big Day Out I saw the Red Hot Chilli Peppers on the mainstage.

At my last Big Day Out I rode the Kamikaze as the sun set over the Showgrounds.

At my last Big Day Out I bumped into Tim Wheeler from Ash and had a sweaty photo taken with him before he escaped to the VIP lounge.

At my last Big Day Out I left my friends to see Sydney band The Cruel Sea on one of the smaller stages and discovered how great musicianship can transform a mere skinny mortal into a sex god.

At my last Big Day Out my entire face got sunburned, except for the part the sunglasses covered, and I turned up for my first day of year 12 looking like a bug and still radiating heat, but blissfully happy.

After a five year hiatus, this year is the first in several that I even considered going. I don't know what was different this year, maybe it was nostalgia brought on by an early quarter-life crisis. Maybe it was the line-up which, this year, included the Beastie Boys and The Streets. At any rate, I wasn't going to pay the $110 plus booking fee on my paltry salary. Enter Claire, my fairy rock-mother. With a wave of her VIP Pass she declared, "Cassy, you shall go to the ball..."

First-up on our itinerary was The Donnas on the mainstage. The Donnas, for the uninitiated, hail from the U.S and have been performing together since they were fourteen. They like The Ramones and long walks on the beach, and they brought a welcome shot of oestrogen to the traditionally male-dominated phenomenon that is the rock festival.

Next we scattered. Some of us stuck it out near the mainstage for the slick, polished three-piece that WA band Eskimo Joe has become. Some of us went to the Hothouse in search of beats from RJD2. I made my way to the Essential Stage -- a cattle-shed during Melbourne Show-time -- for Wolfmother (their entrance was heralded by a man wearing a Native American headdress who incited to crowd to howl like, well, wolves) before returning to the mainstage to catch the end of Eskimo Joe. (I still remember the Sweater Song, boys, even if you wish you didn't.)

Apart from the odd tune on my radio, I didn't know much of Swedish rockers, The Hives. They wear retro-lookin suits and are possessed of some fine 70s rock moves, I learned, as well as an endearing -- or at the very least, entertaining -- arrogance which makes their live shows fun. The frontman introduced one song saying, this: "This song is for all those people who hate The Hives. You come here with a closed mind and a tiny brain saying, 'I only like one band at this festival.' You'll wake up one day when you're fifty and realise, 'Man, The Hives were the best thing I ever saw. I should have applauded when I had the chance.'" You go, boy.

The next few hours passed in a blur of rainbow-coloured slurpees that went down like liquid sugar, over-priced souvlakis, reapplications of sunscreen, Little Birdy, The John Butler Trio, Le Tigre (a retro-punk 3-piece from New York that had everybody dancing) and the tail-end of a set by the Blues Explosion.

Then things really got kicking. This year's festival highlight -- for me, anyway, was The Streets. They had the audience in the pocket of their baggy hip hop pants from the moment the engaging Mike Skinner stepped onstage. They sound sensational live and Skinner is every inch the friendly Brummie lad telling you tales over a pint. Whether there's beats in the background or not, its all the same, and "seriously, right? Is everyone 'avin' a good day?"

Regurgitator performed a solid, energetic set of old and new material. If there was one band that best captures my misspent youth of Saturday morning music telly, rock festivals and listening to the tail-end of my fave brekky radio show on my walkman in first period English Lit, then I guess The Gurge are it. They're rock, pop, metal and hip hop. They've won industry awards, but are still laid-back slackers at heart; just one (or 3) of the boys. They're also the only Aussie band I can think of who could record an entire album in a glass bubble in Federation Square and still come out of the experience looking healthily ironic.

Then it was dusk, and time for the Beasties. The Beastie Boys. Maybe it was the hype, maybe it was my seat -- a wimp's seat in the stadium opposite the stage, a hundred metres from the action -- but I didn't dig it. I didn't dig the pre-recorded filler more suitable for concert gigs, than a festival, nor did I go for the long-winded instrumental stuff from an earlier album. Sitting there in the growing twilight, witness to what the grandfathers of white hip hop had to offer, I couldn't help but wish I was on the other side of the Showgrounds at the smaller, Triple R-sponsored Green Stage munching on a jam donut and bathing in the lush orchestral sounds of the Polyphonic Spree who I gave up to see the Beasties.

But you can't have everything, right? As night fell and revellers picked themselves up off the grass I had to be content with that jam donut, a long walk back to the car, ringing ears and a brief but blissful revisitation of one of the better parts of being a teenager.

nostalgia tastes like chicken...

2005-01-26T17:30:00.000+11:00

You'll forgive me for that cliche if you read on, I promise, because it really is relevant. Today I lunched with mate from work in my new fave cafe: the rustic, pint-sized Babble On Babylon in Elwood. I had the jerk chicken. It was delicious.

The last time I had jerk was over two years ago in Negril on Jamaica's West Coast. It was, frankly, average. But the time before that was in a sleepy fishing village called Billy's Bay on Jamaica's South Coast. We'd only been in the island a few days and were still stunned daily by the culinary skills of Irie Rest's resident chef Pauline. Her jerk chicken was one of the best meals I've ever had.

I think I breathed it in before I knew what it was. It was dark and humid when we arrived in Jamaica. Lennie, our host, tour guide, chaffeur and dealer for our first week in Jamaica, picked us up from the airport. Through the window I breathed in warm, damp air, the spicy scent of jerk chicken cooking on pimento logs and the sweet heady scent of reefer smoke.

Jamaica is still one of the best things I've ever done. It's probably the first dream I've had come true (and how I know I'm hooked on that feeling). But travel intensifies everything: tastes, smells, colours, sounds, friendships, insecurities and homesickness. So my warped memories are all I have of that trip. But then, objectivity is highly overrated.

some cartoon wisdom

2005-01-21T17:44:00.000+11:00

These days its something of a trend in pop culture for the ostensibly wizened older characters to tell meandering anecdotes that have no point to them, or else directly contradict the point they're trying to make. I'm thinking the father in the brilliant British series The Kumars at no. 42. I'm thinking Arnold's grandfather in Hey, Arnold! and the Jim Morrison dream sequence in Wayne's World 2. And today I'm thinking especially of one of my fave lines from one of The Cartoon Network's more oddball cartoons: Yvonn of The Yukon. For neophytes, Yvon is an eighteenth century Frenchman despatched by Louis XVI on a exploratory mission. Somehow he gets lost at sea, frozen and is defrosted in the modern-day Yukon. In the episode in question, Yvon is nowhere to be seen. Our "hero" is a young boy who, spurned by love, is deciding to turn his back on it. The dispenser of wisdom offers these words to our protagonist:

"I knew a guy who thought he could live without love. He spent all his time workin' and hangin' out. Thirty, forty years he never had a meaningful relationship. And you know what happened to him?"

"What?"

"Nothing! Happiest guy you ever met. Turned out he didn't need *anyone*..."

Whaddya think? Can you live without love? I'm not asking if you'd choose to, mind, but if you *could* live a full and happy life without it?

On loving the people you work with

2005-01-08T14:56:00.000+11:00

It helps, it really does.

On themes within films

2005-01-08T14:23:00.000+11:00

I've racked up a lot of hours in front of my brand spanking new DVD player in the last couple of weeks.

There's a few reasons for this: its Summer but its wet out, miserable in fact. Plus I'm mostly working nites and thus have become something of a zombie, a quasi-nocturnal beast who rises after noon each day to eat cereal, eventually leaving the house at about 6pm, just when most people are arriving home amidst a quiet cacophany of sound: car keys jangling, the TV in the background and one long exhalation that says, "the day is done and I'm home" but also "I have to go back tomorrow".

But enough with the excuses, what have I been watching?

In the last few days I've seen three relatively old flicks, that were new to my eyes. All three used mental illness in their narratives and two dealt with time travel.

When it first came out, I was disinclined to see Fight Club, imagining that it would be little more than two hours of macho gratuitous violence. I've never had much of a stomach for violent flicks (or for Brad Pitt, for that matter, despite the countless attempts of others to explain his appeal to me). But in Fight Club I was pleasantly surprised. Seduced by the notion of a man who is disenfranchised from his own magazine-style life (a cliche, perhaps), but who chooses unique ways to escape it, joining support groups to cry with strangers just so he can feel something. Edward Norton's character seeks out increasingly dangerous and subversive ways to break out of his monotonous existence and the twist is killer. I'm still not sold on the ending tho. Something else I discovered? Its the psychological aspects of violence, rather than the physical, that get to me. Domination and assertions of superiority, like racial violence or violence against women. Like Norton's chilling but brilliant portrayal of a neo-Nazi in American History X. The act of violence which lands his character in jail makes me sick to my stomach, just thinking about it. In Fight Club, tho, the violence was dealt and received by consenting adults. There were rules. It was not about domination, etc. It was about waking up, breaking out. It actually got me thinking -- maybe oddly -- of Garden State; a completely different film but another in which the main character emerges as if from a coma to and wakes up to life -- its pleasure and pain.

Hm. I saw (and loved) Donnie Darko and endured Ashton Kucher in The Butterfly Effect, too. But they'll have to wait for another day. Dusk will fall soon and it will be time for the undead to walk the earth (trans: for me to go to work)...

Raise your hand if you've ever slept with a rock star...

2005-01-03T13:04:00.000+11:00

...and keep 'em up while I count.

No, sadly this isn't a segue-way to a sordid tale of my own, I was just wonderin'. Leave your tales at the end of this blog.

I saw Klinger on the last Tuesday of 2004. They played Melbourne's Ding Dong Lounge in a one-off reunion gig. It was the first time I caught them in the flesh, after many attempts to do so during their short but sparkly career. The boys are probably best known for the bouncy, rockin' love song 'Hello Cruel World' which was, frontman Ben Birchell informed us, "the 86th best song of 1999", as ruled by Triple J's Hottest 100 in that year. Birchell is comfortable onstage, energetic, engagingly self-deprecating and possessed with one of the best smiles in rock n' roll. Apart from helping out with guitar and backing vocals for The Well Wishers -- a spin-off band fronted by Klinger's guitarist -- and some solo dabbling I have no idea what Birchell has planned next, but I'm looking forward to it, and to seeing his experience catch up to his energy and charisma.

Speakin' of rockin', I hope your New Year's was. I saw 2005 in from a friend's backyard. We BBQ'd beef and prawns, drank rum and champers, took our shoes off and danced to the Beastie Boys on the lawn. It was one of the more enjoyable New Years' I've had, maybe because I determinedly threw away any expectations I had of it. And if I have any resolutions for this year, then that would be it: to relax into life and let it happen, and stop deciding I've failed if it doesn't somehow stack up.

So, no, I haven't slept with any rock stars. Not yet, but the year is young and who knows what it might hold...

"What a year this has been/ lost my love, shed my skin..." (Alex Lloyd)

2004-12-28T15:26:00.000+11:00

New Year's is my favourite holiday. Its a night that was made for one as addicted as I am to purging the past and pinning everything on the future. To symbolic severences and unrealistic expectations. Plus its *expected* that you get legless and fall down the stairs, so it was always going to be a favourite.

As 2004 wanes to a yellow sliver in time's sky I find myself reflecting on the past year. I will now, without apology, engage in the shameless cliche favoured by tabloids and entertainment mags at this time of year and compose a list of the year that was...

Since I last donned a party hat and settled back with a glass of champers to wallow in nostalgia for the very recent past, I've had three new jobs:

1. I've waited on an ageing former CEO now posing as a journalist until his increasingly ridiculous demands began to piss me off. I uncharacteristically took a stand over one such demand and was fired soon afterwards;
2. I've worn a Madonna headset whilst working for the Australian Electoral Commission during the lead-up to the Federal election. Highlights include one of my callers turning out to be a voice from a former life when I worked on Saturday morning telly and learning to play poker on a filing cabinet;
3. Finally (for now) I've ended up at Borders, which one service manager suggested is where creative people come to die (! my colleagues are actors, DJs, filmmakers and musos but -- apparently "(Borders) stamps it out of 'em") but where I have found a great bunch of people with whom I have a lot in common, and a pretty decent discount on all the books, music and movies my little heart desires.

At the beginning of this year I left my first full time gig -- an admin job that has me appreciating the brilliant British mockumentary The Office in a way that would otherwise be impossible, and which led to new knowledge and discoveries on topics as diverse as salsa, central locking actuators and alan keys. This gig was also the source of two of 2003's four crushes.

2004 has been a slow year crush-wise, with an ill-fated work crush that began in October making a late bid for the year's only new crush. For a more in-depth account on what went wrong, see the lyrics of the Rick Springfield classic Jesse's Girl.

I went back to school after a two year hiatus. For the first six months the novelty of studying Descartes in the morning, Gandhi till lunch and John Cusack films in the afternoon was thrilling, especially when contrasted with the last ten months of eight hour days, five day weeks and relentless data entry interrupted only by hellish customer service. By second semester tho, the novelty had begun to wear off and I became just another Uni slacker. But still glad I wrenched myself away from an easy dead-end job in pursuit of something else.

In September I received an unexpected phone call telling me to prepare for a freebie trip to Miami in a fortnight. There I saw more beautiful people in a five k radius than I am accustomed to seeing anywhere, chatted to a few, discovered my new fave summer bevvy: the mojito and, in one surreal, disaster-movie-esque episode, we fled Hurricane Jeanne early one Florida morn.

I got a gig reading the news on community radio and got to ring politicians and policy-makers and record soundbites like a real journo.

I wondered what I would be when I grew up.

And I've met some strange and wonderful people: at work, at school, at parties and on buses. A good year, on reflection, an ordinary year with no event you could call singularly life-changing. But sometimes I wonder if I'd been catapulted into some of this year's more memorable events before they happened, what I'd think? For example, if I'd stepped outside for some air at last year's New Year's Eve party -- out of a crooked doorway, plucking a faux cobweb off my black dress and dodging a bent spoon dangling from the porch ceiling (it was a Matrix-themed party) -- and been greeted by the ghost of New Year's Future (to paraphrase Dickens) who showed me snapshots of myself from the coming year. Future me drinking Belgian beer on a grassy oasis in the middle of the city at dusk, talking and laughing with people that Matrix Party Me didn't recognise. Or reclining on a beach in Florida, when I should be in school. Talking solemnly about current affairs and soccer results in a darkened studio somewhere in the bowels of RMIT. Or working at Borders -- arranging stuffed sheep like skittles and bowling with a colleague inbetween customers.

I would have been shocked, intrigued. I might have poured the rest of my glass of Chandon brut into a pot plant and gone inside, and told noone of the wonders I had seen. Even this ordinary life would be extraordinary if it unfolded all at once on New Year's Eve. Because it's as yet unknown... the things you will do, the people you'll meet. Exciting, innit?

(And no, I haven't started on the champers yet... I get like this this time every year ;))

"You spend your life watching others live theirs, but what does a voyeur see when he looks in the mirror?" (Saw)

2004-12-21T15:26:00.000+11:00

This past week I have rediscovered the dual thrills of big-screen cinema and cheap arse Tuesdays. I tend to avoid the cinemas, catching only a handful of new flicks a year and generally waiting for the DVD release or the cable premiere and it really isn't the same. Last Tuesday I saw Garden State -- a sweet, off-beat love story essentially about waking up to life, with a blissful soundtrack featuring the likes of Nick Drake and The Shins. Today I caught Saw -- the stellar debut from two Melbourne boys named James Wan and Leigh Whannell.

Saw was excellent. A sharp thriller that was at turns tense, emotional and comic. I love the horror/ thriller genre but am hard-pressed to recall the last time I actually saw a good one. Usually I emerge from the couch or the cinema disappointed and feeling somehow cheated, but not today. The Saw experience for me wasn't just a cinematic one tho, it triggered emotional cocktail of nostalgia, pride and envy.

Nostalgia because seeing Leigh again reminded me of Saturday morning telly. Of surreal, early morning walks down the ABC corridors to make up, strolling down Selwyn Street to the ABC studios with him to catch the premier of Dylan's short-lived Friday night variety show, The 10:30 Slot ("The Slut... that's what we're calling it around the office," Leigh quipped to me once), sitting next to Leigh on a fluroescent couch in an Elwood house/ TV set, squinting into bright camera lights and trying to discuss the Alex Garland novel The Beach in a way that was simultaneously laid-back and witty. Leigh was the age I am now when he was Recovery's resident film reviewer. I was 16 when I started there, too young to fully capitalise on the experience. Now five years later he's doing what he always wanted to do, and in a big, Hollywood, all-star cast kinda way. That's the envy right there, I guess. He had, not just the talent, but the guts and drive to write a feature film. I can't seem to write anything longer or more scintillating than a shopping list. So what of pride? Well its silly, I had nothing to do with the success of Saw or its spunky, talented scribe. I haven't even seen Leigh in three years. Yet I'm proud of the man. I actually am.

Ah, but they grow up so fast.

"Everybody says 'thats no way to behave', but I just got paid and I'm kicking oh-uh-on..." (The Fauves)

2004-12-09T11:57:00.000+11:00

Ah, the work Chrissy party, long may it reign.

Its always kooky seeing your work mates in a social context for the first time. You may think you're all pretty laid-back and jokey at work, but outside the "office" (or in the Pancake Parlour next door to the store, as the case may be!) is when you hear what everyone really thinks. There's always gossip about a work place romance or shag-a-thon - whether its one that happened, is rumoured to have happened, or should have happened - and there's bitchin about the boss nobody likes (even if he's sitting three tables away with the rest of management and is actually a nice guy, just misunderstood). You get to meet people's partners and if you're lucky, and the beer is flowing, your esteemed colleagues might start to entertain you...

I'm speaking as designated driver, here, which I was at the Borders Chrissy bash on Monday night. Because I was sick and because I had work at 8AM the next morning, mainly. It was probably a good thing. Anyway things didn't really start rockin until the after party. And before long I was drunk by proxy - you know that phenomenon when most people around you are so drunk that you loosen up too, and find yourself saying things you wouldn't normally say, spilling your lemon lime and bitters all over a colleague and dancing to hip hop - things you normally only do when under the influence? That was me.

It started when the pancakes were cleared away, and management and the married couples had gone home, and many arguments had been had about the best place to kick on: the rest of us piled into 3 or 4 cars - my ageing Laser included - and headed for the much-maligned Knox O-zone, despite a lot of whinging. For those of you who don't know Knox, there is a stigma from which it will never recover, despite a multi-million dollar extension, pubs, lounges, restaurants and a traffic-lighted street known mockingingly as "mini Chapel". I know this all too well, because its my local.

The place was jumpin for a Monday night - apparently its hospitality night, the "weekend" for those who work in the weekend industry. We started at the Irish pub, for free drinks (if you call the coin toss) and a good old-fashioned pub sing-a-long to such classics as Summer of '69, Blister in the Sun and You're The Voice. Then we made our way across to Lou Lous, a restaurant-come-nightclub, where we danced till dawn (or 2AM in my case) before reluctantly calling it a night.

The next day not much work was done, but a whole lot of re-living the night before was. After work I caught up with some gals from high school for our traditional Chrissy picnic. Five hours of non-stop nattering about the past, present and future, imaginary trips to Fiji and real ones to Italy and Norway, school, work, boyfriends and the ugly best friend phenomenon (every good-looking guy you meet has one) didn't do my fading voice any favours... but the Mars Bar cheesecake was excellent.

"Take a chance, you just might grow... Take a chance you stupid ho" (Gwen Stefani)

2004-11-28T03:31:00.000+11:00

In her debut solo single (much maligned for sounding "exactly like a No Doubt track", but with a very funky Alice-inspired vid), Ms Gwen Stefani is squawking at me, "What You Waitin' For?" It is, frankly, starting to piss me off (not the song -- which is actually quite catchy :) -- but the question, which I've been askin' myself more and more of late). Well here it comes -- a list of things I'm "waitin'" for...

for a certain someone's approval

for someone else to make the first move

for the muse to strike

to have enough spare cash to get my car serviced

for Australians to get sick of John Howard

to hear whether I still have a job after Christmas

to have certainty

Question: What You Waitin' For?

"I've been feeling so much older, frame me and hang me on the wall..." (Crowded House)

2004-11-23T22:56:00.000+11:00

Ahhh. There's nothing like a good live gig. Ab-so-lutely nuthin'.

Tonight I caught the brothers Finn in an intimate performance at Melbourne's Arts Centre which was filmed for MusicMAX on Foxtel. Was chuffed to see the irrepressible Paul Hester as MC -- not only is he the quintessential Aussie smart-arse, but it was a reunion of sorts for the former Crowdies. There was so much love and respect on that stage it almost made ya feel queasy...

Paul intro'd the gig saying, "...we've got Neil and Tim, and their band: two brothers from Bournemouth and some poor American who doesn't even have a brother in the band..." It truly was a family affair. Neil's son -- and Betchadupa member -- Liam was in the audience to cheer his Dad on and suffer embarassing stories about how his p's got him to sleep as a baby.

The audience was made up of industry types and competition winners and on the faces of all, along with the reflected light of the mad paper lanterns onstage, was pure admiration. And why not? These boys still rock. And their easy relationship with each other and genuine sense of humour made the show even more fun. Hessie opened by apologising for any funny smells drifting in from the dressing rooms, confessing he and the boys had had a traditional pre-show toke, adding a yelled apology to Neil off-stage, "don't worry, Neil, it's pre-recorded: they can edit that out!"

If you're blessed with cable TV, turn your dials to MusicMAX on Chrissy Day to catch the gig, and my scripted quessie to Neil. I know I will be, I was so relieved to have gotten the question out (and so blissed out by the whole live show) that I tuned out most of his answer the first time round!

The prize that keeps on deliverin'...

2004-11-12T15:07:00.000+11:00

As readers of this blog will know (heh heh, I always wanted to type that :)), not too long ago I received a phone call from the good people at Arena TV on Foxtel, telling me to pack some sunscreen and ear plugs pronto, 'cos I was off to Miami to see Usher live (hence the ear plugs). Now, I and my sis had a sensational time in South Beach: supping on shrimp, sipping mojitos and eyeing the eye candy on and off the beach, but the trip was not without mishap. We never got to meet Usher (sigh) and Hurricane Jeanne proved to be a rather bitchy land-lady, evicting us about 36 hours early. This news so devastated the lovely people at Arena that they sent us a box full of goodies on our return. Then BMG -- Usher's label -- sent us a box full of tunes (which I'm sure they'll find good use for down at Cash Converters). And it seems it ain't over yet, yesterday I received an email from Arena inviting I and a friend to an live and intimate Neil and Tim Finn gig in a couple of weeks, which is being filmed for MusicMAX on Foxtel. Remember the Crowdies? They rocked. That Neil is one of the best things we ever stole from New Zealand, next to lamingtons. This, I wanna listen to (Usher, take notes).

Wahey! is all I can say. I'd like to thank Arena and some seriously bad weather for this unexpected string of freebies.

I could get used to this.

100 random things about me...

2004-11-06T16:08:00.000+11:00

First of all, kudos to <Mel>. I stole the idea for this list from her blog.

Here's mine...

1. I love making lists
2. I just registered to receive my Uni results via SMS
3. I am something of a techno-phobe, but I am learning
4. I don't own a DVD player or a digital camera (see what I mean?)
5. I like the pickles in hamburgers
6. My diet is 60% carbs... and at least 30% chocolate
7. I am looking forward to graduating from Uni
8. I am freaking out about graduating from Uni
9. Choosing kooky electives is what has gotten me through an Arts degree
10. The best thing I ever did was visit Jamaica
11. I have wanted to go to Jamaica since I was 11 years old, and first saw Cool Runnings in a tiny, two-theatre cinema
12. Curried goat does not taste like chicken
13. I still have half a bag of the Blue Mountain coffee that I bought in Montego Bay in 2002 in my freezer (I'm not much of a coffee drinker)
14. I prefer tea
15. American sitcoms and Robbie Williams are among my guilty pleasures (although I feel less guilty about Robbie these days)
16. I am almost always convinced I'm going to be late
17. I used to want to be a reporter on Wonderworld
18. I think Michael Parkinson is god's gift to interviewing
19. I don't actually believe in god, that's just a figure of speech
20. I love figures of speech, and speculating where they come from and how far back they go (like the phrase "heads will roll", which dates back to the French Revolution, and the millions of phrases Shakespeare introduced into modern English)
21. I love the boundless energy and irrepressible optimism of dogs, but am more of a cat person
22. I love working at Borders
23. The coolest job I ever had was the gig as Recovery's book review chick, but I was nervous a lot of the time
24. The Recovery house had pink shagpile carpet which people used as a giant ash tray at the farewell party because, as producer Jane said, "it's (the house) going to be demolished anyway".
25. I hate it when beautiful, historic houses are demolished to make way for flats
26. I used to want to live in St Kilda, and still think it's a pretty cool place
27. I love carnivals and festivals and I went to the Melbourne Show last year for the first time in a decade and had a blast
28. I get annoyed when noone will go on the rides with me
29. I'm sick and tired of living in Australia
30. I often fantasise about bold, change-your-life moves, but I'd miss my friends and fam too much
31. I want to live overseas at least once in my life
32. I want to go sky-diving, but not bungee-jumping
33. I think Oprah is cool
34. I've checked the clock on my mobile phone about five times since I started this (see no. 16: I am almost always convinced I'm going to be late)
35. All the best experiences in my life -- work, or travel -- have been because of the people I've met there
36. I'm still friends with three girls I met in year 8, and I hope we're all still friends when we're fifty
37. I'm looking forward to being 30
38. I'm afraid of being 60
39. I've just recently made up my mind to write continuosly for at least half an hour each day
40. I can't be bothered exercising
41. I can never remember whether its "its" or "it's"
42. I was genuinely depressed when John Howard won the recent federal election -- the first time I've ever felt that strongly about an election
43. I love reggae and so-called "chill out" music
44. I like Powderfinger's old stuff better than their new stuff, but I like Regurgitator's "middle" stuff, like "Unit" and "Art"
45. I think Quan looks spunky with facial hair
46. I was in the city for some birthdays recently and I checked out Regurgitator's Band in a Bubble experiment and found it simultaneously bizarre and boring. I caught myself standing in front of the bubble, but watching the action on the TV above(!) and marvelled at the post-modern paradox
47. The other day I caught my reflection in a train window on a too-bright day and noticed lines around my eyes and thought, "this is how it starts..."
48. When I get into arguments, I often say really nasty unfair things I regret later
49. I am -- mostly -- proud of myself
50. I watch too much TV
51. The smell of the disinfectant they use to cleanse your skin before an injection still makes my gut constrict with fear
52. The other day I was flicking through The Travel Book by Lonely Planet and I realised that there are more countries in the world than I could visit in two lifetimes, and felt sad
53. Travel -- even the idea of it -- inspires me
54. I think patriotism is a lot of what is wrong with the world
55. I am a republican, and can't bring myself to do anything but scoff when I see/ hear anything to do with Australia's beloved Princess Mary, but I usually keep it to myself because everyone else thinks I should lighten up
56. I care more about what other people think than I should
57. I sometimes have nightmares for no good reason, and the only cure is to turn the light on and read something funny -- like Nick Earls' short stories -- for hours
58. I love baths so hot you can only just stand them, scented with essential oils and lit by candlelight
59. I love the feel of sand on my feet
60. I love to sit by the ocean, but hate swimming in it
61. Chlorine makes my skin dry and itchy and my hair feel like a Barbie doll's
62. I carry all my tension in my neck and shoulders, or my stomach
63. I wish Charlie Kaufman would write another film as blissful as Eternal Sunshine
64. I love the smell of popcorn at the movies, far more than the taste
65. When I was a kid, I used to read those tragic horse books series' and even tried to write one once, although I don't think I'd ever done more than a trail ride at the time
66. On Year 9 camp a horse kicked me in the leg, it hurt so much it made my eyes water, but it barely left a bruise and I think everyone thought I was a big baby
67. Jeff Buckley songs always make me melancholy
68. I feel self-concious at parties that are just for me
69. I can't wait to have something to celebrate that is worthy of a three hundred dollar bottle of French champagne... like a first novel publication deal, maybe.
70. The first time I got drunk was at my cousin's 21st
71. I was in Florida in late September and I still haven't cleaned out my wallet. Yesterday I tried to pay for bananas with a handful of dimes.
72. The last pair of jeans I bought is the only pair I've ever had that I really like
73. In my more accepting moments I know that everything happens in cycles and that the world will change, America will fall, and we will move away from conservatism (and probably back again) in time, but that this generation may not be around to see it
74. Mostly I just rant and rave about the state of the world like everybody else
75. I've never been to Venice
76. I've been to Paris: I wouldn't go again
77. I'm convinced that Hell is a shopping centre around Christmas-time
78. I know someone who's met the Dalai Lama
79. When the Dalai Lama was out here on a promo tour a year or two ago, I couldn't go because I was working
80. I want to take up kick-boxing
81. I took yoga classes for 3 1/2 years, but I don't any more
82. I sleep way too late on Saturdays
83. I don't trust artificial sweetener, I'd rather the real thing
84. I love a man who can play guitar
85. I'm hungry
86. This blog started out as a Uni assignment
87. I have a fireman calendar on my wall, but the last couple of months of the year are prawns (good without the head)
88. I wish that I could speak at least one other language fluently (my Italian has always involved far too much pointing for my liking)
89. I went through a salsa phase last year, but I wasn't much good and the guys in the classes were all either sleazy or old or both (the girl from work I went with still goes, though. But she's a better dancer than me)
90. The band from adolescence that I loved the most and for the longest time was Blur. I own every album they released, but I never saw them live
91. I suffer from snail mail nostalgia
92. I think Jai from Queer Eye is so cute I could just eat him up
93. My favourite colour is, and almost always has been, purple
94. In my years in customer service, I have observed the following; a) middle aged women are the rudest when pissed off, followed closely by old men, b) the creepy ones are usually guys in their 30s and 40s, c) teenagers can be total tools when they travel in packs, d) I don't wanna do this forever!
95. I hate it when people pre-empt your response in an invitation. For example, if you're trying to set a day to catch up for coffee and they just name a time and place and say "hope to see you there!" Its like saying "I can't be bothered negotiating, be there or don't bother coming, my work is done." Fucking rude.
96. I'm almost finished this damned list!
97. I climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge once: it was pretty cool, but expensive
98. My favourite accents are Scottish and Jamaican
99. We used to have two cats called Buddy and Holly, but Buddy ran away
100. I once had a goldfish that lived for over seven years

Once more unto the breech... (or somethin' like it :))

2004-11-02T11:05:00.000+11:00

Wahey! 1 exam down, 1 to go. And the worst is over: the next one's a whole week away and open-book(!) What a relief.

I know I shouldn't whinge (but I'm an Arts student, it's what we do: work little, and whinge when we do... :)) I struggled to find motivation for this one, I tell ya. My only studying consisted of about forty minutes last night when I harangued Mum with what little I remembered from Islamic Politics classes this semester. This morning I forgot my student ID today and two pens fell out of my pocket on my way into the exam, so I faced it with one -- one! -- lonely blue biro and the hope that it wouldn't run out. (Oh, do I live on the edge... ;)) Ever since a nightmare I had during VCE when I brought half a dozen pens into an exam and, one by one, they all ran out, I've been a walking stationary store during exam time, but not today. Ah well, its over now. (For me, anyway, some poor saps are still scribbling away madly).

'Tis a gorgeous sunny Cup Day outside and the post exam euphoria means that I'm not even feeling too bad about the fact that I have to work till 11 tonight. Not yet, anyway. Still bummed that my Cup Day consists of an early morning, an exam and the infamous dead shift at work, especially since Cup Eve in Melbourne is a sanctioned piss-up.

I'm OK now, but this morning I wished was that I was in bed nursing a hangover like everyone else... ;)

... too cream-crackered to think of a title ...

2004-10-31T20:13:00.000+11:00

Among other reasons for fatigue, is the fact that I lost an hour of sleep last night -- stinking daylight savings time, its not fun for that first twenty-four hours.

Good day, yesterday. An eight and a half hour shift at Borders, capped at either end by catch ups with old friends. Before work I met up with Lisa, a mate from my days as a desk bitch (read: receptionist) at MotorOne. We brunched at The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. I had a giant iced latte and we talked of our respective jobs, My replacement at M1 (Lise discovered this girl was sending nasty emails about her from her work 'puter); our plans for further study and the future; dance classes and bad blind dates (hers); trips to Miami (mine) and other girl stuff.

Then I went to work.

After close at Borders I joined the old gang from high school who were winding up an arvo of bowling with dessert at the Pancake Parlour. I got home at midnight (now 1AM), pigged out on pasta and went to bed, woke up, repeated (the work part, anyway).

I'm at Uni now, half-arsedly studying for Tuesday's Politics exam. All I can think about is the stench of feet creeping up from under the computer desks, thanks to someone who doesn't have the good grace to wear shoes. Urgh. I think I might head home and check out Aussie Idol.

Exams, schmazams.

"...other people break into a cold sweat, if you said that these are the best days of their lives..." (Blur)

2004-10-28T14:58:00.000+10:30

These are the days.

At least I think they are. Your parents'll tell you that Primary or High School (depending on their persuasion) were the days, but they were just playin' with ya. They couldn't be the days, you knew that then.

In your twenties tho, adolescence is behind you, but you have no real responsibilities yet. Every day is about what you want to do, what do you want to be? Where do you want to go in your gap year or Summer break? What's your poison? (And the effects of binge-eating, drinking and other over-indulgences won't show up for years yet).

There are only possibilities. Possibilities and part time jobs and bar tabs and arts degrees. Meaningless crushes and student priced tickets around the world. If ever there were days, then surely these are it...

Another blast from the past and a brush with a C grade celeb...

2004-10-24T19:20:00.000+10:30

I served Richard Stubbs today.

At least I think I did. It could have been some other middle aged man with curly hair and a deep, distinctive voice---I didn't get a good look at his EFTPOS card. Reg 5 (on the music floor, for lay-people) is bustlin' at the mo.

1. Some off my fave Borders staff work on the music floor
2. I may or may not have served Richard Stubbs there
and 3. The other night I served an old lecturer from my RMIT days, altho I wouldn't have recognised him --- he was all bearded and beanie-d.

Former Lecturer recongised me tho, and mentioned that he'd run into at least one other Borders staffer who'd done Media @ RMIT in the form of Matt The Englishman. It turns out Matt actually finished the course(!) and next time I worked with Matt we compared notes on fave lecturers and tutors, most hated subjects and favourite destinations to de-bunk to when it all got too much and the siren call of the city was too hard to resist (I favoured visits to Luna Park or St Kilda's Astor Theatre over my Monday arvo Digital Media lectures, personally...)

Good times.

I dig the egalitarian approach to pop culture favoured by Borders staffers. For too long I have lingered somewhere slightly off-centre, finding the beret-wearing arts wankers of city Uni life too, well, wankerish but finding the suburban cult of Big Brother too damn stoopid. Give me the middle path. On my morning break I might want to talk over the brilliance of a Charlie Kaufman film or the latest offering of European cinema, but by lunch I'm ready to deconstruct performances on Oz Idol and bet on the winner.

Who says you can't have it all?

Quote of the day:

This one's from the archives, from an interview Richard Stubbs did on Recovery, lo! so many years ago...

"...and I'm thinking, 'oh my god! I'm gonna die on my way to the birthday of a singlet!'"
--Richard Stubbs on his brush with death in a private jet on the way to a Chesty Bonds anniversary party.

The writing's on the wall...

2004-10-20T19:25:00.000+10:30

On the staff room wall at Borders...

* An official apology from the Acting Rosters Dude about the tardiness of our new rosters (now three weeks late) that goes something like this:

"Apologies for the lateness of the new rosters but they're really hard... and scary."

* An Occ. Health & Safety poster featuring Santa lugging a huge sack. The work "crack" is imposed --- like something out of a Batman cartoon --- diagonally across the sack to suggest that Santa has cracked his back under the weight of the sack (hey -- poetry!) and the caption reads "Don't let workplace safety take a holiday".

Underneath someone has scrawled on a post it note: "Why is Santa delivering crack to the kiddies?"

Tee hee. I'm diggin' this place.

The sun never sets for shopping centre staff...

2004-10-18T13:41:00.000+10:30

Ah, retail. I hate it, but here I am again... :)

I guess I can call it practise for the endless days of a Norwegian summer next year. You do get majorly disorientated when trapped in a box for nine hours straight. Borders has windows, but not on the music floor, where I spent most of my shift yesterday. I told curious customers the time, but it meant nothing to me. When I broke for some peppermint tea just after 9PM I coulda sworn it was about 5 and still light. 'Tis surreal.

Since I started at the store I've been prepped for kooky requests from customers. So far the closest I've got was a request from a middle-aged man with three kids buzzing about his ankles. He asked for "a book by Jenny Wade" and when I did a search the only book that came up was a sex guide. I tentatively asked if this was the one he was after, he nodded and his kids giggled. Which brings me to---

quote of the day...

Still baffled by the geography of Borders, I enlisted the help of fellow staffer Andrew no. 2 with the horny gentleman's request.
Me: Um... where's the sex section?
Andrew no. 2: (grinning wryly) Oh, can't you wait?
Then he glimpses the ankle-biters and adds: I think he's had enough!

Is there a chapter in the manual about how to STOP?

2004-10-12T13:00:00.000+10:30

Our blog assignments were due today, so there's no real reason for me to keep posting but I tell ya: this blogging stuff is addictive. Is it strange that I find myself composing blogs in my head about certain events as they happen? Most of them never get written but nonetheless, surely that is a neurosis?(!)

Last night I had a bizarre dream. I and several family members were in our living room when my sister spotted a low-flying sky-writer outside our window. The small plane left a trail of white in its wake -- like a string of toothpaste -- and from it hung a banner than said something subversive. We watched with alarm as it flew nearer and nearer to our house until eventually a woman -- wearing Dame Edna-esque goggles and carrying what looked like a surf board under each arm -- became visible, perched at the 'tail' of the plane. She jumped, and glided into our backyard and then proceeded to pace up and down as if looking for something. I invited her in for a cup of tea but she declined before spouting bizarre prophecies. she knew things about us that she couldn't possibly know. I became intrigued and had to know more. I asked her her name but she wouldn't tell me, saying only "beware of post offices". I went to shake her hand but suddenly she was three inches tall and I was wearing over-sized dish washing gloves and she could only shake the loose tip of one finger.

Suddenly we are at a kind of service in my backyard. I am seated in the front row, along with dozens of people I've never met before while the mysterious prophetess -- now returned to her full size -- is playing scrabble with the priest on my lawn. The scrabble tiles are huge. The priest suspects foul play and runs around upturning everyone's scrabble tiles, looking for evidence. Then, in the real world the doorbell rings and I wake up.

The scariest thing of all was that at one stage the dream me was wondering how I would write this up as a blog?!

"Days keep rolling over, escape to the undercover..." (Powderfinger)

2004-10-10T14:39:00.000+10:30

I think the best way to deal with this is denial.

"I'm sorry... John who? What election?"

This morning my alarm went off at a nasty pre-dawn hour as usual, I filled up at a servo on the way into work at 3 digits a litre, I shelved books. I told myself that I'd seen this one coming, and that nothing would have changed under Latham anyway, so what was I bitchin' about? But it was only when I decided to pretend the whole thing was a nasty dream that I felt just a teeny bit better...

When I grow up...

2004-10-09T18:51:00.000+10:30

I wanna be a government employee !

... But only if every day was like today.

'Twas my last shift with the AEC (the real last shift, unlike the promise of yesterday's last shift with its last minute extension to today). Free muffins and juice were supped by all and a slow but steady stream of calls dealt with inbetween intra-cubicle games of stress ball volleyball --- if an outsider has wandered into the AEC offices they may have been reminded of a rock festival crowd; a sea of hands tapping a giant beach ball around, only imagine the beach ball is tiny and made of stress-ball rubber, and the hands are seperated by cubicle walls --- and juggling demos by the some of the more talented call centre staff. I learned to play poker and had some stellar hands on our make shift filing cabinet/ table.

A hard day's play for a hard day's pay...

Quote of the day:
"...so we went out into the night in our balaclavas (this was before September 11, so you could still wear balaclavas around and people would just go, 'hmm there's some guy from TISM')..."
- John Safran

Well that was...

2004-10-08T22:11:00.000+10:30

Weird.

Another day in the telephone mines today --- 8:15AM til 5:30PM aaaaaargh! --- at one stage I heard a tres familar voice at the other end of the line. I resisted screeching "Jodie? Is that you?!" until I was absolutely sure. It was. One Jodie J Hill: stellar comedienne and ex-audience warm up chick @ ABC TV's Recovery from way back when... way back when I was a fan, and later, when I was the world's longest-serving work experience kid and resident book reviewer. We spoke of voting protocol and ye good olde days @ the ABC. Of all the AEC call centre lines in all the box-shaped cubicles in the world, she dialed mine.

What a small freaking world.

There is salt in the air and gum on my shoe...

2004-10-06T12:34:00.000+10:30

Its a good thing, I assure you.

What I'm sayin' is that today feels like Summer.

I finally finished that toturous essay on the inter-war migrational trends of the British Empire(!) for my history class and I am over the 'hump' so to speak. It was the hump essay. The one that made me doubt I would ever finish anything. It took me an entire week to pen the introduction, for fuck's sake: every time I sat down and tried to go on my mind filled with successive deadlines. And the desire for a muffin. (An aside: Adaptation was not one of Charlie Kaufman's best films in my humble opinion--probably my least favourite, and more than eclipsed by the blissful and inspired Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind--but I loved the scene where he sits down to write and can think only of coffee and muffins. It goes to show that even 'gods' are human... Did I just type that 'cos I thought it sounded interestingly contradictive? Am I, then, no better than those try-hards who fill pages with deliberately edgy, 'subversive' text and repeated use of the word 'fuck' which people are forced to consider 'brilliant' because they can't understand a friggin' word, a la the wanker who hacked up a lungful o' phlegm onto a page, called it 'Jesus is Green Man' and ultimately led to my wasting 15 minutes of my life in a recent writing tute?! Hm. In that case, I take it back. My 'interestingly contradictory' phrase, that is, not anything nasty I said about afore-mentioned phlegm-spinner).

Now where was I? Oh yeah...

I'm not quite coastin' from here til Christmas but getting that history essay done has made all the difference. All else is attainable now. Another 2000 words on a yet-to-be-chosen Global Islamic Politics topic; a similar length of ruminations on modern philosophy and I'm home free.

"She works hard for the money/ So hard for it honey..." (Donna Summer)

2004-10-03T18:44:00.000+10:30

A lovely bunch of callers on the line(s) today at the AEC call centre -- my reward for gettin' up at 6AM on a Sunday, I guess(!) Mostly oldies, but the friendly (if verbose) kind, rather than the disgruntled brand. My favourite was probably a woman who sounded like an ageing drag queen and called me "hon" when ringing to enquire whether her ballot papers would arrive by mail in time because she's an MS sufferer -- in remission -- and can't get about easily. Lovely gal, for a Liberal voter(! :)) I shoulda rushed home -- two essays due soon, and I don't have a single full day free between now and the deadline -- but Triple J was playing a nostalgic Blur special (Back in the Js with Blur) and I hadda listen. Ah, memories. Those were the days (Js)...

Back at home I ate a three course lunch rather than get started, then got transfixed by John Safran's new radio show for the next three hours. Among his guests were an outspoken, liberal-minded Catholic priest; a former member of Melbourne outfit The Young Professionals whose petitioning to be let back in; and a Fringe act who use snakes and bellydancers in their performance. How's that for a kooky bit o' Sunday arvo radio? Would love to be seeing more of Safran's Monday night show -- John Safran vs. God -- am intrigued by the dichotomy of the man. At first glance he looks like a cynical shit-stirrer and media prankster. A bit of a laugh, but ultimately another Gen Y naysayer. But the interviews I've read about his latest show have been illuminating and... thought-provoking. The show looks at the world's major religions (and a few inbetween) and has John asking a Shiite cleric to put a fatwa on Rove and hanging out at a voodoo ceremony where he witnesses a goat sacrifice but can't share in the general gorging on blood that follows, admitting he is a "big hypocrite" but looking exceptionally queasy the whole time. In the show he's not just poking fun at the pillars of modern society but at his own audience who he dubs "left-wing pinkos" whose demography he illustrates with a pie graph. Says John the quiet interviewee (as opposed to the feckless larrikin): we may make fun of George Bush for being a stoopid Christian, but the fact remains that religion is an important part of most people's lives and that can't be discounted. Hmmmmm. A big hmmm. Superficially silly but forcing us to see stuff in an entirely new way. A modern day Andy Kaufman.

(endnote: Somethin' tells me that John would disagree with my assessment. That he'd think any attempt to intellectualise his work was pretentious and any tendency to compare him to others was misplaced or just insulting. Whatever. I love ya work, John, call it what you will...)

Thou art a very ragged wart...

2004-10-03T18:40:00.000+10:30

I have...

a penchant for Shakespearean insults

two looming essay deadlines

relatives in my living room

a crush on a guy in a covers band

a gash in my index finger from the serrated edge of a clingwrap box

an overdue library fine

lofty goals

dreams of summer

Miami cont'd

2004-09-27T20:51:00.000+10:30

PART #2: Miami Quotes

On disposable cameras:
"It says 'Don't expose to extreme heat or moisture', so we take it to *MIAMI* and go swimming in a *POND*!" (snaps, irritably)

Definition of irony:
After a hard day on the tourist circuit, the two girls sip cocktails at a poolside bar. Still jet-lagged and disorientated, one comments on how long the last twenty four hours have felt.
"Will this day never END?!" Comes the response.

On reasons for a change in South Beach's patronage from one day to the next:
"Maybe they've evacuated? *cups her hands over her mouth in an impersonation of an announcer* This is a hot guy evacuation: Will all the hot guys please leave Miami. Women and children remain."

"Ugly guys'll start to impersonate hot guys..."

"How do they do that? Wear Birkenstocks and smear on the fake tan?"

Overheard in an elevator:
"Its a nice day to evacuate."

When darkness descends on South Beach:
"Uh oh..." (ominously)

"What?" (raising her head off the towel)

"Look..."

"What?!"

"The storm..."

"Oh Cassy, the sun went behind a cloud, ya idiot!"

Miami--A Mid-Semester Escape Saga in 2 Parts

2004-09-27T20:19:00.000+10:30

PART #1: A SUMMARY

First, let me explain. I'm not an Usher fan. Far from it. In fact modern, so-called R&B is one of the few musical genres I have no love for (as hip hoppers say in the U.S ;)) Free travel on the other hand? Mad for it.

So that is how a rock/ reggae fan and JJJ listener came to be on a plane bound for an R&B concert in South Florida one Tuesday morning in September...

THE PRIZE?

Thanks to Arena TV on Foxtel I won return economy airfares, return airport transfers, five nights at the Winterhaven Hotel on Ocean Drive, tickets to an Usher concert at American Airlines Arena and return limo transfers to the concert for and I and friend. We were supposed to meet Usher too, fortunately that didn't pan out(!).

SOME FACTS...

Ocean Drive is a spectacular neon streetscape in Miami's South Beach. Versace owned the street's only residential home until he was shot on the steps outside it some years ago.

If you glance out your left window on the way into South Beach from the airport you'll spy an island populated by splendid mansions. That sandstone building used to house Al Capone. Just a few doors away is Gloria Estefan.

I mentioned neon: it's something of an obcession in South Beach--where gorgeous Art Deco design and pastel shades make the entire town look like a cartoon set--at night many of the buildings change colour before your very eyes: now its purple, now its blue, now its pink.

Miami has one of the most concentrated populations of spunky blokes in the free world.

Miami has a huge Cuban population. Their presence manifests itself in the form of countless eateries about town--specifically in Little Havana and Espanola Way. In the inclusion of empanadas and mojitos--a lush, refreshing cocktail of rum, lime juice, soda water and mint leaves--on menus. In the "Cubans Do It Better" tees displayed in the windows of adult shops. In latino music blaring from hotted up cars. The massive Cuban population is also a significant contributor to Miami's status as one of the most concentrated populations of spunky blokes in the free world (see above).

SOME OBSERVATIONS

Americans get a bad rap but for the most part, they are *not* their government. Those I spoke to, at least, think they had no business in Iraq (or Vietnam for that matter); that health and education are under-represented in government policy; that George Bush is an idiot... in fact, all the obvious tenets of a compassionate, civilised society.

Americans boys are far less inhibited than their Aussie counterparts and will not hesitate to approach and proposition you at every opportunity. If in doubt, feign jet lag and leave early.

Apparently, we Aussies have a different way of *walking*. Don't even try to blend in.

WHAT WE DID WHEN WE GOT THERE

Took too many photos on our first day (when we braved a tropical downpour like true tourists and set out about town), and not enough on subsequent sunny days.

Drank too many mojitos.

Lazed on the the beach and watched the beautiful people play.

Dined on shrimp at a poolside bar.

Ate empanadas.

Shopped in the "presidential" streets: Lincoln and Washington.

Honed meditation skills while trapped in an Usher concert.

Fled in the wee hours of what was *supposed* to be out penultimate morning, after being issued with a mandatory evacuation notice at 10:30PM the night before, due to Hurricane Jeanne.

Escaped on the last plane outta Miami the following afternoon.

"The weekend's here hip hip hooray/ To make the blues just go away..." (Blur)

2004-09-19T17:08:00.000+10:30

Another spiffing weekend in merry Melbourne.

Beginning circa 4PM as I emerged from the underbelly of the Arts Centre into bright sunlight and laid eyes on Federation Square (which I will never get used to) There were some groovy sounds coming from alongside the Yarra so I detoured that way on my way into ACMI. Found a Greens rally, a band, lotsa stalls, and dreadlocks attached to hemp-clad hippies... ascending into the "heart"of Fed Square I was assaulted with repetitive bass and capacity crowds as an arvo rave rook place... moving ever onwards I spied The Gurge trapped in a glass bubble. Quan--the formidable frontman, sporting spunky new facial hair--shredded his guitar while producer Magoo looked on, draped in a Brissie Lions scarf in honour of the prelim match about to take place that night. I found my way into ACMI from the street entrance and spent the next few hours providing moral support for buddy Dianne--whose job it was to stand guard over the shrieking teens who came to watch the Overly Coiffed One and the Googly Eyed One of Australian Idol fame host a video request show. When that wrapped up we headed out for dinner--cripsy chicken and egg noodles yum yum!--and a couple of bday bashes in a couple of trendy Melbourne bars with odd, one-word titles, overpriced drinks and mood lighting. Next an English pub with daggy music from yesteryear to sing along to--loudly and off-key--followed by a late-late night venue called The Pony, when the pub closed. Stumbled home at 4AM, going via the bubble to see what The Gurge were up to (Sleeping, oddly enough). Posted a note scrawled on the back of an ATM receipt through their mailbox and laughed at how witty we were.

A rally, a rave, a bizarre publicity stunt/ performance art project, live telly, a footy match... all in one afternoon--I love Melbourne.

Its like the Googly Eyed One said: "How can one city contain so much excitement?"

Top 5 Things To Do Before I Die

2004-09-15T12:56:00.000+10:30

I do love a list.

Earlier this year, Adam and Wil inspired me with their 10 Things To Do This Year list. Today I am gonna go with the slightly more manageable 5 Things To Do Before I Die list, as taken from the You're Drunk team on SYN FM (Wednesdays from 9...)

Here's mine:

1. Skydive
2. Get a novel published
3. Own a terrace house with a wall to wall library and a wheely bookshelf ladder to get to 'em
4. Appear on a game show and win big!
5. Holiday somewhere with sand and have a bondafide Summer fling

"I heard the news today, oh boy..." (The Beatles)

2004-09-14T22:27:00.000+10:30

A huge storm named Ivan assaults the Caribbean islands, one by one...

Mt Etna overflows...

And a man fleeing police slows his car down just long enough to throw a baby in a car seat out the door before speeding off again, eventually crashing the car and killing himself.

Got me thinking about how --- if at all --- trauma affects a baby that young. Whether we do have access to memories that "old", so to speak. And about my own, not-quite-so-traumatic foetal experiences in my mother's womb during a bank robbery. She was a teller while pregnant with me and made to lie face down. Once a homeopath told me that I had suffered a trauma while very young which caused my stomach problems, or some food allergy or other, but he totally fished for the information.

Idea for a story? A young baby suffers some unimaginable trauma and, as a result, is treated slightly differently his or her entire life. Eventually learns about his/ her past but, paradoxically it is the treatment of others' resulting from the trauma that causes him/ her to come undone in some way, rather than the event itself.

"Nostalgia is all I've got to look forward to in the end..." (Custard)

2004-09-12T13:49:00.000+10:30

I'm looking forward to finishing this damn essay

I'm looking forward to the weekend

I'm looking forward to Monday, circa 3PM when my last class presentation for the year will be over

I'm looking forward to shaking off this cold

I'm looking forward to the other size of an excercise regime, when the sweat is over and all that's left are the results

I'm looking forward to the Norwegian summer, and to exploring another place I've never been before

I'm looking forward to sunny days, hair sticky with sea salt and sand in my lip balm

I'm looking forward to long walks and the smell of freshly mown grass

The Grinch Who Stole an elective subject which will remain unnamed

2004-09-10T15:02:00.000+10:30

I may as well start here.

I despise that man. Here's why:

He frequently praises George Bush in class. Even confesses to dreaming about him. Uses the Texan cowboy to illustrate philosophical principles(!) And if THAT wasn't bad enough, he is scathing and derisive about anyone who disagrees with him.
His new thing is snide remarks about gay marriages. An oxymoron, he called them in the last class I bothered attending.
He doesn't seem to think preparing for classes is in his job description. He just turns up and blathers for the entire length of the two hour seminar, usually without any logical advancement from one topic to the next. Often stopping mid sentence, clearly forgetting why he is telling us this junk in the first place. Sometimes we get twenty minutes or so of him waxing nostalgic about ye olde days of him teaching this particular subject.
He scrapped the original course--which involved study of numerous European philosophers over a period of history--in favour of ONE current American philosopher. He essentially shrunk the entire scope of the course into the tiny realm of his own personal interests.
He doesn't tolerate opinions that run contrary to his own.
He has a head like a squashed melon
He wears sneakers with his suit every fucking day. Who the fuck does he think he is? Jerry Seinfeld?!
He has a disgusting, perpetual cold and insists on perching on the edge of people's desks to conduct the class; often mine.

Enough?

So much to tell you...

2004-09-10T14:39:00.000+10:30

Well there is. I knew I'd be no good at regular entries; I can't manage those in my "old-fashioned" paper journal either. You know what would be cool? If I could figure out hyperlinking on this thing. Then I could do something like this:

Right now there's something else I should be doing (of course), but the butchered curriculum of a particular elective course I'm taking this semester is leaving a bad taste in my mouth. I'd rather think about next weekend, when I'm heading into the city for a couple of birthday bashes (and inevitable bar tabs) and plan to pay a visit to The Gurge in their bubble in Federation square. Or the trip I won to Miami. I'd even rather think about the strange conversations you overhear working at close quarters with strange types in a call centre. I could wax remorseful on foot in mouth disease. Or talk about the disappointingly ineffectual anaesthetic properties of three quarters of a bottle of Michelton riesling before bed. Yes, anything would be better than starting homework for that elective.

Now imagine that where the font appears in bold red above you could click on a phrase and follow that particular train of thought. Be more interesting that the unimaginative alternative I'm about to embark on. But sadly, I lack the technological smarts. We learned hyperlinking in a digital media class I took at RMIT once, but that was within the same essay: pointless. Like digital television. And like digital teevee theory, I forget what we learned about it anyway.

Postcard from another wasted weekend...

2004-09-04T17:18:00.001+10:30

Weekends. Where do they go?

I had a training sesh for the AEC call centre job of Friday. I have a feeling this gig is going to cost me a lotta petrol and patience. Then I remind myself why I'm doing it: to save for next year's Norway exchange (and the inevitable side trip) and somehow it all seems worth it. I dunno if that's a good thing: that two times in my life when I can say I most profoudly experienced purpose were in the planning stages of trips to faraway places. But hey, we take what we can get in this life, right? :)

Norway should be fantastic. Summer, mountains, hiking, the Arctic circle, the midnight sun, Vikings and other Nordic gods... bring it on! If I had to name one thing I was most looking forward to it would be that whole twenty four hours of daylight thing--I can't get my head around it: a whole month made up of one endless day...

In my dreams of travel to faraway places, it seems my only decision of consequence is whether to spend a few days in Edinburgh or Amsterdam before heading back to Oz afterwards. Visiting just one country on an overseas ticket is a WASTE when you live in the antipodes, I say! The lure of Amsterdam needs little explanation (no, I'm not just talkin' about hash ;P It's the...vibe, man. The laid-back nature of the place, the sunny greens where people meet, the guy who wheeled an upright piano for miles to busk in a park (a scene recalled from a travel doco), the beer, the cheese, the tulips... and OK, the fact that you can buy ganja tea in cafes--more because I like the IDEA of that than the accessibility :))

But Edinburgh is a tempting possibility too. I am absolutely in-lust-from-afar with Scotland, always have been. I blame the accent. And the landscape. But mostly the accent. And if I'm not mistaken August is Fringe Festival time in Edinburgh. Which is like gathering up every festival Melbourne has ever hosted --- film, comedy, writers, fringe and the non-committal "arts" festival held in October --- herding them into the eternal, glamourous spiegeltent and towing them north to Scotland, cannae you imagine?! I'm a huge afficianado of that lower strata of arts'n'culture--not high enough to be high brow, not so low brow as to be pop (in the Big Brother/ Kylie sense of the word). One of the things I love best about Melbourne is its festivals and one of the festivals I've alwaysalwaysALWAYS wanted to go to is Edinburgh.

So, what to do? After the course wraps up in Norway I won't have a lotta time before semester 2 of my final (I hope) year begins back home. I think I'll end up letting the travel agent decide for me: whatever's cheaper and logistically neater and tidier But I'm havin' fun thinking about the alternatives in the meantime... ;)

** Its already looking like I'll have to take a flight with three stopovers to get to Bodo, because its $600 cheaper than the alternative. And I promised myself that I would neverNEVER do that again, after our nightmare flight back home over the Pacific from Canada *shudders* Twenty-six hours, four flights (including one uttery fucking STUPID stopover where we had to disembark, re-check our bags and walk through an entire airport in Honolulu to get back on the same fucking plane because of paranoid American security measures)... and as for the obese, overly-gassy passenger who slumbered in the aisle seat preventing escape or even bathroom visits for six hours of that nightmare trek home--well, I still don't wanna talk about him...

taptaptap... Is this thing on?

2004-09-02T18:43:00.000+10:30

*clears throat*

*cracks knuckles as if preparing to play piano*

Ah, the maiden blog.

This is pretty cool, I must admit. Beats the Target excercise book journal of last semester. I've just had a fiddle around with the control panel on this thang and I have to say, you're unlikely to see any whizz-bang technology from me here. Multi-coloured fonts is about as exciting as its gonna get, kids, get used to it. (An aside: I wonder if I've faux pas'ed already by using an adjective as trite and piss-weak as "whizz-bang" in a writing assignment?)

Now what's the deal here? Do we workshop our work here, only to have it stolen by some unscrupulous hack(er) who's hard-up for ideas? Do we rant about the Aussie medal count at this year's Olympics (I don't give a flying fuck...) or the upcoming election (my high-flying gig as a call centre employee for the AEC prevents me from "being seen to engage in..." well... such things). Do we review gigs? (I'm supposed to be seeing Something For Kate at the Prince of Wales tonight, but I had a pretty nasty fall a couple of days ago and I don't fancy the idea of a crowded pub right now, where any punter's stray elbow could come in contact with bruised flesh and cause me severe pain. Admittedly there's never a lot of movement more threatening than lackadaisacal head-nodding at a SFK gig but I'm not willing to risk it).

That leaves poetry then. Or shopping lists.

One day in Autumn
Alien warmth shows itself:
Postcards from Summer

I know: lame. But that takes care of this week's ALW102 homework :)

Best stick to shopping lists...

milk
oranges
vindication
paper towels
drive
certainty
dish washing liquid
humanity
tolerance
low fat yoghurt