Quasi Boho Alterna-Whatnot

You would cry, too, if it happened to you...

2007-05-06T15:50:00.000+10:00

It was my birthday last Monday and I turned 22. I didn't think it was a biggie until I realised that I'm not a fun novelty age anymore. I've officially ceased being 21, a year that for me was like the Bio-Dome of adulthood; a kind of maturity hermetically-sealed from the outside world (though hopefully that doesn't make me Pauly Shore). The upshot of it all is that my summer of '69 is over. After I recovered from that shocking realisation, it occurred to me that in the last year I've also managed to slip into rampant uncoolness. Somewhere between my killer 21st party at a lane way bar and my recent bottle cap collection, I lost my mojo. What events and lifestyle factors led to these twain epiphanies? Consider the following indications that I might be past my prime:

1. I take four kinds of pills before I go to bed. One is the Pill, one is an antibiotic for a UTI, one is an iron supplement, and one is a laxative to stop me getting constipated from the iron supplement. When my doctor diagnosed my iron deficiency, she also told me that I have a Vitamin D deficiency and that I need to get more sun. Doesn't she realise that the daylight hours are the luckiest time at the pokies?

I actually take drugs for my bowel movements; a definite indication of oldness.

2. My musical taste seems to be firmly rooted in the past. While my friends stock-up on the new CDs by the Fratellis or Lady Sovereign, the last debut album I bought was by Devo (a 1978 release). I also recently purchased Prince's Dirty Mind (1980), an album so old that hipster underpants hadn't even been invented yet. Observe:

I may be old-fashioned, but at least I buy albums with songs about oral sex on them.

3. The Saturday night before last, while the best minds of my generation were out smoking Cigarillos with Asian lesbians, or at least venturing outside their abodes, I was having possibly the lamest night-in ever. Consider these factors: I had dinner at 5pm. I was tempted to watch the Inspector Lynley Mysteries. I had a craving for fruit yoghurt at 8pm and actually went to the supermarket so that I could satisfy it. Six tubs later I sprawled on the couch till I fell asleep watching RockWiz. I was in bed by 10:30pm.My Saturday night had three active cultures, comprised protein for growth and repair, and contained no artificial colours or flavours. Did yours?

4. I collect bottle caps... From the packaging of nutritional fruit juice... Because they have trivia on them. Has the full gravity of that hit you, yet?

I also collect the trivia from the backing strips of Libra pads and liners. Is that wrong?

5. Instead of the cash my aunt has sent me every year since I was old enough to appreciate it, for my 22nd birthday I found a scratchie inside my card. How much does that scream "fogey"?

At least it's a Spiderman scratchie. The kids these days think he's pretty happenin'... Right?!

6. I watched the MTV Video Music Awards last week and realised that, when it comes to popular music these days, I'm just plain ig'nant. I couldn't pick Teddy Geiger from a line-up. I didn't know that Jared Leto was the lead singer of 30 Seconds To Mars. I thought Fedde Le Grand's name was "Freddy". I didn't know the difference between Bodyrox and BodyRockers. Even now I'm not sure how many Pussycat Dolls there actually are. The only performer I recognised was Fergie (some body parts more than others) and even she was performing a song that I'd never heard before. Basically, I'm completely out of touch. (Since when were their two Veronicas?)OK, so I get that there are two of them... But why are they both called Veronica?

So, it's all over for me. Please discuss.

The author with a few of her favourite things... Coloxyl (her laxative) and an oh-so cosy bed jacket.

The Australian Government gets hip to the kids: a Brave New World?

2007-04-10T12:11:00.000+10:00

When I was doing a bit of research about Ecstasy for my Divine gets trashed! post (below), I stumbled across the the government’s official "drugs are bad" website. Have you checked it out? Well, don't bother, because it's boring as all fuck. However, there is a bit that "gives a voice to the young'uns", which is called, wait for it, Somazone! (Because the kids have read Brave New World, and all...) It's a forum for young people to talk about all the seemingly "taboo" subjects that they should be able to get reliable information about from their school and family (but obviously aren't), like sex, drugs, mental health, contraception, harassment, sexuality, etc. Bad for them, good for you if you want to read about 13 year old girls losing their virginity to the sounds of Blink 182's Dammit, whilst covered in chocolate body sauce, IN THEIR OWN WORDS!! (LOLZ!) It’s proof that the age of consent laws should definitely be in place, despite what any Dutch political parties may have to say on the matter. What becomes obvious when you read some of the stories is that Harold the giraffe is just not getting through to the kids about the practicalities of sex, i.e. how to know when you’re doing it all wrong, what music is appropriate to listen to while you’re doing it, etc. Here’s two key paragraphs from the story of the chocolate-covered 13 year old, whose "man" "lasted" 40 minutes:

“...Also, when I tried to go on top a bit later, it hurt a bit more and it totally sucked trying to get it in!!!!!!! He kept slipping..... I guess there was too much lube!!!!!! So after switching back to missionary, he got on top, shoved it in, and spent the next forty or so minutes tiring himself out!!!!! We were fully making my bed squeak, and it was rocking heaps fast!!!!! I wasn't feeling anything, well I was..... it felt good!!!!! So now I feel like more sex!!!!! I really really actually like sex!!!!!!! It feels so good to have the weight of a guy on you! And the thrusting or whatever you call it, felt really calming and nice.... 40 mins isn't enough!!!!! So he sticks it back inside..... it feels good going slower, and he keeps asking me if I could go on top coz his legs hurt, if its hurting me and stuff like that..... we were timing how long we were going for!!!!

Occasionally we would stop, he would suck on my nipple, kiss my cheek, chest, shoulder, stomach, whatever or we would make out!!!!!! Then after he asked if it was hurting, I told him that it felt good, and to go faster and deeper! So he did, and that’s where it started feeling seriously good..... sumtimes he would stop, either to pull out to pull the condom up, finger me, ask if I wanted oral or to grope me...... he was having the time of his life!!!!!! I'm totally dreading getting my rags now, becaue I don't want to have to stop having sex! We talked throughout the whole thing almost!!!!!! We talked about anything and everything... how it felt, the songs playing, how fast our hearts are beating and can you feel it? How fun it was, how we have to do it more often!!!!!”

Go to the Somazone right now and read stories and questions posted by kids, many of whom open up their little hearts to the world... Then read all the cruel-hearted replies from their peers. It's alternately hilarious and totally depressing. Definitely something worth procrastinating over.

In my day, adolescent sex was as short and fast as a Blink 182 song.

Divine gets trashed! Shock new drug scandal: Alex found on bathroom floor after wild night out

2007-04-09T18:01:00.000+10:00

Only Quasi Boho Alterna-Whatnot can reveal the latest crisis to rock the cosy world of "divinetrash" (a.k.a Alex). Sources close to the star say that after a night out in sleazy bars, Alex found herself paying the price, on her bathroom floor. Her messy morning is believed to be the result of undisclosed substances taken at Eurotrash bar and (the notorious) Lounge. "She was in and out of the ladies' toilets all night," a nightclub spy said. A party pal was more loose-lipped - as ever - revealing that it was her drug 'come-down' that brought on her illness. "It wasn't till 6am that she got sick. Before that she was totally fine."

Minders are apparently concerned about Alex's hard-partying ways, but she claims she's just "having fun".

QBA-W, spoke exclusively to a "friend" of the star, who wanted to remain anonymous. "I was with her the whole time," he said. "When we got home, she was happy and chatty, watching T.V. in her loungeroom. Then she suddenly said, 'I'm just going to go straight to bed, without brushing my teeth.' Then she said, 'I feel sick; I think I might try to crawl to bed.' Finally, after trying to crawl, she jumped up and ran to the toilet."

When she got to the bathroom, things got from bad to worse. Instead of just letting herself throw-up whatever was making her sick, Alex tried to stop the vomit. "She seemed kind of paranoid," her "friend" revealed. "She seemed to decide early on that she wasn't going to throw-up, and did everything she could to prevent it." Unfortunately, her attempts to swallow down whatever came up left her hyperventilating, according to pals.

Her "friend" was left laughing at some of her demands. "She asked me to read to her to calm her down," he said. Ever the diva, Alex insisted, "Nothing postmodern!" as she lay on the bathroom floor. When her "friend" needed to use the toilet, Alex apparently asked him to go outside, so she wouldn't have to move from the bowl.

Celeb-watchers are already beginning to speculate about when Alex may enter rehab.

In the hour that she spent clinging to the toilet, fighting waves of nausea, Alex became pale and shaky. She felt feverish and was unable to stop clenching her jaw and hands. Her "friend" revealed to QBA-W that she also hallucinated, explaining that, "she could hear voices of people around her, and follow their conversations. It wasn't until she opened her eyes that she realised that there wasn't anyone there, except me."

When she stopped feeling vomitous, she curled-up in the foetal position, pressing her overheated face against the cold tiles. "It was the only place she felt cool and comfortable. She refused to come back to bed for another hour and a half," her "friend" explained.

QBA-W asked Alex's father, John, for comment. He explained that her bad reaction was proof that she hadn't followed his philosophy on drugs. "I've always said that you shouldn't take anything made by criminals," he explained, when asked for comment. A big drug-taker in the 1970s, John said that he "always knew who made [his] drugs." His advice for Alex in the future is, "to stick to pot and speed, and you won't go wrong. I'm 65 now, and my brain works fine."

-----
OK, so, despite that being a tribute to the style of "journalism" employed by my favourite trashy magazine, NW, the above story is actually what happened to me on Saturday. I thought that, because I'm such a clean-livin' gal, I should make a tribute to the repercussions of what was only the second time I've dabbled in class A drugs! Everything described is true (yes, even the bit about me going to the Lounge), and my dad really did give me that advice. That is his idea of what a drug lecture should be like, but then again he is a nutcase and seems to have no idea about what the drug scene is like in modern times. I'm thinking of hiring him out for the 'Life Education' van that goes to primary schools, as a fill-in for Harold the giraffe.

P.S. The pictures of me are based on this oh-so flattering portrait of John Mayer:

Nice catch, Jessica.

I Stole Ashton Kutcher's Hair!, and other reasons I haven't posted in ages...

2007-03-12T21:50:00.000+11:00

So, where have I been? Well, let's just say that my 4 month (!) absence more or less proves a contention of mine from an old post that blogging is one of the ways I sublimate my sexual energy. On a less gross note, I also have well-publicised issues (well-publicised in this blog, anyway) with procrastination. Basically, once I was on holiday from uni work I had to find something else to put off indefinitely. Between the both of these factors, Quasi Boho never stood a chance...

Then, the other day I took a good, hard look at myself and realised that my lack of blogging was having a physical effect on me. My eyes were dull and sunken, my coat no longer shiny, my lips had adopted a perma-sneer, and my once glowing skin had become oh-so pasty. Observe:

The author looking grouchy, confused and pallid; the terrible effects of spending her uni holidays away from blogging.

This revelation spurred me into action. The time had come to attempt to put fingers to keyboard, and start churning out more cyber-dross for the piggish and undiscerning masses! (Or, a couple of bored friends.)

Plus, y'know, uni has started again and I need something to do when I should be, like, learning or whatever. *Ahem*

But on to more important matters... Do you like my new haircut? Of course you do; it's terrific. The mere fact that it was not created by an Ugg-booted hairdressing student (unlike my recent tri-colour, Rogue-esque semi-disaster) was enough to leave me beaming with rapturous joy at my new 'do.

That was until I saw this picture:

'Twas then that I realised the horrible, horrible truth... I now look like Ashton Kutcher.

I guess there's a lesson in there for all of us. Namely, that one should not, for any reason, look at any part of ELLE Magazine. Yes, even if the cover boasts this article; "COCKTAIL-PARTY CHEAT SHEET: How to sound smart". (Sometimes my over-developed sense of enjoyment at vacuity actually works against me. Who would have thought?!)

I'll leave you with the information that on the 28th of January, my li'l blog turned 2 years old! Awww, how sweet. Three cheers for Quasi Boho! Hip, hip...

The Death of Jean Baudrillard Did Not Take Place

2007-03-08T17:52:00.000+11:00

Today in my Museums, Objects and Spectacles class, the tutor informed us that Jean Baudrillard had died on Tuesday.

"But did he really die?" I quipped.

"I hope not!" she replied.

(... But I think she's the only one who feels that way.)

Jean Baudrillard: He may not be dead, but he sure was annoying.

Kitten with a Whip...

2006-10-16T21:17:00.000+10:00

Meow! Here's another shameless attempt to keep people reading my blog; some photos of me dressed as Catwoman. (It's not as bad as it sounds, I was dressed as Catwoman for a reason. Well, if you can call the Melbourne Uni arts ball a reason.)

To reduce the tackiness of this post, I've thought up an angle. Here it is. During the night I forced every guy dressed as the Joker or the Riddler to have their photo taken with me. (Surprisingly, they were most obliging.) This post is thusly a photo-gallery featuring pictures of me with complete strangers in good costumes. Enjoy!

N.B. There weren't any other Catwomen there. Sure, there were a a couple of girls in lingerie and cat ears, but neither of them put in any effort.

Here's me and my first victim, Joker No. 1. Before you ask, no, his lipstick wasn't smeared because he'd been kissing me! We made out after the camera went away.

After this picture was taken, Joker No. 2 offered me some desserts he had poached from other people's tables while they were off dancing. He was really in character that evening!

I look very bad in this photo, but so does Joker No. 3, so we make a good team.

I appear a little pie-eyed in this picture with Riddler No. 1, but actually I only managed to drink one glass of sparkling wine during the whole evening. I was too busy chasing people dressed like Batman villains and making them pose for pictures to get any serious drinking done.

I'm oh-so smug in this picture with Riddler No. 2 because I had just finished collecting the whole set of Jokers and Riddlers at the ball. I was truly the cat who got the cream.

Here's me being a real smart arse on the dancefloor. You know how in Batman Returns (i.e. the greatest Batman film), Catwoman uses her whip as a skipping rope? Well, I used a skipping rope as a whip on the night, but here's me using my skipping-rope-as-whip as a whip-as-skipping-rope! Meanwhile, did you know that it is actually quite hard to skip in stiletto boots? I found this out very quickly.

Thanks to Lucy for the first photo!

Whom Should I Call? Dr. Harry, or Dr. Freud?

2006-09-24T22:07:00.000+10:00

You know how they say that as soon as you get a boyfriend or girlfriend, you instantly become more desirable to others? Even those who wouldn't have had a bar of you when you were available? When I was recently single, I was a veritable leper. All the bright young things preferred to keep their distance, regarding me with haughty disdain or malign indifference. But since being taken off the market I've become keenly aware of the aforementioned phenomenon. And this unwanted attention has become more pronounced since I have been housesitting for my boss, (he’s presently cavorting about in Europe). Unfortunately, I haven’t been getting vibed out by the pool boy, the maid, the gardener, or indeed any other homo sapien. Instead this obsessive lust has been emanating from the household dog; Nigel*.

Before he met my boyfriend, Nigel was vaguely offhand with me; friendly without being enthusiastic, and really only excited to see me if I was holding a leash (for the purposes of walking him, not the purposes of sex-play). But when he discovered that he couldn’t have me, he started behaving very strangely indeed...

For instance, he began humping my leg very passionately at every available opportunity. This behaviour got more and more intense, (and more vigorous, I might add) until finally one day my boyfriend tried to give me a hug, and found that a very eager Nigel was mounting him from behind. Thankfully, this attempted (and rebuffed!) threesome seemed to represent the climax (so to speak) of this behaviour, and ever since it has subsided. In fact, he's been quite discreet and respectful; choosing instead to wait patiently outside my bedroom all night until the opportunity of a door left ajar allows him to leap, mouth foaming and tongue dripping, onto my bedsheets. (I now have to wear pajamas to bed as a kind of protection.)

Nigel is also a snowdropper of the worst kind. He once stole a pair of my worn underpants and made them a kind of mid-afternoon snack. I actually walked in on him in the lounge room with his muzzle firmly pressed to the gusset, licking away, like it was the last supper. Needless to say, I have since made sure that the lid of the laundry hamper is firmly shut to prevent further molestation of my undergarments. However, this does not prevent him from attempting to extract my knickers from my person. He quite frequently creeps under the computer desk while I'm working and will then, in a surprise attack of the most shocking kind, try to stick his head between my legs.

He will also, creepily enough, fish a used condom out of the bin, if he gets half a chance. He will then proceed to chew on it, like a bacon flavoured Schmacko, all the while waggling his little tail. The other day I had to chase him around the garden for a good 10 minutes in an attempt to wrestle one out of his mouth. I’m not sure exactly what it is about condoms that he finds so appealing. Is it the taste? The texture? Either way, I can confirm that Nigel likes to swallow. (And he’s single, fellas!)

Too much information? Possibly. But I think you can now properly grasp the extent of the violation that has taken place. It’s strange because, apart from these perversions, Nigel is a very pleasant pooch.

---
* - The name of the spoodle in question has been changed to protect his privacy.

As you can see from the sleazy wink this pup is giving, dogs like to make love to the camera (and my leg) when I'm around.

Hook Is Not a Dirty Word...

2006-09-23T22:25:00.000+10:00

OK, well, it can be a dirty word if you're talking about bondage. But then again, if you're talking about bondage, you can probably expect the conversation to get dirty at some point. (In case you were wondering, the device pictured is called the nose hook, and you can probably pick one up at your local hardware store, or Hell Fire Club gift shop.)

Angelina Jolie's typical Sunday night at home: a couple of DVDs, a bottle of red, and a tail hook.

Anyway, I'm not here to talk to you about hooks from which to hang human flesh; I'm not that desperate for readers. (Yet.) Instead, I want to talk about hooks in popular music, or rather, the serious lack of them these days. The hook is the catchy part of the song, usually in the chorus, that sucks you in and gets stuck in your head, no matter how bad the tune itself is. A good hook can make a song. Some tunes are even built on them. For instance, there really isn’t much else to Crazy In Love except for the winning combination of the looped sample from the Chi-Lites' Are You My Woman and Beyoncé’s provocative vocals; the rest of the song is just filler crap. And yet, who among us doesn’t want to wiggle their tush when they hear it? Such is the awesome power of the hook. However, recently it seems as though it's all too easy for songwriters to get away without even bothering to include this vital element of the pop tune. What the fuck is up with that?! Surely the hook is one of the few reasons to listen to pop music. I, for one, don't want to live in a world without it.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I hear you cry. You want specific examples, do you? Well, it pains me to be so Today Tonight about the whole enterprise, but it seems that there’s nothing for it except a good ol' fashioned NAME AND SHAME. Here are a bunch of songs I've heard recently that have driven me to despair with their lack of hook content:

Say Somethin' -- Mariah Carey
Call On Me -- Janet Jackson
Ain't No Other Man -- Christina Aguilera
Maneater -- Nelly Furtado
Hips Don't Lie -- Shakira
I Want To Be A Punk Rocker (With Flowers In My Hair) -- Sandi Thom
Sexyback -- Justin Timberlake

As far as I’m concerned, these singers are sending a big "FUCK YOU!" to the pop music buying public, albeit in different guises. Sometimes it’s part of an oh-so contrived attempt at pop progressiveness. In this instance, the message seems to be; "I'm pushing boundaries and taking pop music to a new frontier. I don't need to make my music fun to listen to because I'm an artiste now..." Justin and Christina, I'm looking at you. (Meanwhile, who knew ex-Mouseketeers were capable of taking themselves so seriously?!) Sometimes, songwriters don’t even bother to dress-up their laziness, they just lay it out there with a sheepish shrug and a wan smile. While we’re on the subject, here’s a little message to Mariah and Janet: no one expects either of you to reinvent the wheel, but could you at least try to pretend that you’re not releasing simply music in order to support your drug habit? I really don’t think it’s too much to ask.

So, party people, it's time to put yo' hands in the air. Am I going crazy? Is this trend more prevalent lately than it has been in the past? Are there any songs that you want to NAME AND SHAME? So many questions, so few readers!

Bring back the hook, me hearties!

Alex phones in another blog entry...

2006-08-18T20:14:00.000+10:00

"...Hello? Is anyone there?"

Here’s photographic proof that I'm still alive, even though I haven't updated in a while. (There ought to be a current newspaper in the picture to prove that it's recent, but whatever.) Sorry for abandoning you, dear reader, but I've been frolicking about being sickeningly in love and haven't had a chance to post. It takes a lot of time and effort to be sickeningly in love. You and your beau spend all your free hours whispering sweet nothings into each other's ears on Ferris wheels, looking starry-eyed whilst sharing plates of spaghetti in restaurants that have candles in wine bottles, and calling each other "Pookie" in between PDAs so OTT that they cause those in close proximity to vomit a little in their mouths. There's no time at all for sitting hunched over a computer when there's all those piña coladas to drink and all that rain to get caught in, y'dig?

Anyway, I didn't check in to make you horribly, horribly jealous, (...well, not only to make you horribly, horribly jealous), I have an ethical conundrum that I need advice on. Here's a poser for you: Would it be lame of me to dress as Catwoman to the Arts' Ball? Yeah, that's right; I'm going to the Melbourne Uni Arts' Ball. Seems kind of wasted on me seeing as I'm not an alcoholic, or a ho, but what can you do? Anyway, I really want to go as the most fatale of felines, but I don't like to (consciously) think that I'm dressing to give strangers their jollies. So, what should I do? Should I just stop my whinging and take my cues from teen girl culture when picking a costume? If Mean Girls taught us anything it's that in certain social situations it's completely normal to get about in lingerie and some kind of animal ears. Or should I have a little more R-E-S-P-E-C-T for myself? You tell me...

In other news, I have 4 days to find a catsuit, ears, and a whip. Eeek.

Superheroes That Never Took Off...

2006-07-18T17:18:00.000+10:00

When I got home from Biba Academy the other day, I realised my hairdresser had been somewhat influenced by Rogue from X-Men when she decided on how to colour my hair. (On a related note, remind me never to let a hairdressing student have free reign over my 'do again.) That got me thinking about superheroes, and I decided to come up with some of my own invention that were so incredibly lame that they never would've made it in the cut-throat, super competitive world of fighting-crime-whilst-looking-cool, (which apparently is not incompatible with wearing your underwear on the outside). Anyway, the first one that came to mind was...

The Victorian Lady! Straight outta the 19th century to give modern bad guys a good old-fashioned thumping!

Special Skills...
*Can crochet help notes in record time, so she can be quickly rescued after the baddies have captured her!
*Can hypnotise people with her cameo necklace!
*Wields a croquet mallet like nobody's business, both on and off the green!

KAPOW! THWACK! BANG!

Weapons...
*Riding boots for kicking!
*An umbrella for poking!
*A Dorothy bag full of rocks!

OUCH! PHOOEY! EEP!Weaknesses...
*The high collar really chafes the neck!
*She occasionally suffers from bouts of hysteria!
*She's highly likely to become stricken with consumption!

SMASH! COUGH! LAME!

"I say, you little sod, put down your snuff box and put up your dukes, post-haste!"

Other superheroes too lame to make it past the drawing board...
*Mr Sniffles!
*Unpleasant Girl!
*The Rambler!
*P.C. Person!
*Mouth Breather!

Paint a Vulgar Picture? It’s as simple as ABC...

2006-07-17T22:22:00.000+10:00

I seem to have been hanging around bargain bins a lot, lately. Some may say this is behaviour typical of many respects of my life, but whatever.

In the course of these bargain bin explorations, I have discovered a series of CDs that, for the most part, seem to be a cynical attempt of big biz music to scrape up and lob out the shit in their back catalogue that isn’t shifting enough product. I can’t say that I have come to expect much more from Universal. However, they have taken this approach to sleazy new lows with the so-called ‘Masters Collection’. The name suggests that the artists represented in the collection will be those who have given us the most finely crafted popular music of the last century. Sure, John Lee Hooker, Louis Armstrong, and James Brown turn up, but after those namechecks, the unsuspecting public has a lot of old tosh thrown at them. Here, naturally enough, is where I come in. I fuckin’ love tosh; I’m an unashamed connoisseur of the tacky, the cheesy, the synthy. But I as enthusiastic as I can get about the stuff, I would never claim that Robert Palmer was a "Master", nor would I claim that Style Council were "Masters". Universal do and have (and you can find both those compilations in the bargain bin at J.B. HiFi).

However, it gets much more oxymoronic than that (with emphasis on moronic). Not only are Robert Palmer and Style Council Masters, their compilations are said to be “Classic”. Before I go on, here are the OED definitions of Master and Classic:

Master An artist of distinguished skill, one of those who are regarded as models of excellence in their art.

Classic Of the first class, of the highest rank or importance; approved as a model; standard, leading.

Now, riddle me this; would you consider that Bruce Willis or ABC fall into either of these categories? Well, in Universal's alternate universe they do. Careful reading of the liner notes of both compilations see the authors wavering between thinly disguised apathy, and straw-clutching justifications of the artists' inclusion in the series. Consider the lines in the Willis booklet where his harmonica playing skills are described as “arguably impressive”, and his records are cited as proof that he “refuses to take himself too seriously”. Ouch! The writer of this none-too-flattering patter doesn’t even sign off with their name, instead choosing the anonymity of initials. I’m guessing the author didn’t want to be associated with Brucey's music; an “homage to the music Willis loved, old soul and R&B”. (Basically, Willis’ two album career consisted of well-meaning but misguided and ultimately embarrassing cover versions of songs that were waaaaay beyond his capabilities, and a couple of cheesy originals featuring his “arguably impressive” harmonica. Would you want to hear Willis clumsily plod through ‘Under The Boardwalk’, or ‘Save The Last Dance For Me’? Didn’t think so.)

ABC’s inclusion in the series is only slightly more justified. Most people I try to discuss them with don’t know what band I’m talking about until I break into the chorus of ‘Poison Arrow’. The guy at J.B. didn’t, but I could tell he was overwhelmed by my vocal abilities, which are no less than arguably impressive. The liner notes for this disc stretch in a most unconvincing manner to give ABC some cred. Consider the opening line; “Fronted by an English Literature graduate, ABC were always going to be a different proposition in the world of pop”. Well, I hate to nay-say, but I’m willing to bet that most bands have at least one member who is a former Arts’ student who realised their degree wasn’t going to lead them to anything but a lifetime of waiting tables. Indeed, sometimes English Literature graduates end up as the writers of liner notes, as is suggested by the author’s description of one of ABC’s incarnations as “big beats, coupled with a post-Archies’ cartoon image”. Right-o, then.

Certainly, ABC might be masters of the K-Tel compilation, and Brucey might be a master of “arguably impressive” harmonica playing, but I for the life of my couldn’t find either of these in the extensive definitions provided by the good people at Oxford.

At the record company meeting/On their hands - a dead star...

You could have walked away/...Couldn't you?

Bring back the Mysterious Boy!

2006-07-13T18:14:00.000+10:00

The British ruling elite have a lot to answer for with regard to their long history of ransacking and pillaging important archaeological and anthropological treasures from other countries. Countless important artefacts, of both cultural and artistic significance, have been plundered, generally from regions poorer than Britain. The very word elginism was derived from Lord Elgin and his theft of the Parthenon Marbles. Rightfully, there are often impassioned campaigns to have these pieces, like the Marbles or the Rosetta stone, returned to their country of origin.

In Australia I believe that we are sorely remiss in our neglect of one such cause. There is a national treasure that has been looted from our shores, and I, for one, believe that it is high time we began to pressure the British government to bring it back to us. Certainly, it has become extremely decrepit and possesses shaky cultural value in our modern times, but it has a definite historical weight. An earlier, more primitive people held this object up as an idol! How long will we allow it to be kept from us? It belongs in Australia, in not only its true spatial context, but also its true cultural context.

Peter Andre. It's time he was returned home.

Sure, he's a greasy spiv, but he's our greasy spiv.

In England, the man is reduced to second base with a badly tanned, hairless, oversized Barbie doll. In Australia, he would have his pick of real, flesh and blood women... Bring him home!

Is blood thicker than styling serum?

2006-06-30T18:57:00.000+10:00

My dad and I have a complicated relationship. It's not all penny whistles and moon pie, despite what you may have been lead to believe in this blog. Sure, there are the cutesy emails and lovely 21st speeches, but there are also the caustic blow-ups fueled by bitter, bitter resentment. One inevitable source of tension between the two of us is, oddly enough, my hair. Dear old Dad simply does not understand how to broach the topic of a new haircut with a style-conscious person such as myself. More irritatingly, he does not appear to care that he lacks this skill.

Up until recently he has had trouble recognising when I've changed my hair. Even drastic things like a new colour, or a new fringe. However, recently he has begun to notice my follicle alterations, and, additionally, has begun to offer unsolicited opinions on them. Here are some actual, genuine, real-life comments that he has foisted upon me after seeing various 'dos for the first time:

"What happened to your head?!"
--The unfortunate implication here is that the haircut is so horrible that it actually makes it seem as though my cranium has been disfigured.

"Did you do that on purpose?!"
--I am still struggling to imagine a set of circumstances where a person might have an accidental haircut. Feel free to leave a suggestion in the comments.

"Have you actually seen what it looks like?!"
--Ouch, Dad, ouch.

However, yesterday he reached a new level of derision that mere words could not adequately express. Upon seeing my hair he simply sniggered in my face and walked away to brush his teeth. Thanks, Pop. I'm sure one day I will recover from the wounds each of those guffaws cut into my little heart.

My family outside our house, circa 2003. Don't be fooled; underneath the smiles, waves and anti-war posters there is conflict and thinly veiled hostility.

The Bold and the Beefcake...

2006-06-27T17:17:00.000+10:00

Even though I was always more of a Zack Morris girl myself, I still felt great joy when I realised where I'd seen Dr. Ramirez of Bold and the Beautiful before.

He is none other than Mario Lopez of Saved By The Bell fame! w00t! (Seriously, how cool was that show?!)

That's right, he was Bayside High's resident dumb, misogynistic wrestler A.C. Slater. You may remember him for such classic lines as...

Slater: [talking to Jessie] Guys are great at math. It's just a shame you weren't born a man.
...
Jessie: Slater, since we're together, I think we should share the household chores.
Slater: Sure, you cook & I'll eat.
...
Jessie: Slater, haven't you heard of the Women's Movement?
Slater: Sure..."Put on something cute and MOVE it into the kitchen."

Whatta guy, huh? Meanwhile, the man has done enough beefcake shots to sink a small ocean liner. So if 'built' is your thing, (I prefer weedy, but that's just me...), then you should really go trawling the net for some pictures whence next you have a bit of time on your hands...

Mario like you never saw him on Saved By The Bell

A lady's tongue must always match her dress, and other things I learnt at my 21st...

2006-06-19T22:44:00.000+10:00

Staged at the impossibly chic Murmur Bar, my 21st birthday was easily the best party I've ever hosted, and was one of the most fun nights I've had since the time I streaked across the Warburton Highway (an event which, naturally enough, came up in the speeches).

Alex and Tash. I don't know why I love this picture, but I do. I think it shows how much of a good time I was having, but without the cheesy, posed smile that appears in most of the other pictures. Yeah, OK, I look like a drunken semi-loon, but I'm not just any old drunken semi-loon... I'm a drunken semi-loon in a great dress.

Anna, Lorena and Lia, and, Chiara, George and Jess. Speaking of sartorial stylishness, all my friends possess it to an amazing degree. Particularly my female friends. Hotties, every one of them. I didn't realise until the night of my party that I seem to be collecting beautiful and nicely spangled women as though they were butterflies to be pinned on a board and then affixed to my wall. (Sounds like the plot of a Morgan Freeman/Ashley Judd crime thriller.)

Chox, Seb, Svet and David. And yet more sexy, beautiful creatures of the night. OK, so these ones are slightly less dignified than those above, but that's OK... It takes all kinds. Plus, they gave me good presents.

Seb and Karina. Oh la la! As evidenced here by a certain morally degenerate pair, there was plenty adultery on the dancefloor, if a distinct lack of murder (...Oh well, I'm happy for people to break whichever of the Ten Commandments they want).

Alex and Adam. And here is a perfect example of why one shouldn't get photos taken with exes; one ends up looking cheesed off. The scary thing is, I can't remember there being a reason to pull this face at the time the picture was taken. Maybe I always look this way when I'm around him!

John. My now famous father, who, after delivering a killer speech and generally being awesome at my shindig, has become widely considered to be cooler than me! (Imagine that if you can.) Due to popular demand, he has subsequently promised to start a blog in retirement. Meanwhile, can you imagine what it would be like to go to a grog blog with your dad?! That is surely too much lameness for any one person to bear.

Drew and Alex. The other day my dear friend Svet mused;
"I wish you and Drew would get together."
"Do you think we'd make a good couple?" I queried.
She responded; "Well, I like him and I've already established a rapport. I don't want to have to do that with some other guy."
...Good to see that she has my interests at heart.

Sealed section: BLOGGERS GONE WILD!
Not since grog blog 2005 have I seen bloggers hit the bottle so hard, and with such interesting results...

Russ, Hannah and Jon. It seems that writing a blog proves to be an irresistible lure where the ladies are concerned. Meanwhile, if there is a photograph out there of Jon where he is not pulling a stupid face, I am yet to see it.
Adam and Andrew. Speaking of irresistible lures, that skank Andrew could hardly wait until his girlfriend's back was turned to start making moves on a certain part-time blogger, full-time Casanova.

Nick. That shifty bastard stole my lollipop! Actually, a few people did. That lollipop probably got the most action of anyone at the damn party.

Hannah, Alex and Karen. Could I be more of a poser? Seems unlikely.

All in all, I had a fabulous time. I generally do when given the opportunity to get dressed up and ponce about, but it was especially nice because everyone kept showering me in praise and lavish gifts, as well. (I really must turn 21 more often!) A big thanks to all those who came and indulged me, particularly as you all managed to restrain yourselves from buying me cocktail shakers, oversized keys, or chintzy Champagne glasses as presents. Props to that, bruthas and sistas. Mad love to ya!

Correspondence Between a Father and Daughter...

2006-06-07T11:01:00.000+10:00

I suppose my dad must've been reading my blog, because today he sent me this email:

Subject: Which One Is Sterne?

I'm guessing the one on the right. He must be a man of parts, infinite jest, and sensibility if he is a fan of Alfred Jarry and Cab Calloway! What a combination! Did you tell him my anecdote about the 1963 (or so) production of Ubu Roi when Mr Plod turned up with a warrant for the arrest of Alfred Jarry?

No, wait a minute, knowing your obsessional neatness Sterne will be the one on the left. The picture doesn't do him justice.

I attach a Cab Calloway clip.

xxYrDa

P.S. I assume Sterne knows he can hear right here in Melbourne a man who has played for Calloway...

To which I replied;

Subject: Hold the weddin'

Yes, he's the one on the left! And yes, the links on my blog beneath the picture are in order of the individuals' placing in the photo because I am obsessional.

Two guys write Sterne, which is named after Laurence Sterne, not one of the bloggers themselves. There is one called Tim and one called Jon. Jon is the one in my photo. I have a hunch he put up the Alfred Jarry quote, (though, I'm not sure), but he didn't write that entry that has the Cab Calloway picture in it; Tim did. (You can see who has written each entry by looking at the very bottom of the post.) So, while I agree that indeed he is a man of infinite jest, and sensibility, (for he is, and he's extremely clever, too), I can neither confirm nor deny his liking for either Jarry or Calloway. But I will find out, and if he does, I will try to seduce him away from his girlfriend so that he and I can get married and make your son-in-law dreams come true.

xox Yr Dau

So, Jon, it seems you have a new fan. My dad gets very excited when young people have the same taste as him. Could you please clear up your feelings on Jarry and Calloway, so he knows whether or not to get excited? And just so everyone knows, this is the Jarry anecdote in question:
In the early 1960s the one of the Melbourne Uni theatre companies run by the union put on a production of Ubu Roi and somehow the cops got wind of it. They found out that the play contained the word "Merdre!" in it, which was, even though it's misspelled, close enough to the French word for "shit" to be a punishishable offence. So, they went down to raid the performance, and, thinking that Alfred Jarry must be a student at MU, demanded to interview him. The other students thought it would be amusing to play along, and yelled out "Run, Alf, run! The police are here!", which sent the fuzz scurrying after a man who had been dead since 1907.
The moral: Cops are not only swine, the are specifically uncultured swine. My father never tires of telling that anecdote.

Also, the musician in question, (who has played for Cab Calloway), is a guy named Gil Asky. He has does regular gigs at Dizzy's Jazz Bar on Swan Street.

And to Russ and ns, who seem to have been left out in the cold, I found out my father also sent this email around to his some of his friends:

Subject: From Leggsie's Blog: I Am Interested To See Bloggers Are Not A Species Of Geek, But Quite Charming

Yeah, that's right. That photo, and your blog urls, are getting passed around among my dad's crazy friends and you didn't even know it. Scary, huh?!

Eurodance: the unlikely secret to winning friends and influencing people

2006-06-06T17:27:00.000+10:00

OK, so I realise that I am hopelessly behind with the times, but last Thursday I finally got a hit counter up and running. I must admit, it's pretty lame that I've been blogging for almost a year and a half, and yet only started monitering at who's actually reading it less than a week ago, but what can you do?! Not much to report so far, but something that has struck my interest is that so far all the people who have googled to get to me have been looking for Eurodance related stuff! One had typed in straight up "Eurodance", another was specifically wanting "2 Unlimited", and another wanted "Ghetto Pussy" (I hope they meant Tokyo Ghetto Pussy, and weren't looking for porn from da 'hood). Those 3 hits happened in 2 days! I'm thinking that Eurodance might just be the key to my success on the web, so I'm considering changing this blog's theme... OK, not really, but it has set the cogs of my mind in motion. FYI, the Eurodance Track O' The Week for this week is Corona's 'Baby Baby'. That song was solid gold. There isn't much I wouldn't do for a copy of that album, I must say.

Olga Souza was a little more cheery on album covers than other pouty Eurodance musos I could mention.

Survey update: I've got enough data now. Thanks to everyone who commented or emailed me to help out! You guys are total dolls; I love ya. Come to grog blog to claim your prize!

Like, omigod, you missed a killer party...

2006-06-01T23:03:00.000+10:00

So, here's a taster of what my 21st birthday party was like:

Judging by this photo alone, you'd probably conclude that I got naked in a bar with a few bloggers I know. Well, I'll set the record straight after I finish panicking about my essays.

Speaking of partying naked, two of the above bloggers are organising a grog blog. In my limited experience grog blogs are actually really fun, (despite how potentially unfun they may sound if you've never been to one), so make sure you come along. It will begin at 6:30ish on Friday, June 16th at the Lincoln Hotel Carlton (cnr Queensberry and Cardigan Streets). Bring a chaperone if you feel so inclined!

I will be there, and so should you. Let's face it, you've already missed one killer party... You don't want to miss another one, do you?

Didn't think so.

Slob is a Four Letter Word...

2006-05-30T14:51:00.000+10:00

I'm not dead.

But I may as well be.

I haven't left the house for 2 days.

I have to write 9000 words by next Monday.

My plan is not to leave the computer 'til then, save a trip to the library.

When I have this much stuff to do & this much stress, I start living hand-to-mouth.

Yesterday I only put on pants because I had to answer the door... for the pizza delivery man.

(N.B.: I don't cope well with pressure.)

For your enjoyment, here's a before and after...

How I normally look, (all-day, everyday):

>>Note the intense fabulousness and easy grace.

How I look when in study-mode:

>>Note the 1.25 litre bottle of Coke, the Kylie CD, the hovel-like surrounds, the lank hair, the crazed and bloodshot eyes.

What a Churl Wants...

2006-05-14T17:04:00.000+10:00

I normally frown upon that terrible practice of bloggers to create 'wishlists', in which they detail the commodities they’re hankering after. Sometimes (to extend the vulgarity) they even write down how much these things cost! *spits in distaste*

Like my resolve to never compare my mood to a song at the start of a post, I promised myself I would never succumb to this particular trashy cliché of bloggerdom.

So, let it be known that it pains me to do what I am about to do.

Yeah, I’m about to write a list of things I would like for my birthday. But, wait! There is a motivation behind it other than self-obsession, I swear. It's actually due to popular demand. (Can't argue with that!) Apparently I’m a difficult person to buy presents for, and my friends keep asking for help on the matter. For some reason, I find it overwhelmingly embarrassing to talk about what I want, (due, perhaps, to an overactive superego), so I thought I’d put it in here instead. Anyway, if you're one of the people who has been questioning me, I'd love to receive anything on this list. Be sure to leave a comment, so other people know that you're going to get it. I promise not to read the comments section!

So, here goes...

*Anything J-Pop related. This is going to be my new obsession if I can get it off the ground! Anything you can find related to cheesy Japanese pop would be much appreciated. I’m a bit in love with a band called “SMAP”, if that helps.

*Mid-90s’ Eurodance music. I really want Corona’s album ‘The Rhythm of The Night’, the Real McCoy’s album ‘Another Night’, and Technotronic’s Greatest Hits.

*I’d really like the ‘Aikea-Guinea’ EP by Cocteau Twins. (I don’t only listen to cheesy pop, you know!)

*The soundtrack to Terrence Malick’s film ‘Badlands’. I’ve been looking (though only in real shops, not online ones) for this CD on and off for 4 years. Man, it would be awesome to finally get it.

NB.: If you want to give me burns or download CDs off the net, that’s totally fine; I won’t think you’re a cheapskate. It’s about the music, not the price-tag. Why go to J.B. and waste $30 on something you could get for free?!

*For some reason, I’d like a bust of a famous dead person. Authors or poets preferably, but whatever you can find I’m sure I’ll love! Shelley would be great (as in Percy Bysshe, not Mary), because I respect many things about him, including his work and his politics. (Plus, he was a vegetarian! ...OK, so his personal life was a fucking mess, but let’s put that aside, shall we?) Or maybe William Godwin, or Lord Byron. Any literary figures who were also politically radical totally float my boat. However, Marx or Mozart would probably be easier to find.

*A poster of the Smiths.

*Madonna’s ‘Immaculate Collection’ DVD. I think it’s time to move on from my Ultimate Kylie DVD, don’t you?

*You can’t fail with any kind of paraphernalia to do with Sailor Moon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Batman, Wonder Woman, or Cat Woman. (Yeah, I know I’m sad.)

*One of those light-up religious pictures (with coloured LEDs) you get at el-cheapo stores (there’s lots of them on Sydney Rd!). Preferably the Virgin Mary with a light-up sacred heart.

*A huge, black, man-size umbrella. One big enough to use as a walking stick, with a curved handle. (À la John Steed's umbrella in 'The Avengers'.) ...Don't bother with any penis envy jokes, by the way.

Anyway, that'll do y'all. Amazingly, I still feel embarrassed even though I'm writing about it instead of saying it out loud.

In Eurodance news, Russ has put an MP3 of 'Another Night' up for everyone to enjoy! Go here to listen to it. I also discovered that the Real McCoy's MC (Olaf Jeglitza) has a blog! Go here to experience the life of a performer whose 15 minutes of fame have well and truly passed. Here's some choice quotes that appear in an entry from March 2006...
On his life: "Time goes by ... and nothing happens LOL!"
On his most recent show: "it´s been a long time since I did my last public performance … and this is obvious to see."
On his image: "I look kinda like a “child abuser” …"

Who would've thought the career of this man would have been so short-lived?
I mean, it's a classic look to adopt, not to mention a timeless style of music to produce. This kind of stuff just doesn't date.

Get Ready For This, because there's No Limit!

2006-05-12T00:30:00.000+10:00

Even though my sidebar is fucked and now for some reason appears at the bottom of the page, (if someone could explain why this is to me, I'd be e'er so grateful), you may have noticed the brand new feature of this blog... It's a called "Mid 90s' Eurodance Track O' The Week!", and its fuction is to guide you down memory lane; back to when the dance music that dominated the charts wasn't supplied by cartoon frogs, but rather by Frogs from France! (But let's not forget the Italians, the Dutch, the Belgians, and ESPECIALLY the Germans, without whom 90s' Eurodance would be nothing.) That's right, until I get bored with it, I'll be celebrating all those fabulous, floor-filling, cheesy club anthems that made the 1990s the aural feast that they were, by putting up the lyrics to all the best mega hits in my special Eurodance sidebar box (or Super Time Portal, as I prefer to think of it!).

Over the coming weeks the Super Time Portal will feature such amazing artistes as:
Corona!
La Bouche!
2 Unlimited!
Black Box!
Real McCoy!
Technotronic!
Haddaway!
Dr. Alban!
Culture Beat!
Twenty 4 Seven!
Jam & Spoon!
Tokyo Ghetto Pussy!
Unique II!
Snap!(!)

And when I've run out of continental Europeans, I'm might head north to the UK for such luminaries as:
Londonbeat!
Rozalla!
Betty Boo!

Don't worry if most of those names mean nothing to you... As soon as you read the lyrics, the Super Time Portal will work its magic, and the sleazy sonic Eurotrash will all come flooding back to you like Crystal Waters (who was, unfortunately, an American so she doesn't count!).

This new miniature obsession of mine with the House anthems of my youth was brought on when I declared on NYE that 2006 would be the year of No Limits. I was inspired by that oh-so catchy and completely inane song by 2 Unlimited, (i.e. the biggest Dutch artistic export since van Gogh), and proceeded to sing it all night, much to the amusement (or was that chagrin?) of my friends. I realised that I had a whole bunch of song fragments of that ilk running around in my head, and decided to track them down. It was only then that I realised almost all of them were Eurodance! (With the exception of Ultra Naté, C+C Music Factory, 2 In A Room, and, Crystal Waters, who were all brillo but all Americans! Foiled!)

Anyway, get ready to cringe with embarrassment as you read the stellar lyrical efforts of the too-cool-for-Eurovision set, who blew the world away with songs that were mainly about "the night" (and all the crazy shit that happens in it), and being someone's "baby"... I can hardly wait!

Spot the difference...

Left: 2 Unlimited single cover
Right: La Bouche album cover

Mid 90s' Eurodance acts had similar marketing strategies... Crazy hair, vinyl clothing, plum lipstick, male rapper/female singer combinations, visible bras, a penchant for looking away from the camera, the colour blue, etc.

Sex And The Suburbs; or; "Creeps sought by 21 y/o girl for fun times at their expense."

2006-05-06T19:41:00.000+10:00

Whenever I bother to peruse the local Leader newspaper, (generally only in moments of extreme procrastination), I always make sure I check out the personals column. Yes, I am single, but don't worry, I'm have't reached the point where I'm hoping to recognise my "soulmate" through such vague descriptions as "DTE", "GSOH", "VGSOH", "N/D", "S/D, "S/S", "N/S", etc. etc. etc. Now that we've cleared that up, I'm sure you're probably thinking "Ooh, Alex, how 'Ghost World' of you to look through the personals for fun!", but to that I reply "SHUT UP... I was Enid before it was cool to be Enid". Although, I draw the line at actually calling anyone up to make fun of them; I'm not that mean.

However, in the last few years, the personals column has become increasingly samey and boring. These days it's just the usual ragtag bunch of sad old men looking for gorgeous Asian girls, or "homely" women (or gorgeous "homely" Asian women). Not to mention the seemingly never-ending supply of middle-aged guys who are looking for some "discreet daytime fun" while their wife is out picking the kids up from school. The advent of internet dating has meant all the interesting perverts and weirdoes are displaying their wares online; but who has time to trawl through thousands of profiles looking for Mr. Right Old Creep when all you want is a quick chuckle at the residents of your home suburb?

Anyway, I was flicking through Talking Friends the other day and managed to strike gold! Not once, but three times! As this has become such a rare occurrence, I decided to share my finds with you. Check out the gems I found in the Male Seeks Female section:

"LOOKS AND AGE unimportant, jovial, DTE lady married/widow. Call me."
This one isn't actually that weird, but I can't help wondering why exactly the woman has to be married or widowed. Maybe he has a fetish for pretending to be someone's significant other. I almost want to call him up and ask.

"STONER 28 tall med bld seeks fun stoner chick, slim, must work."
This guy sounds like a real catch, huh?! I'd give you his VMB number, but I want to call him myself.

"WARRIOR POET SEEKS PRINCESS 42 y/o male looking for a quiet 18-32 who prefers their nights at home for r/ship."
I imagine the relationship would be something like this...
Her: "Darling, it's my 19th birthday; can we go out for a night on the town?"
Him: "No, dear. Now shut up and listen to the FIERCE poem I wrote about you, my little Xena."
Her: "OK, Dad... I mean, dear."

Anyway, you'll probably accuse me of trying to rip off Desci's Freakline, but I don't care. I had to share the spoils of my hunt.

Jeepers. Tomorrow (the 7th of May) is my 21st birthday. Expect a new post shortly about why I don't feel I'm ready for the oversized novelty key just yet.

"Would you like to buy some drugs?" Teachers and their second jobs...

2006-04-29T01:20:00.000+10:00

I loved the movie Mean Girls. In my opinion it was the best teen flick since Clueless, but feel free to challenge me on that. We live in a world where John Hughes' most recent projects were Beethoven's 5th and Maid In Manhattan, John Cusack has to play the "quirky" love interest in Diane Lane vehicles about internet dating to make a buck, and Jon Cryer is relegated to the small-screen in costumes sourced from Sears instead of the fedoras and brothel-creepers he so richly deserves. The golden age of teen cinema is dead, so when movies like Mean Girls come along (except for the ending, which I freely admit was really half-arsed) I get a warm glow in my heart. Like maybe the world isn't such a terrible place, after all?

ANYWAY.

What I don't want to experience are Mean Girlseque moments in my own life. Today I had one such moment. (Funnily enough, it happened about an hour after I described a pair of earrings as "fetch".) I ran into one of my university lecturers at her other job at a bookstore. It just about broke my heart, because I love her (she's one of those young and enthusiastic lecturers) and the course she's in charge of is one of my favourites because I can write essays about Kylie Minogue and get away with it. She has a PhD, is the course co-ordinator and runs half the tutes herself; shouldn't she be getting paid enough to live off academia?! Call me naïve, if you will, but if I was running the show people would be encouraged to do tertiary study, and encouraged to take up what is perhaps the noblest of all pursuits; shaping the minds of the future!

As Janis Ian said;
"That is grim."

The above is a still from the movie where Cady (Lindsay) runs into her teacher Ms. Norbury (Tina) on her way to her second job. It was about as awkward for me as it was for them! OK, so my lecturer wasn't bartending in a kitschy jacket covered in "flair", but it still depressed the hell out of me. The encounter only served to further cement my centainty that I won't be pursuing a post-grad career. Has this happened to anyone else?

Deck Dog-ette

2006-04-21T14:20:00.000+10:00

More from the skating life and times of our hero; one bitch-ass Z Girl who'll fuck you up as soon as look at you.

20th of April:
10am - feel bad about not ever doing any exercise.
10:02 - decide to fix this by skating to uni.
10:05 - put on uplifting/inspiring music to get in the mood for action, incl. Cocteau Twins and Martika.
10:07 - try to sing along to Cocteau Twins. Fail miserably.
10:10 - start getting dressed.
11:00 - finish getting dressed. (Yeah, I'm a vain motherfucker. So sue me.)
11:10 - find old wristguards from my radi-cool 'blading dayz, so as to prevent fracture number three to my left arm.
11:15 - run out the door feeling excited and motivated about my skate.
11:16 - realise that in my excitement I've left the board inside, so go back and retrieve it.
11:17 - realise I'm not sure which foot is meant to push and which is meant to stay on the deck.
11:18 - realise I don't know how to steer.
11:19 - realise people might witness my train wreck-like attempt.
11:20 - almost "skate" through some dog shit.
11:21 - decide the whole venture is a waste of time and that I need to practice somewhere that's less densely populated and has footpaths that aren't so cracked and narrow.
11:25 - get on the tram.

So, then I carried the board around for the entire day, which wasn't a problem till later that evening I ended up at Cherry and had no idea what to do with the stupid thing. I ended up just sticking it in a corner, and would you believe it, no one stole it! While I was there I did what no other blogger has ever done... I met n/s! Aren't you all jealous? I found out all his secrets and they will soon become part of a new series of posts entitled: 'The secrets of n/s'... Just kidding. (Or am I? MWAHAHA!)

In other news, I was perusing strangers' blog profiles, and some of them are positively hoot-filled. Or at least, I think they are.

One girl listed her interests as: Jesus, God, music, singing, dancing, acting, making faces, boys, rocking out, driving around, rain, magazines, books, animals, giggling, movies, life.
(N.B.: I'm not making fun of her for being religious. It's most of the other "interests" I find utterly fatuous.)

Another listed: Anything outdoors, water sports, piano, dancing, books, wine, beer, boys, animals, plants, the human condition.
It disturbs me how many grown women refer to men as "boys". But what I mainly love about this one is that her interests include both water sports AND the human condition. Props to that.

Blog Town and Z Girl... The diary of a first-time skater; age 20

2006-04-10T18:51:00.000+10:00

Reasons I shouldn't learn to skate:
-I'm almost 6 feet tall, and gangly as all fuck
-I have no co-ordination
-It takes me ages to acquire skills (refer to when I attempted to learn to ski, or when I tried to teach myself the dance at the end of 'Footloose' for further examples of this)
-I hate making a jack-arse out of myself, except for the purposes of this blog
-Skating is pretty lame
-People will laugh at me
-My board sucks (it was $20; I knew what I was getting myself into when I bought it!)
-I've already broken my left wrist twice; I probably shouldn't tempt fate
-I'm almost 21 and ought to know better by now

Reasons I should learn to skate:
-Ummmm... ?

The diary so far...

Friday 24th of March: Bought my first ever deck at the Toy Kingdom 50% off sale. An ominous beginning, don't you think?

Saturday 1st of April: Got on my board and went up and down the street for a bit. Heard my neighbours coming out of their house so I ran away in fear, lest they catch me in the act.

Sunday 2nd of April: Got my dad to take pictures of me on my board for this post. No actual skating was done in the making of these shots. Nevertheless, I still managed to fall off.

Tuesday 4th of April: Tonight I said to Mum that I was going to skate to the video store to return 'Total Recall' and 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' (the latter isn't as bad as you'd expect. The trick is to forget the novel exists). She replied; "You're going to skate down Sydney Rd at 9pm?! Are you mad?! You'll end up dead in a gutter somewhere!" ad infinitum. OK, so it wasn't the best idea, but actually I was going to stick to the back streets, (and maybe pick up some crack on the way to complete the picture). I just hate the idea of practicing in broad daylight. Anyway, in the end I walked, and instead of getting crack, I got some ice-cream. All that and back in time for 'The O.C.'. What a night of madcap high jinks it was to be sure.

So far, so lame. More as it happens.

My board:

Hopefully the spirit of Turtle Power will guide me. Meanwhile, it says "Cowabunga" on the other side, which is pretty cool.

This post is rated PG for a mild sense of cynicism...

2006-04-05T11:54:00.000+10:00

The other day I convinced my friends Seb and Svet that we should watch David Cronenberg's movie 'Crash'. (When I asked Svet if we could get it, she said “Isn’t that the gross movie where people have sex with other people’s car crash wounds??” I replied in the affirmative. She said “OK, get it.”) Disappointingly enough, no one actually did have sex with anyone else’s wounds. However, they did have sex in smashed up cars, masturbate while watching car crashes, have sex with fatally wounded car crash victims, etc. etc. etc. All in all, it made for a good afternoon’s viewin'. Plus, you got to see a whole lotta James Spader, and that can’t be a bad thing. Anyway, despite how awesome that film might sound, the most memorable part of the whole viewing experience was in fact the previews on the VHS cassette (yes, even more memorable than watching James Spader get it on with some dude who was covered in scars). One of them was for a movie called 'Last Chance' and it came across as the ultimate 1990s' action movie, in that it possessed every single cliché of the genre. I actually made Svet rewind it and then play small segments back to me so I could write the whole trailer down for posterity. Tell me if this does not sound like the most generic film ever made: (imagine the voiceover parts in the typical gruff male American v/o voice…)

Voice over: After a nuclear holocaust, the world is a very different place. Joe Knight is a reluctant hero with an attitude. McCabe is a wisecracking soldier with a past.

(Dialogue from film:
Judge: “This court finds you guilty!”
McCabe (wisecrackingly): “Is this going to go on my permanent record?”)

V/O: Together they must fight a warlord to save the human race from extinction. Only one scientist holds the key to mankind’s survival.

(Dialogue:
Scientist: “Shortly before the war my father created a serum.”
McCabe: “You mean if someone ingests this serum they’re able to have sex?”)

V/O: In a land ravaged by war, men and women must find a way to trust each other once again. And bring new life to a dying plant.

(Quick shots of McCabe and Knight hooking up with scantily clad blondes in science laboratories.)

V/O: Fate can bring a slight change in plans.

(Quick shots of cars exploding in the desert, people shooting each other, men in tanks, scantily clad blondes with large rifles, etc.)

V/O: Now an ordinary man must take a chance to become a hero. This is humanity’s ‘LAST CHANCE’.

Also, there is a character in this film known as 'the Queen of the Amazons'... For serious... It has to be seen to be believed. So go rent a VHS copy 'Crash' right now. That'll be waaaaay easier to get than a copy of 'Last Chance' itself, I imagine.

In other news, I recently had another one of my Arts' student existential crises. These crises occur when I realise how utterly pointless and removed from any kind of reality that actually matters my university studies are. The one I had the other day was brought on when I read this sentence in one of my subject readers:

"The last portion of this chapter offers a Baudrillardian reading of Milli Vanilli..."

(I swear I didn’t make that up!) That sentence sent shivers down my spine, I'm here to tell you. I mean, what if I turn into that person?? It's entirely likely, you know. For that same subject I'm presently writing content analyses of Kylie Minogue music videos. In my current state of mind I realise how disconnected that is from anything worthwhile; it's just a fun and enjoyable exercise. But what if one day I wake up and realise that my whole career is based on my groundbreaking Lacanian mirror-stage theoretical interpretations of the 'Hand On Your Heart' clip? WHAT THEN??? Basically, I think that as long as I never become an academic it'll all be OK. So, please kill me if you see me attempting any kind of post-grad work. Deal?

To end on a more pleasant note, did you know that 'Ice Age 2' is rated PG due to "a mild sense of menace"? The world is becoming a progressively odder place, I think.

Flowers For AL(gernon)

2006-04-04T14:02:00.000+10:00

So! Guess what? I finally got real, live proper flowers from someone who likes me and knows me in real-life. That's right, he didn't just choose to give them to me because I happened to be in close proximity to his car window. Here's a picture of my first ever real, live proper flowers, (with the requisite bunny ears from Svet):

Ain't they somethin'?

What's more the box they came was easily transmuted into a fun fashion accessory/time-filler when I got sick last week and spent two days bumming around at home out of my mind with boredom. As you can see, the indigo of the box nicely off-sets my fabulous sky blue polar bear dressing gown and my pallid, sickly complexion (not to mention my spotty chin and lank hair!):

Pretty snappy, huh? Something for the 2006 racing carnival, perhaps?

Inspired! I'm sure Jimmy Choo would be proud.

Flowers In The Traffic

2006-03-21T21:07:00.000+11:00

Well, today will go down in history, at least my personal history, as the first time a guy (or in this case, guys) ever gave me flowers!

I know that must come as a shock, dear reader, but it's true; so pick yourself up off the floor. I realise that you must be expecting that a girl as funny, and charming, and intelligent, and attractive, and caring, and selfless, and MODEST (and, let's face it, as bourgeois) as me must be getting flowers every other day. Well, it's not so! I am the girl that the boys buys graphic novels* for, not roses and chocolates and oversized teddy bears that they win at coconut-shies when the carnival is in town. (I actually like graphic novels, but when three separate guys buy them for you INDEPENDENTLY of each other, you have to wonder what impression you must be giving off...)

Anyway, back to my story. As I was walking home this evening a car pulled up in front of me as I was crossing the road and a bunch of young men with rolled down windows started talking to me. At first I just kept walking and ignored them because, frankly, this happens a lot. Some guys seem to think that it's a winning tactic to loudly inform girls that they are fine examples of the fair sex, from the safety of moving vehicles. Some of them are obviously just chicken shit and can't deal with rejection, but I think that some of them actually believe that a girl might get into their car for some goooood lovin'. (If you are one of these guys, can I just tell you now that it will never happen. Get a life.) For the record, when I say that this happens to me a lot, I'm not being up myself. It actually has got a lot more to do with where I live than my actual level of "hotness". In case you didn't know, if you live in Brunswick, walk around in the streets enough, and have a vagina, you are likely to be accosted in this manner with alarming frequency whether you look like Scarlett Johansson or the Elephant Man (well, the Elephant woMan, at any rate).

So, I ignored these guys until I realised that they were holding out pink carnations (incidentally, these were my favourite flower when I was 5 years old) from the car window. I grabbed a couple, thanked them, and pretended not to notice that they were yelling after me;
"Give us your number!!!"
I mean, that kind of ruins the sweetness and romance of the encounter, don’t you think?

So, yeah, there's another stupid and confused vignette from my charmed, middle-class existence. The moral of the story is... Umm... Sometimes former tomboys who have turned into cynical, overly-critical, and scathing women get flowers... But only from people who don't know them and want a blow job.

---
* - long comics that are bound like proper books.

Better The Loco-Motion You Know?

2006-03-18T15:55:00.000+11:00

Rain falling down
Another minute passes by
I wait for you
But this time I won't cry
Where are you now?
Are you with another love?
It's not the first time
You stood me up and let me down

I was listening to my ‘Fun Good Times’ playlist on my mp3 player last night at Anstey station while I was waiting to get into the city, and this song (‘Je Ne Sais Pas Pourquoi’ by Kylie Minogue) began playing. As I strained my eyes in the darkness to see if a train was finally coming, I realised that this tune is practically the anthem of the Upfield line. It treats me so badly: the trains are so often late when I need them, sometimes they never show up at all, they keep me waiting in the rain and cold, they never call to say when they've been held up; but I put up with it all. I don’t need to take the shit the Upfield line deals out to me; there are three different trams I could catch to the city instead, but I still go back for more… WHY??? I guess Kylie found herself in a similar predicament, but with a person instead of a train (or, at least, Stock, Aitken and Waterman did). The horribly conflicting emotions one experiences at the hands of a heartless lover (or, indeed, train) are summarised so perfectly and with such poignancy in the chorus:

I, I, I'm wondering why
I still love you
Je ne sais pas pourquoi
I still want you
Je ne sais pas pourquoi

Basically, both Kylie and I are at a loss as to why we let ourselves be treated this way... And putting it in French just makes it all the more affecting. It’s pretty powerful stuff. I’m not ashamed to say that a tear slid down my cheek as I sighed and checked my watch for the hundredth time.

Blogger User Profile: The fashionable chick

2006-03-05T00:12:00.000+11:00

Blogger username: platinum_card_princess
Name of her blog: 2 Hott 4 U
Typical excerpt from her blog:
today i ate:
9am=1 bowl special k with skinny milk
1pm=1 low fat boost juice
7pm=1 garden salad (no dressing!)
yay the diet is going sooooo well! i will be super sexy is no time! then i just kno jordan will like me again. all i need is refills on my acrylic nails, some hair extensions (i could fucking kill my hairdresser for what she did to my beautiful hair!), and to boost my tan (winter made me pasty as!). i saw jordan at 'motel' last nite with his new gf. she looks like the biggest skanky bitch. she probably goes to a public school or something. i am so totally heartbroken without him. oh! and the worst thing happened at 'boutique' on friday... i go soooo drunk that i lost my new kate spade clutch!!! (i wish i'd lost my stupid louis vuitton tote coz thats soooo last season and everyone has those cheap tacky rip off ones.) anywayz its all coz some ugly guy thought that if he bought me drinks i would talk to him (so wrong!). anywayz he got me like about 1000 appletinis but i still ignored him! ha! plus jordan saw it and it hopefully made him jealous. oh, i miss that clutch. maybe if i cry about it enough dad will finally buy me that matching tiffany heart charm bracelet and necklace i want. laterz. Likes: Havaiana thongs ("i have like about 15 different colours!"), clothes and accessories where the designer's name is really ostentatiously positioned, skinny-leg jeans that are so tight they cut off her circulation, guys buying her things, kissing her girlfriends for the camera so she can get in the club pages of a cool magazine, parading down the street like she's on the catwalk, guys telling her she's beautiful, guys telling her she's sexy, girls being jealous of her, when pink is the new black, shopping (especially with other people's money), lip gloss.
Dislikes: leaving the house without lip gloss, her latest haircut, having to do any kind of work, subtitles in films, guys who don't buy jewelry for 1 month anniversaries, guys who get mad when they get dumped for cuter/richer guys, shop assistants who don't fawn enough, when she gets bloated, bad hair days, when orange is the new black, guys who drive convertibles--the wind messes up her hair, being away from her mobile phone, her small breasts ("i'm trying to convince dad to get me a boob job for xmas!").
Favourite bands: Ashanti, Black Eyed Peas, Destiny's Child, OutKast, Gwen Stefani, Usher, Ashlee/Jessica Simpson, P!nk, Beyonce, Madonna ("i hope i'm as hott as her when i'm an old lady").
Favourite movies: anything with Brad Pitt, 'Legally Blonde', 'Mean Girls' ("except the end when lindsay starts to dress fugly again and stops wearing lipgloss! ew!"). But generally she prefers television to movies, and always watches 'The O.C.', 'The Gilmore Girls', and 'The Bold And The Beautiful'.

Hobbies: skipping meals, preening, attention seeking, twirling hair around her finger, fishing for compliments, getting guys to buy things for her, convincing friends to wear unflattering outfits so she can look better by comparison, accessorising, asking if her bum looks big in her jeans, making her boyfriends wear clothes she chooses for them, going out as much as possible so she can convince people that she is happy and popular.
Secret shames: she once accidentally read some of the novel 'Myron' because she got Gore Vidal and Vidal Sassoon confused, she was never a natural blonde, in year 7 she hung out with the punks and goths at Flinders Street Station, she once left the house without any make-up, she has never been approached by model talent scouts, she had a nose job before she transferred to MLC in year 9, she actually thinks skinny-leg jeans are hideously '80s looking but has suppressed this thought, she once let a boyfriend send pictures he took of her in her underwear to FHM so he wouldn't break up with her.
Greatest fear: "What if I'm not skinny enough for skinny-leg jeans?"
Find her at: Chapel Street, Chadstone Shopping Centre, Starbucks (for a skinny mocha latte), Borders (to get the air freight copies of various international publications of 'Elle' Magazine).
Bookmarks: "um, i have like waaaaay too much of a life to spend all my time online like a friendless loser!"
People she wants to kill: whoever decided high-waisted pants and skirts should come back into fashion (although she will soon suppress this thought, too), girls who are prettier/better dressed than her, girls who turn up at an event in the same clothes as her, her hairdresser for giving her such an ugly haircut.
Future careers: editor of 'Cosmopolitan', one of those women who pretends to be her daughter's sister, fashion buyer, personal shopper with celebrity clients ("like how hott would that be?!"), something in marketing or PR, trophy wife who lies on the couch all day eating bon-bons and watching her "stories", mutton dressed as lamb.
Life motto: "Being sexy means never having to say you're sorry."

--
Alex says: I have a lot of thank-yous. Firstly, Svet, thank you for being a total gem and doing whatever I ask in the name of blogging, including humouring me, advising me, and taking photos. Thanks also to my other technical advisors Jon and Will. I will be like Lindsay at the end of 'Mean Girls' and break you off a bit of that nasty blonde wig (from the previous post) for you as a reward. (Then we'll all be partial Spring Fling Queens! Hooray!) Lastly, a word to the staff at 'The Basement' at Myer... You guys are fucking unbelievably shit at your job. Your customer service skills are non-existent, as are your manners. But I love how you guys just stand around posing and talking to each other about how great you are. This was not only great inspiration for this character, but it also meant that Svet and I were able to take armfuls of clothes into a changeroom and spend close to an hour trying them on and taking the pictures for this post, without you guys saying anything to us or interfering. GOOD ONE, fuckers.

Too darn HOTT.

Wiggida Wiggida Wack...

2006-02-27T23:24:00.000+11:00

Dear Reader, I am so sorry that I have neglected you. I wish I could give a good explanation for not having written in a whole stinkin' month, but alas I have none. All I can say is that I felt about writing my second piece in my series of mock blogger profiles as the Strokes did as they approached making their second album. And I was afraid I would create the post equivalent of Room On Fire. So, as any good girl with avoidance issues would, I put it off. And off. And off.

So, the entry will be up by the end of the week, (for real, dude!), but I thought in the interim I would put up a compromising photo of myself for you to laugh at. This look came about while I was attempting to tap into the mindset of a popular, fashionable teenager. As you can see, some things are better left unexplored.Man, that wig is WACK.

--
P.S. There is a special treat for whoever knows what early 90s' song the title of this post is stolen from.
P.P.S. The special treat might be a wig.

The RBA Took My Baby Away...

2006-01-28T08:44:00.000+11:00

OK, so he's back now. Can I help it if it takes me almost two months to think of an amusing title??

Anyway, the point of this 2nd all-filler-no-killer post is to make you aware that Saturday the 28th of January is my anniversary! Yes, Quasi Boho Alterna-Whatnot is now a year old. And despite the fact that I only average 2 and 3/4 posts per month; it's still kicking on, which I find to be something of an achievement. So, yay for me and yay for my little blog.

Now, on to a public service announcement:
OK, so what is it with people naming their bands after songs by the Smiths?? It seems pretty pretentious to do it once, but more than once borders on the absurd. First there was Pretty Girls Make Graves, and now it has come to my attention that there is a band out there called Death Of A Disco Dancer. Please, people, stop the madness now! I mean, seriously, That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore...

Filler is not a dirty word.

2006-01-24T21:28:00.000+11:00

Well, here's just some miscellaneous crap until I can get my arse in gear to get Svet to take some pictures of me "pretending" to be a wanky Arts' student. Because I'm not one already, or anything like that. *coughs sheepishly*

Anyway, the other day I decided to surf myspace in order to see if there were any pictures in emo kid blogs that looked like ones that Svet had taken of me for this entry. I laughed out loud when I came across this:
In case you need a refresher, I had a picture in the entry of me that looked like this:
And I promise you, dear reader, that I didn't find the picture of the emo lass before Svet and I devised the above shot. For serious, man. Anyway, I don't mean to mock the girl that much. Actually, I feel pretty bad putting a picture of a complete stranger on my blog without asking, but oh well. She sounds nice enough, and she's very pretty... But I just couldn't let comedy gold like that pass without comment!

Speaking of emo, I was on the train the other night and I overheard, (ie. eavesdropped on), a conversation between some young men of that very subculture.

Emo boy 1: "I was one of the original emo kids... from three years ago! No one can surpass me!!"
When I related this quote to a dear friend, he questioned me as to whether the lad was being ironic. I replied that this young man was being completely genuine, and in fact was trying to boast his seniority to a friend. In any case, who knew that emo only started three years ago?! Man, I thought it started ages before that; I'm so clueless! (That there would be irony, folks... Or at least sarcasm.)

His friend later said, apropos of nothing:
Emo boy 2: "Let's throw a bottle in the river, man!"

These guys were seriously advanced life-forms.

Egad, I'm being so condescending. Oh, well; perhaps now I have embraced the true spirit of the blogger! Speaking of the the true spirit of bloggerness, let me take this opportunity to try to force you to comment in my last post! I want you to tell me your favourite bad lyrics. For some reason, that subject fascinates me.

Anyway, before I dash off, I thought I might right a great wrong. The other day Svet complained that the only photo I had used with her in it as my emo pal was bad. I didn't think so, but what do I know?! So, here's a cuter one:
The karmic balance has hereby been restored. Check back later this week for my send-up of myself, *ahem*, I mean, pretentious Arts' students.

You know I’m bad… I’m bad… You know it.

2006-01-19T00:00:00.000+11:00

If you have a look at my blogger profile, and skim through these entries, you will notice that I like a lot of dodgy music. And it’s not just what some people would perceive as sonically dodgy music, generally owing to my addiction with synthesizers. Oh, no. There’s also some just plain terrible lyrics in the collective works of these bands. Sometimes when I listen to their songs, even songs I really love, I find it hard to believe that they’re actually getting paid money to come up with this stuff. Like enough to buy Lamborghinis, swimming pools full of cocaine, and Calvin Klein models to snort said cocaine off whilst driving around in said Lambourghinis. Anyway, without further ado, here are some bad lyrics from some musicians I dig.

Prince is prime example. Now, I don’t want to diss him too much, because he’s an excellent musician, great showman, plays every instrument under the sun, dances like a motherfucker, and has managed to write an amazing amount of successful songs, not only for himself but for others. But that doesn’t stop me marveling over some of his lyrics. In fact, most of his lyrics. Something like this, for instance:

“If I'm workin' at my jobba,
I'm the victim, u're the robba,
No matter how much I try 2 stoppa,
I can't help thinkin' about cha”
Lemon Crush
>>This song has, in my opinion, some of the worst Prince lyrics ever. But I still love it! (Listen to it and you'll see why.) I have no clue about what this part of the song is about, or how it relates to the film ‘Batman’ (it was on the soundtrack). In fact, the whole concept of the song, (a comparison between the object of his desire and a “lemon crush”), is baffling. I really have tried to understand that metaphor, but I just can’t. I can’t help thinking of a Slurpee. (Maybe she gives him brain freeze?) Also, anyone who tries to force the words “job”, “robber”, “stop”, and “you” to rhyme ought to be shot.

New Order are another strong candidate for worst lyricists among my favourite musicians. I fucking LOVE them with a passion that will not soon die. I mean, I enjoy New Order MORE THAN Joy Division, (when I tell people their faces generally contort into little grimaces of pity. Did yours?) But, dear Lord, they have written some really bad lyrics. Some examples:

“I got thirsty for a beer,
That I had to go to sea.
The sea was very rough,
It made me feel sick,
But I like that kind of stuff,
It beats arithmetic”
Slow Jam
>>This song is proof that their lyric writing skills didn’t improve over time, as this song was on their second most recent album. It’s embarrassingly nonsensical, isn’t it? Well, let me tell you that absurdity and inanity are the band’s specialties. Kind of endearing, really.

“Your country is a wonderful place,
It pales my England into disgrace.
To buy a drink that is so much more reasonable,
I think I'll go there when it gets seasonable”
Sooner Than You Think
>>How fucking trite is it to remark in a song that buying a drink in a certain country is “so much more reasonable”?? That gets my goat. Memo to NO: You can’t use the word “seasonable” in a song… EVER. I don’t care if you’re English; you just can’t. OK?

Martika is a singer who, after only having released two proper albums, managed to release not one but two greatest hits albums! Perhaps that is a sign not to take her too seriously, as the lyrics below suggest! (With that said, I’ve got to admit I love her, even if she is a Madonna wannabe…)

“I wanna swing on your vine”
If You’re Tarzan, I’m Jane
>>This line really comes out of nowhere in this song. Looking at it by itself, you’d expect the rest of the song to be littered with other half-baked, Tarzan-related sexual euphemisms, but that’s the only one! It sticks out like a sore thumb (or perhaps, an erect “vine”).

“Wooo, here we go
The table's set baby
Wooo, ahh here we go
My oven is hot
…
I don't care, I've got the chair
If you think your butt'll fit it
You turn me all the way up, I admit it”
Martika’s Kitchen
>>No prizes for guessing where one might find Martika’s “kitchen”. Yes, it’s meant to be a part of the female anatomy. I keep having bizarre visions of vines snaking into kitchens… I think she may have permanently ruined sex for me.

“Your license to my heart has met its expiration date”
Alibis
>>Yikes, that’s tacky. Looking at these examples of bad Martika lyrics, I have a little message for whoever it is who wrote them: stay the hell away from metaphors. PLEASE!

Anyone else out there have some favourite bad lyrics they’d like to share with the class?

LiveJournal User Profile: The emo girl

2005-12-30T01:03:00.000+11:00

LiveJournal/AIM username: xDARKENINGxTORMENTx (find out your emo name here!)
Name of her LiveJournal: The Shards Of Your Tears Cut My Heart.
Typical excerpt from her LiveJournal:
Current mood: :-( Sad
Current music: 'Kill Me Quickly' by Thrice
Today I've been listening to a lot of Thrice. It always makes me cry. It feels like these lyrics were written for me:
"I'm sick of the bleeding until we fall down,
Sick of this circle of death that we dance through again and again"
I mean, doesn't that just sum up me and Jordan's relationship perfectly? It's like they looked into my soul. Listening to Thrice always reminds me of how fucked things are with Jordan. (Why doesn't he like me??) Anyway, after I finished crying, Shara came over and we watched 'Pretty In Pink'. If Duckie had Buddy Holly glasses, I would so fuck him. (Pity he's in that 'Two And A Half Men' show now.) We tried to make a drinking game to go with the movie, but we gave up pretty quickly and just got wasted. Can't believe I broke my edge AGAIN. No wonder Jordan doesn't like me.
Likes: scenesters who have their own car, boys who are in bands, making out with her girlfriends at parties, boys who don't eat meat, being wooed with mix-tapes, straight-edge guys, inch-wide badges, Chucks, getting scene points, boys who write songs about her.
Dislikes: boys with 20-20 vision (horn-rimmed glasses are a MUST, although she will accept boys with plain glass lenses if they're really cute), paying cover charges, going all the way on the first date, not getting Inpress first thing Wednesday morning, not having anywhere to go on Saturday night, having "hoodie hair", when her nailpolish isn't chipped enough, when her friends talk about a band she doesn't know, when boys don't call.
Favourite bands: Thursday, Sunny Day Real Estate, Mineral, The Used, Death Cab For Cutie, Jawbreaker, The Promise Ring, Alkaline Trio.
Favourite movies: 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind', 'Heathers', 'Amelie', 'Ghostworld', 'Me And You And Everyone We Know'.

Hobbies: getting on the door for gigs, collecting limited edition vinyl issues of her favourite albums, band name-dropping, doing things ironically, telling people she got her band merch at "shows" even though she bought it on eBay, taking arty-looking Polaroid pictures of herself and sticking them on her mirror, flirting with the bouncers at Ding Dong.
Secret shames: she isn't actually attracted to girls, she enjoys going to 'Next', one of her t-shirts is from Miss Shop, she lost her virginity while listening to The Tea Party, she still has a crush on Billy-Joe from Green Day, she finds it a turn-off when guys cry after sex.
Greatest fear: "What if blunt fringes don't suit me?!"
Find her at: Dangerfield, the Art House, Missing Link.
Bookmarks: makeoutclub.com, suicidegirls.com, myspace.com.

Future careers: full-time muse, aging groupie, gloating and sadistic door bitch, unsuccessful poet.
What Nige54 would say: She likes to drink, so it would be pretty easy to take her out, get her plastered, and then take advantage (one of the patented pick-up techniques outlined in my book Around The World In 80 Babes). However, she has way too much attitude for a girl who is so average looking. First of all, she is a brunette (normally I would ignore her for this reason alone; however I decided to give her the benefit of the doubt). Secondly, where did she misplace her boobs?! I only get nude with a C-cup or larger. However, the fact that she seems like such a crack-whore bitch makes me want to bend her over and teach her a lesson. That would be sensational.

--
Alex says: I actually think emo kids look pretty cute, although I don't want to be one myself. I have friends who are emo, and I hope they don't find this entry. Scarily enough, I was listening to a mix-tape of Svet's the other day and I realised I was listening to Thursday, and I didn't think the song was half bad. (Damn.) So, despite my best efforts, perhaps I am actually an emo girl at (my bleeding) heart! A worrying thought. And I decided to add a bit of bile to the cauldron brewing for Nige54 in everyone else's blog seeing as I was already making fun of people. Anyway, I plan to rip into more cliched people in future posts, like the Supre Chick and the Arts' Student! Stay tuned.

Thanks for the help with the photo-shoot, Svet!

The Inaugural Jerry Orbach Memorial Post

2005-12-28T00:27:00.000+11:00

On this day in 2004, the actor Jerry Orbach died.

When I first decided to write this post, I entertained the idea of trying to make a lame pun in the title; something along the lines of 'Jerry Bomb', 'Sweet Jerry Pie', or 'Pop My Jerry' . However, I decided that was tacky and disrespectful, and that people would get the idea that I thought the man's death was a joke. Which, for the record, I don't. Rather I was actually quite upset when he died. I still remember the where I was when I found out Jerry Orbach had succumbed to prostate cancer, (it has the cultural significance to me of the old "Where were you when you found out when JFK had been assassinated?" for the baby-boomers). Me and my friend Natasha were walking down the Royal Mile in Edinburgh on New Years' Eve, and we went past a copy of USA Today outside a newsagent. I couldn't believe my eyes when I happened to glance upon one of the headlines which informed me that my beloved Jerry, (a.k.a the only reason I still enjoyed 'Law & Order'), had gone to the beat in the sky. Prime time will never be the same.

I only really saw two of his movies, being Woody Allen's 'Crimes and Misdemeanors' and, of course, 'Dirty Dancing', in both of which he was great (although I probably would have enjoyed watching him in 'Waterworld' or 'The Transporter' or 'Plan Nine From Outer Space'). I just found out that he also played Lumiere in Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast', so next time you get stoned and watch it for shits and giggles, keep an ear out for his distinctive voice! One of his television roles that I enjoyed was a recurring part on 'Murder, She Wrote'. He brought a certain humanity and darkness to the usual cast, which was sorely lacking (I mean, how bright and sunny could a woman possibly be when she writes murder-mysteries for a living and then solves "real" murder-mysteries in her spare time?! Not as fucking cheery as Jessica Fletcher, I'm willing to bet). In the show he had such classic lines as "I've never hit a dame in my life, but you're itching to be the first." I'll always remember that one. And then, of course, he toiled for years on 'Law & Order' as the memorable Lennie Briscoe. He was the only character with any goddamn personality on that show! (At least, at the time when I was watching it.) Dennis Farina's Fontana will NEVER replace him, and in fact I stopped watching it after Orbach left, (although that may have had something to with the the fact that I started to get bored with the formula...) What more can I say about Briscoe that hasn't already been said?! Not much (plus, I have to stop writing because Svet is about to take me out for gelati! Woo!)

Anyway.

Goodbye, Jerry. Typecast though you may have been, your gruff, cynical but warmhearted, old-fashioned, man's man schtick will be missed by many. Especially me.

Here's lookin' at you, kid. 1935-2004

A Rose by any other name would taste as cheap...

2005-12-20T00:55:00.000+11:00

For some reason today I thought it would be fun to relive my childhood by buying a box of Cadbury Roses chocolates all for myself. Back when I was a young 'un I thought that Roses chocolates were the height of luxury and decadence... To me they were a glorious ambrosia. However, after sampling them for the first time in 10 years, I have to concede that I may have been mistaken. And now that there are 24 garishly coloured wrappers twinkling on my desk, and I'm fighting a rising tide of nausea, I'm starting to realise the error of my piggish ways. And to make matters worse, scoffing a whole box of chocolates is a very Bridget Jones-ish thing to do. Although, she was given to scoffing Cadbury Milk Tray rather than Cadbury Roses. So maybe I haven't yet morphed completely into a pathetic cliche!

The chocolates were part of a larger campaign to sublimate my sexual energy. I dug out my Donna Summer double CD and my "microphone" (ie. a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Pez dispenser... Donatello, of course) for a good ol' fashioned 3 hour karaoke session while I was bingeing. Seriously people, by the time I got to 'No More Tears (Enough Is Enough)' which is a duet with Babs Streisand, and 3/4 of the box was empty, I no longer cared that I have no sex life to speak of! Let me break it down for you:
Passionate karaoke + chocolate = really good endorphins
Plus, Donna has some pretty sexy tunes. Her orgasmic moaning and breathy delivery in songs like 'Love To Love You Baby', and the number of times she says she wants you to "come" (she's obviously talking directly to me) in 'Could It Be Magic', make it seem as though after you've worked your way through the album you've just had sex with her. And a girl could do a lot worse.

An update for those thousands of readers who are eagerly following my progress on the harmonica: today I decided to have another crack at the trying to play a song by ear. I think I was spurred into action by the intense self-hatred that arose after realising while writing yesterday's entry that I'd left my cute little Hohner in its box for 6 whole months. Today, the song was Duran Duran's classic* 'Hungry Like The Wolf', and I think I definitely got closer than when I tried to master Shakira's 'Whenever, Wherever'. Probably because I actually like the song (it helps!) Unfortunately, I got so into it that I started getting dizzy from hyperventilation after the fifth run-through. How am I ever going to make it in the cut-throat world of professional harmonica playing if I can't even get through 5 songs without almost passing out?! Ah, well.

I've gotten very blog-centric lately, haven't I? Although, apparently it's quantity rather than quality; my token indie jerk** friend told me that my last entry was "sub-par", which was a scary thought given that I don't think the "par" of this blog was very high to begin with. No matter. Sub-par or not, the entries are just going to keep on coming! Stay tuned to this station for a new series of entries that mock various stereotypes by way of blogger profiles. They will even include pictures of yours truly donning the garb and the poses of those I make fun of. The first cab off the rank will be the emo girl.

--
* - admittedly, the use of the word "classic" here is highly debateable.
** - I only said that because I don't like it when you criticise me, Droog.

Monday 19 December

2005-12-19T00:30:00.000+11:00

60kg, alcohol units 0, cigarettes 0, calories ?? (who counts their calorie intake?), cola units 3 (bad), minutes spent listening to Depeche Mode 67.

Realised I have turned into some kind of Bridget Jones type figure. Am going slowly insane due to holiday-related boredom. Sit at home all-day and feel badly about all the crappy food I eat (only for reasons of health, I'm not actually concerned about how much I weigh). I, like Ms. Jones, made a list of resolutions (well, in my case, sort of more a list of holiday goals) and they were as follows: (by the way, minutes spent trying to find my holiday goals list on my desk 23)

-Work a lot and earn some cash so I can part-ay (unfortunately my job at Metlink has ceased until next year, so will have to look for a job if I want money. Odds of this occurring slim.)

-Make a zine with my pal Jess (Jess recently disappeared to Tasmania, so not sure when our co-production will begin...)

-Learn how to play the harmonica (funny story... kinda. Got a harmonica for my birthday from a very sweet friend who heard me talking about how I wanted to take it up, and wisely guessed that I was going to need some help getting the ball rolling. The day after I got it, attempted to figure out a Shakira song by ear (her CD was a gag gift from another friend) on my own, got confused about straight harp and cross harp, and chucked it in telling myself I would get myself a "Teach Yourself Harmonica" book. That was in May. This X-mas I am anticipating a "Teach Yourself Harmonica" book as a present from another friend, so hopefully 6 months later I will actually get on to learning the harmonica. I SUCK!)

-Learn how to skateboard (as a child I always thought skaters were the coolest people ever. I grew up and realised they are mostly cock-heads, but the desire to be one has not faded. However, still haven't actually gotten around to buying the board.)

-Write at least one blog entry per week (HA!!!)

-Volunteer at a soup kitchen (this will happen. Even if I never do learn to skate, I will volunteer somewhere if it kills me!)

-Join a refugee action group (see above.)

-Play frisbee (what was I smoking when I thought this would make me a better person??)

-Build on vinyl collection (see above.)

However as you can see, I, like Ms. Jones, am having trouble actually getting these things done. The only goal I have attained thus far is my one to build on my vinyl collection (records that is, not cat-suits. Get your mind out of the gutter). However, the progress made to this end has been to purchase $30 worth of utter shame and degradation, including 'Wow' by Bananarama, 'Enjoy Yourself' by Kylie Minogue, 'Waves' by Katrina and the Waves, 'Whitney' by Whitney Houston, 'Fore' by Huey Lewis and the News (this is potentially the most embarrassing thing I have ever purchased in my entire life), and some lame compilation of songs from 80s' movies, which I bought because it has 'Axel F' from 'Beverly Hills Cop'. (Can't believe I just committed all that to writing. Feeling overwhelming urge to confess more; have recently started buying 2nd-hand cassettes (!) and actually paid a whole dollar for a copy of the 'St. Elmo's Fire' soundtrack (let it be known that I hate that fucking movie), and someone's homemade tape which featured New Order and Ultravox on one side and Devo on the other.)

In case you can't tell, I recently read 'Bridget Jones' Diary', which made me feel bad because it is pretty trashy and I wanted to read to broaden my mind these holidays (another one of my stupid goals). Ah, well. Will start reading 'The Crisis of American Democracy' tomorrow, in an attempt at absolution.

Life imitating art?

2005-11-19T23:40:00.000+11:00

I believe I have unearthed yet another conspiracy. First, I revealed that Phil Spector and Paul Shaffer are the same person. Now, I have a new (but equally shocking) theory. It seems to me that stupid people with particular names are genetically predisposed to mate. Example: L.A.'s resident epsilons BRITNEY Spears and ex-husband-to-be KEVIN Federline (K-Fed), and, Lawndale's resident epsilons BRITTANY Taylor and KEVIN Thomson... Coincidence? Or something more sinister...?

Above: Kevvy and Brit trying to remember where they left their kid... "He was, like, totally there a minute ago... I think..."

Below: Thankfully the other Kevvy and Brit have, unlike their counter-parts, been able to figure out the contraception thing. Although, they're still having trouble with the getting dressed thing.

Meanwhile, has anyone heard what has happened to K-Fed's career as a legitimate rap artiste? Personally, I think his only real link to the rap community, (apart from those fabulous corn rows he's sporting in that picture), is the fact that Kanye West's song Gold Digger could've been written about him. But I'd still like to hear the results; what an outstanding train wreck it will be! Anyone listened to any of his songs?

Donna, Rue, and gherkins; signs that you might be procrastinating...

2005-11-03T14:10:00.000+11:00

Wondering if you, too, may be suffering from the debilitating ailment known as procrastination? Wonder no more! Here's a list of warning signs to look for, if the events of my day are anything to go by...

You spend way too much time dancing around to Donna Summer songs in your underwear. And singing along, too. (Disco has claimed yet another victim. I bet my neighbours were feeling love for me.)
You find yourself sitting in your room making sandwiches for several hours (ricotta and gherkin on cibatta. SERIOUSLY GOOD.)
You start reading websites about Rue McClanahan (thanks goes to Ben, for pointing me in the direction of the Rue Crew.)
... And as you learn about all things Rue, you find yourself wondering if some of her flicks might be at you local video store, particularly the TV-movies based on off-Broadway musicals (isn't that a terrifying concept?! For a sterling example, go here... Thanks, again, Ben!)
You start getting creative in the kitchen (admittedly, for a culinarily-challenged person like me, putting a couple of teaspoons of jam into plain yoghurt counts as pretty exotic. Hey, it still tastes good.)
Instead of doing your own work, you find yourself trying to help other people with theirs.
You start putting lots of hyperlinks in your blog entries, thus making it take longer to write because you're really crap at putting in hyperlinks. (Wow, I just found the hyperlink button! Now I don't have to type in that stupid HTML code everytime. I am such a n00b.)

If symptoms persist, consult your doctor.

The Paul Shaffer Saga, Pt. 2

2005-10-30T17:29:00.000+11:00

OK, so people apparently need some further evidence of why Paul Shaffer is no good! I have a wacky conspiracy theory to convert those of you who are still unsure as to whether the bile of the previous post was warranted.

Paul Shaffer and the ghastly Phil Spector are actually one and the same person!

Yeah, that’s right. And I’m not just making wild, unfounded accusations. Apart from the vague physical resemblance there is this OVERWHELMING evidence:

They have the same initials.
They both have 11 letters in their name.
They both have the same number of syllables in their names.
They both have a penchant for bad glasses.
They both wear sunnies indoors.
They both possess multiple chins.
They are both annoying. (Although admittedly I’d rather be in a room alone with Paul.)

Phil by day, Paul by night? When he wakes up Paul/Phil puts on his hideous afro to cover up his shaved head and think that no one will be the wiser! Well, I for some time have been thinking that "Phil" must have an ulterior motive for having god-awful hair like that. And now I know why... Don't be fooled, kids!

P.S. I mainly just concocted this theory so I could include a picture of Phil Spector’s hair. If you were trying to convince a jury that you weren’t a psycho killer would you sport that ‘do? Methinks not.

P.P.S. Before y’all jump on the “But Phil Spector is cool!” bandwagon, ask yourself this: what has he done for us lately? Not much, except murdering C-list celebrities.

Paul Shaffer – is that a drumstick in your pocket or are you just really happy to see Dave?

2005-10-28T21:31:00.000+10:00

Fuckin’ Paul Shaffer.

I hate him.

Anyone who’s ever watched The Late Show with David Letterman, (I know that you have, so don’t lie; it’s not becoming on you), will know who talking about. He’s that shrimpy, chrome domed band leader of the CBS Orchestra. He’s the annoying, sniveling, crawling, arse-kissing lackey who’s always laughing at Dave’s gags, providing the *ba-dum-ch* on the drum-kit at the end of Dave’s jokes, and repeating Dave’s punch lines throughout the show (whether they were funny or not). He’s like a groveling little lapdog. He’s like a one-man “We Love Dave” club… It’s tragic!

And he wears his sunglasses at night. Yeah, he takes style tips from Corey Hart. 'Nuff said.

My question to you is; does anybody actually like him? (Maybe someone’s mum does, but it's probably out of pity.) Is his presence really justified on the show? I wouldn’t mind if he was just there playing conga drums and jumping around like a jack arse, but why does he have to speak? Couldn’t Dave do the banter thing with someone else? Do YOU like Paul Shaffer? Someone must. And I want them to explain why. So, leave a comment. Do you love him? Do you loathe him? Do you have better things to do at one o’clock in the morning than watch guys who are only vaguely funny anyway dragging out the same material and the same schticks year after year? Tell me!

P.S. I don’t really hate him that much. I kind of got a bit carried away there.

A review for a CD that I haven't listened to...

2005-10-17T22:58:00.000+10:00

I will stop reviewing things soon, I promise. I just needed to get a few things off my chest about this album.

Anyway, the CD in question is the 2003 release Rock N Roll by Ryan Adams, (yeah, Ryan, NOT Bryan. We'll get to the name later). You may remember Mr. Adams because he released a song about NYC when it was a very commercially smart time to do so, ie. right after 9/11. (It was actually a pretty forgettable little tune, if you want to know my opinion.) I hardly remember this particular album making much of an impression when it was released, but it certainly made an impression on me when I stumbled upon it in a musty corner of the library (although, to be fair, all the corners at the ERC are musty; not just the ones with his albums). The reason I was so intrigued by the songs is because almost all of the titles sound like the titles of songs that already exist! Sometimes embarrassingly so. Some examples:

This Is It
sounds like...
Is This It? by The Strokes. Plus Betty Davis had a song called This Is It.

1974
sounds like...
1979 by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Wish You Were Here
is already the name of at least two successful songs, one by Incubus and one by that little known band PINK goddamn FLOYD. (This is a cover of neither song.) Plus Fleetwood Mac have a song of the same name.

So Alive
sounds like...
a million songs. Not least the lame arse one by POD. (But also Pearl Jam, Oasis, etc.)

Rock N Roll
sounds like...
Well, has any pop band NOT written a song with 'Rock N Roll' in the title? I mean, apart from Rock N' Roll by Motorhead, and Rock and Roll by Gary Glitter (thanks Anon!), there's also: I Love Rock N' Roll (Joan Jett and the Blackhearts), Rock 'n' Roll Star (Oasis), Kill Rock N' Roll (System Of A Down), Whatever Happened To My Rock N Roll (BRMC), Rock N Roll High School and Do You Remember Rock N Roll Radio? (The Ramones), blah blah blah.

She's Lost Total Control
sounds like...
Here's one of the embarrassingly specific ones. It's almost exactly like She's Lost Control, which is the iconic song by iconic band Joy Division. SHEESH.

Boys
sounds like...
a million other songs, including Kym Wilde's Boys. Most importantly, though; Britney has a song of the same name. Shouldn't that be enough to advise against writing another one?

The Drugs Not Working
sounds like...
The Drugs Don't Work by The Verve. Another embarrassingly similar one.

When I look at the list I can't help but wonder if this was a weird kind of concept album. I mean, maybe he decided to deliberately do this. Perhaps because his fuckin' name sounds almost exactly the same as another successful artist (ie. Bryan Adams) he decided that the song titles had to follow suit.

So, without having listened to this album, I will now give it a rating. The rating is based on cover art, CD title, song titles, general aura of hackney-ness.

Rock N Roll, by Ryan Adams receives:
1/2 star out of a possible 5.

Any Ryan fans wanna take me up on this? Leave me a comment.

P.S.
The fact the he thinks he's so fuckin' indie because Parker Posey was exec. producer also annoys me. (NB. She's credited in the liner notes as exe"cute"tive producer *vomits*)

I wouldn't have cared if Maximo Park weren't attractive...

2005-10-05T12:15:00.000+10:00

... but I won't pretend that it wasn't great that they were. It was strange going to see a band play that I couldn't have picked from a line-up. The media snippets and the CD liner notes gave absolutely nothing away; they had a bunch of models playing air guitar, and even the faces of the models were obscured! So when they came on to the stage and Svet and I feasted our eyes on the band we were not disappointed.

OK, that intro was a little obtuse. I should probably say first of all that I went with Svet to see Maximo Park at the Corner Hotel the other week, and as I only recently started liking them I knew absolutely nothing about them, (incl. what they looked like). All we knew was that we really liked their music, (check out A Certain Trigger to find out why). Here's a summary of our night out.

The support... Riff Random.
We didn't stick around to catch the start of their performance. We wisely decided that once we got pass-outs we should high-tail it down the road to stuff our faces with roti. (We are so punk rock.) Once we returned, our fingers covered in grease, (from the roti! Get your mind out of the gutter!), our senses were quickly assailed. And not in a good way. They were so many kinds of awful. The main let down was the lead singer, who was a talentless phoney. He couldn't sing, indeed he was consistantly flat throughout, and the lyrics were just disposable clichéd rubbish. He jumped around in a manner that suggested Craig Nicholls, except without any of the charm. (Say what you will about Craig, but the boy has a certain je ne sais quoi. This guy did not.) He just looked like a try hard loser. He did this pathetic "rock" scream in every song which was really hackneyed and yet another thing he couldn't pull off. And shouldn't have tried to. In fact the only thing about the whole set that remotely reflected any kind of real rock and roll attitude (and that didn't look like an affectation) was when the lead singer said:
"Coming up is the Futureheads!"
Which was a rather sarky little reference to how much Maximo Park sound like the aforementioned band. (OK, they do. But I LIKE the Futureheads!) I thought that it was pretty ballsy for a dodgy Aussie support band who were being heckled by the crowd at every opportunity to pay out the international band that they were supporting. It was funny, but sour and ungrateful... Very rock and roll.

The main event...
But soon enough they left the stage, and the fabulous Maximo Park were able to assume their rightful place. And the crowd really went nuts. I wasn't expecting there to be such a high level of enthusiasm. Indeed, the only people who went more nuts were Maximo themselves. Between Lukas Wooller's (keyboardist) robotic arm thing (remember, Svet?) and the lead singer's epileptic-fit dancing and scissor kicks there was always something going on onstage. (Paul, unlike that lame arse Riff Random singer, could actually pull off the rock star thing. Which was surprising considering I couldn't help thinking of Coronation Street when he spoke.) They really put on a performance, particularly Paul, who I couldn't keep my eyes off all evening (not to mention that you could see his package in his too-tight slacks. 'Twas hypnotic, man!). He looked really intense when performing but wasn't pretentious. You've got to give them their props; they were putting on a show, and they weren't being limp-wristed about it. What was also refreshing was that they haven't got to the point of being up themselves pricks (really affected, or jerky); they seemed genuinely pleased (indeed, genuinely surprised) to be playing to such an enthusiastic crowd so far from home, and were very polite and gracious to the crowd. When they shook people's hands at the end Duncan Lloyd (guitarist) has this look of sheer wonder on his face. You got the feeling that they were shocked (and rapped) that a bunch of Aussies were going crazy for them and knew most of the words to their songs. Sonically, they were really solid and Paul Smith's vocals were really strong and controlled; very much like on the album but because it was live, there was an added power. With regard to the set list, it must be tough when you go on the road to promote your debut, but they mixed things up a bit by including a B-side and handful of new tracks, including one they laid down for the War Child benefit CD. And they did a classy two song encore, finishing on one of my favourites (Going Missing), which is going to be the next single, I think.

I have to send a little message to the psychos in the pit. In the words of Travis from Clueless: WHERE'S YOUR SENSE OF PIT HOSPITALITY?! I was not at all surprised when some of them yelled out that they were from Scotland because watching them I got the feeling that they had to be British. What a bunch of fucking chav, soccer-hooligan psychos. And to the people crowd surfing: couldn't you have gotten it out of your system when you were 13 like everyone else?! What gives? I was anticipating a rather more sophisticated crowd, who weren't violent and selfish (I wasn't expecting young women in the crowd to get punched in the head, for example). Indeed, that was the only down point of the evening, (apart from the sucky Riff Random, and the fact that Svet and I were stood-up at Ding Dong's by a sexy Strokes look-alike named Remy. Oh, well, not that much of a loss: he was a Xavier old-boy and into Motley Crue.)

So, that's my review of my night with Maximo. If you haven't heard the album, give it a listen. I mean, you've gotta love a band who aren't afraid to use the word "riposte" in a chorus. Oh, and I touched Paul's hand. I know that's very juvenile, but I got caught up in the moment.

Sexy-mo Park...

2005-10-05T11:09:00.000+10:00

The saviours of modern music? No. A great night's entertainment? Yes.

Another helping of ersatz-comedic twaddle... (Ersatz-Comedic Twaddle. That's a cool name for a band*!)

2005-09-20T19:03:00.000+10:00

Yesterday, Svetlana and I were having coffee and cake in Pellegrini's and spying on the more attractive clientele by using the mirrors that are affixed to every wall in the shop (when there's that many reflective surfaces in a place it's a crime not to perve on people, lemme tell ya). Anyway, while we were sitting there, minding other people's business, this hulking guy from South Carolina came in and sat down next to us. He was pretty cute (in a quarter-back kind of a way) but more importantly, he had an amazing voice. It was a very nice rumbling bass - very seductive. The kind of voice that could be well utilised in some kind of hypnosis. But he wasn't just any strapping American lad with an interesting brogue. He is also one of the stars of the stage production of The Lion King, in which he appears as...
Mufasa!!!
It would have made a great pick-up line if he'd been trying to pick us up (he wasn't... what's wrong with us, anyway?!). So we talked to him for a while. It was fun because he didn't get our senses our humour, gave us advice on our musical future (see the next paragraph), referred to me "Miss Alex", told us about the Lion King groupies (ewww), and kept threatening to force me to eat a steak (I'm a veggo). When he left he even paid for us; what a gent. OK, so that anecdote was kind of crappy, but it was my most exciting brush with celebrity since I almost jumped off the tram while I was in the middle of working (yes, I work on trams) and chased John Safran down the street. (I'm at little bit in love with him. You'd never guess, would you?)

Recently, Svetlana and I have become like Trent and Jesse from Daria. We constantly talk about how phrases that come up in conversation would make good band names. The problem is that we, unlike the lads from Mystik Spiral, have no band to name. All we have so far is a bassist who hasn't practised for 2 years and a lead singer who can't really sing all that well. We also have no songs** and no drive. But I'll be damned if we haven't come up with some semi-OK names for this phantom band! (And the ones we don't use for the band could be names for the phantom albums!)

Example from Daria:
Jane: "The only thing behind that sound wall was a corn field. And the corn wasn't very helpful."
Jesse: "Helpful Corn. That's a cool name for a band."

Example from our lives:
Svet: "This is so weird. I can't believe we met Mufasa."
Alex: "We Met Mufasa. That's a cool name for a band."
Geno (Mufasa guy): "You can't use names like Mufasa that have been trademarked by Disney, without their permission. If you did you'd be flirting with lawsuits."
Svet: "Flirting With Lawsuits. That's a cool name for a band."
And repeat to infinity.

>By the way, anyone who steals Flirting With Lawsuits is flirting with a lawsuit themselves—that's our intellectual property! (Admittedly that's a fairly liberal use of the word "intellectual".)<

In other news a friend of mine has asked me to collaborate on a page of her sister's zine. Yowzer! I'm really excited, but also kind of nervous because I have no ideas and have no confidence in my zine writing skills. I'm also not quite sure how to break it to her that I'm a no-talent hack, (she clearly hasn't read my blog). I'll keep you posted on my rise to the top of the zine world!

Well, I'm going to go and listen to music now. I finally have the Cure's Wish after I heard it playing in a shop and thought to myself "This is so good," and then; "Hmmm, I have a credit card." I'm sure you can figure out what happened next. I also bought a Donna Summer album. Please don't ask me why. At least she's a step up from Cliff Richard. The emo guy who served me took a liking to me when I came up to the counter armed with Cure albums and he noticed that I had Heathers in my bag. Emo guys are so superficial, aren't they, Svet? (If you're an emo guy reading this blog: I was just joking about you being superficial. Please don't cry.)

--
* - Or not...
** - We did once write a song about ourselves using our nicknames from year 9 (Brunz and Co). The only problem is that "Brunz and Co" are the only words in the song. I guess it could be Mah Na Mah Na for Generation Z, or whatever generation we're up to now. We also penned a thoughtful piece about the magical land of Stony Point (past the end of the Frankston line). However, I think it might have limited appeal.

A picture speaks a 1,000 words... Which is a good thing if you can't be bothered to update your blog!

2005-09-13T20:20:00.000+10:00

I thought I'd take up some room in my blog with a new picture (this way I will have TWO entries in my blog this month! Yeehaw). At first I thought perhaps a newie of Macaulay Culkin, (jest kiddin', folks), but then I decided to do what any other vain person would... put in a new one of me! Last time I put a picture of myself in here it was to prove that my hair had begun to resemble that of Iggy Pop (c. 1977). In this picture I think my hair looks more like some street tough from the 1950s, complete with stylin' Brill Kreem. But whatever. I was going to have a poll asking my loyal readers (there's thousands of you out there, I know!) whether or not y'all think I look like a lesbian. This is because these days everyone seems to be telling me that I do. It doesn't really bother me, because it isn't an insult, (despite what those who said it might think!), but I was curious to see if it was a universal response or just that of dopes. However, this picture actually doesn't give a very accurate representation of how I look, so I don't know how scientifically sound this study will be. Oh, well.

Now, I must return to my busy schedule of cooking up veggie nuggets and listening to the Sundays, cuz both are quite tasty.

"And now for some of my Nazi haiku..."

2005-09-12T22:24:00.000+10:00

Immortal words from the poet we had doing a guest reading the other week in our Creative Writing lecture. He wasn't the most cheery of fellows and after an hour of hearing his poetry about subjects like pain, death, concentration camps, suicide and true crime I had to go to the uni bar and have a screwdriver. And this was after an 11 am lecture!

Attention fans of irony: the last song I listened to on my Beckman (or "CD walkman" for those of you who don't put Beck stickers on you portable music devices) before the last pair of headphones in my house finally died was Depeche Mode's 'Enjoy the Silence'. I would've laughed, except that I was really, really, really pissed off. And let me just say that the last few weeks of having to shop, catch p/t, walk to my uni classes, and ignore my friends WITHOUT the aid of an endless stream of 80s'/early 90s' indie pop, have been awful. Now that I can't walk around listening to music everywhere I go, I've noticed how much I depend this soundtrack of my life, (sorry for the Dick Clark reference). I think I've subconsciously started to see life as one big film, and that having New Order (et. al.) constantly whining away in the background helps my mind to create this fantasy of existence as some kind of John Hughesian suburban nightmare, complete with montages and to-camera monologues. So maybe I should view this lack of music as a chance to reclaim my life; indeed, to enjoy the silence. Besides, Depeche sez that "words are very unnecessary", and those guys know their shit. I mean, it's not like they were on crack or anything.

I went and saw Stuff Happens with my parents and just let me say this to you: DON'T SEE IT. Unless you are one of those people who think 'The Age' is leftist, in which case you should see it because it's a pinko's wet dream. My dad, who has never walked out of a play before, exited 15 mins into the first act (each act was one and a half hours long, in case you needed another reason not to see it!) because he was so appalled (he went and befriended the theatre staff and drank wine till the intermission and toddled off home!)
First of all, the play, despite supposedly being controversial and critical, was far too kind to its subjects. What aprticualrly annoyed me was the way that Tony Blair and particularly Colin Powell were portrayed as these almost martyr-like figures. Gimme strength! (They should have provided sick bags for the audience members.) The play also managed to skirt around what the playwright thought was the reason for going to war, this was some mean feat considering it dragged on for 180 minutes and was so goddamn talky. It also had it that some of these pollies actually thought there might be weapons of mass destruction in the beginning, which was a bit of a hoot. At the end of the day, the play didn't say anything that hasn't been said 100 times before.
It didn't work in terms of a political critique and it didn't really work in terms of a play, either. The second act almost sent me to sleep twice. Hey, guess what? Watching three hours of what are almost exclusively boardroom meetings between politicians gets excruciating. It was almost completely reliant on dialogue rather than utilising the potential features of the stage play form.
I will say this for it, though: the acting was superb, at times bordering on the sublime. For this play to have worked at all, the actors had to really be able to convince the audience that they were these real life people that the audience was already all too familiar with (the characters included Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Tony Blair, Condoleezza Rice, and George W. Bush). And they did. The voices, mannerisms, inflections, intonations, etc. were all there, and they were physically true to life. But at the end of the day they were like really good caricatures; amusing and witty but lacking any insight to what makes the person tick. Superficially, these stage creations were amazing, but the scriptwriter and director let down the work of the actors. It let them off far too lightly.

OK, so there's another directionless entry for you. I must go now because my cat has jumped on to the mantle piece and is lapping up the water in one of our flower vases. I might stop her, or I might just eat cassata and watch for a while.

Q. What do Cliff Richard, carnies and the Twin Towers have in common? A. This blog entry...

2005-08-17T11:54:00.000+10:00

When I started this blog I didn't want anyone I knew in real life to read it, so I refused to give out the address. I figured that with this anonymity I could write about whatever I wanted; discuss my friends' secrets in detail, bitch behind the backs of those I love, write about any romantic obsessions too shameful to speak out loud (like Macaulay Culkin, see below), and all that kind of junk. Then I made the mistake of telling a certain heel I know that I had a blog, and so just to be a shit he went and googled till he found it. The man had the gall to guess my bra cup size on the first evening he met me and then followed it up by finding my blog against my will? Harrumph. Oh, well, I guess I will just have to live with the fact that I put the stupid thing on the web in the first place, and so I deserve what I get! Anyway, even more annoyingly my best buddy Svet has also discovered the location of this proverbial ALADDIN'S CAVE OF WONDERS and so she can read it whenever she wants, too. Double harrumph. I've had to go and edit out all the posts in which I detail all the ways I'd like to kill her, and all the sexual fantasies I've had about her and her cat. (Just kidding, Svet. The fantasies didn't really involve your cat; I was just trying to make you jealous.)

Speaking of having sex with cats, I have been listening to a lot of CLIFF RICHARD, lately. Indeed, I have become obsessed with his song 'Wired For Sound'. Yes, that's right; I'm obsessed with a Cliff Richard song. I blame the phenomenon on my months of listening relentlessly to the Cure and, prior to that, the Smiths. The way I see it, in order to balance out the prolonged exposure to depressing, intelligent and/or witty music, my brain is insisting on listening to irritatingly cheerful, disposable crapola. On the other hand it could be that I just have bad taste, but an epiphany like that could be costly in terms of my therapy bills, so let's not go there!

*Insert segway here* I'm really fascinated by words and language generally, but I especially like learning new slang from different countries/time periods/cultures/etc. (You might even say that I put the lex in lexicon!* But, then again, you might not if you think that those kind of jokes are lame.) Anyway, yesterday I found out a new idiom from a young man in Sacramento, (well, from his blog), namely carny. Well, it's not exactly new; rather, it's a time-honoured turn of phrase applied to the folk who travel from town to town with carnivals, and are perceived as inbred and crazy. But this young man was using it in a new context; namely to describe (and deride) goths and punks, etc.! Isn't that a total riot? Not that I have anything in particular against either subculture, in fact they're often pretty snappy dressers (something I have a lot respect for). Still, I find it really enjoyable to make fun of people who take themselves uber-seriously. So, next time I'm at Flinders' Street Station and I trip over some year 10 who's reading Kierkegaard, wearing too much black eyeliner and setting her hand on fire, I won't forget to shout;

"Gang way, you carny!"

It'll be ever so much fun.

A new reason that I'm going to Hell:

-I bought a snow dome of NYC simply because it contained the Twin Towers in the cityscape. Sick, no?

Alrighty, that's enough disjointed rambling for one evening. Catch ya on the flipside!

* - in order for this joke to work, it helps to know that my name is Alex.

What was that sound? Oh, just the women's movement being set back a hundred years... (And Beyonce running Jay-Z's bath water.)

2005-07-25T22:19:00.000+10:00

Now, I was never one to say that Destiny's Child were a band with a feminist agenda. I mean, they're hardly this century's answer to Mary Wollstonecraft (or even to Helen Reddy). But one could say that Bills, Bills, Bills and Independent Woman both had a pretty positive message about women standing on their own two feet and taking care of themselves, (even if said message was delivered by women who were almost naked and shakin' their booty for the camera). But the message of the bands soon-to-be-number-one single Cater 2 U is about as poxy as the grammar and the spelling of it's title. It's basically a big promotion for the idea that women should slavishly pander to men in order to prove their love and devotion. To illustrate my point I was going to include the unabridged lyrics, but the song is so long and boring that you'd probably die if you tried to read it all. Instead, here are the misogynistic highlights:

"My life would be purposeless without you
...
Let me help you take off your shoes
Untie your shoe strings, take off your cufflinks
What you wanna eat, Boo, let me feed you
Let me run your bath water
Whatever you desire, I'll aspire
Sing you a song, turn the game on
I'll brush your hair, help you put your do-rag on
Wanna foot rub, want a manicure
...
I got your slippers, your dinner, your dessert
And so much more, anything you want
Let me cater to you
...
Making sure your that I'm doing my part
Boy, is there something you need me to do
If you want (I got it)
Just say the word I (I'm a try it)
I know whatever I'm not fulfillin'
Another woman is willing
...
I promise ya, I keep myself up
Remain the same chick you fell in love with
I'll keep it tight, keep my figure right
I'll keep my hair fixed, rockin' the hottest outfits
When you come home late, tap me on my shoulder I'll roll over
Baby, I heard you, I'm here to serve you
...
All I wanna do
Is cater to you, boy
...
I put my life in your hands
...
Fulfill your every desire, your wish is my command."

There's so much wrong with this song that it's hard to know where to start... The lyrics are really self-loathing and insecure. For example, the bit about wearing sexy outfits and staying thin to maintain his interest. Did TLC teach us nothing?! It sounds to me as though the members of Destiny's Child are giving their men permission to make them feel damn unpretty! And that whole whole bit about rolling over and having sex with him whenever he wants... I don't know whether the lyrics make the band sound more like trained dogs or prostitutes! What a grotesque message to be sending to young women: if you love a man then the best way to show them is to become a slave to his every whim. Shouldn't relationships be based on mutual respect and care for each other, rather than keeping your figure right and putting on do-rags? I'm not saying that it's a crime for a woman to occasionally spoil the man she loves, but it should be a two-way street. And she should be doing these things because she wants to, not because she afraid that if she doesn't the guy is going to ditch her for a girl who will! The lyrics are so over the top that the song actually sounds more like a pastiche of the values it's espousing than a genuine endorsement of them. But, unfortunately, I think we're actually supposed to take this shit seriously.

Conspiracy Theories:
1. Cater 2 U was only chosen for the title of the song when the writer realised that Britney had already used Slave 4 U.
2. Destiny's Child are actually all Stepford wives in disguise. (Or fembots.)
3. The draft chorus had an extra line that was removed from the final edit:
"Tonight I'm going to pander like it's 1949..."
.
..
...
(Sorry, Prince.)

Kids say the darndest things...

2005-06-03T20:09:00.000+10:00

In the name of filling up my blog a little quicker and writing regular entries, I've decided to note down things that people have said to me recently that I decided were so stupid/amusing/endearing/all of the above that they had to be recorded. So, instead of keeping the little bits of paper that I wrote them down on at the time they were said, I'll put them in here.

Chai is so passe. It's all about red chai, now.
Oh, Christina... The things you say. Meanwhile, I think working in a pretentious tea shop must just about be the perfect job for someone who says passe as often as she does.

Having sex with someone you don't like in front of someone you do like is a real turn on.
I think this comment says a lot about my one of my dear friends. Really gives you a look into her psyche. As does:
I have a bad feeling Karlo [the dude she is seeing] has something special planned. Oh no!

The aforementioned Karlo (a drug dealer she thought was this motorcycle-riding bad-boy who considered her just a meaningless fling) also made the mistake of sending her poetry. It really spelt his doom with her and was so bad that it had to be kept:
In my dreams I try to sleep,
I set my mind to counting sheep.
But then I see you standing there,
with your glowing smile and long blond hair.
In my sleep I toss and turn,
as it is for your company I do yern [sic]
and passion in my heart dose [sic] burn,
an [sic] longing to hold you in turn.
Again I will not sleep tonight for it is you my love i wish to hold so tight.

I am fire twirl Saturday. And pissed now.
Pissed, Will? I never would have guessed! Also in that text message was the adverb innarsorsibuely. Still trying to work that one out.

We could be friends. Who occasionally sleep in the same bed... Without pants.
If that hadn't been exactly what I wanted from the young man who made that proposition, I probably would have been less than flattered!

Does everyone know what chess is?
My fab-u-lous cinema studies lecturer clearly doesn't realise that she's teaching tertiary students, as opposed to a kindergarten class. (Remember, Benji?)

Ah, now some of those babies were 24 karat comedy gold. If you remain unconvinced of this fact, dear reader, then I will have to rely on that old staple... YOU HAD TO BE THERE!

More reasons to love Americans... and not a single mention of candy corn!

2005-06-02T11:47:00.000+10:00

Why love Americans? Well, for a start they keep coming up with great ideas for food, music, books, films, etc. As for instance, I am presently noshing on Oreo cookies and milk (they are such a delightful combination!) and listening to a Beck CD (what's not to love? I mean, I dig the music and he is an über-cool young fellow). They are both most satisfying slices of the (very large) proverbial pie of American fabulousness. But aside from coming up with new ways for me to spend my time being a lazy pig and not doing my work, Americans are also kind people. And here we get to the crux of the issue, because all of this was this just a cheap segway for me to say that a really nice American lady emailed me to say she liked my blog! How sweet is that?! No one (Ben, you don't count because I found you first!) has ever emailed me about my blog. And believe me, no goddamn Australian would do that. I know we're s'posed to be like these easy-going fabulous people, but the truth is that we're HELLA LAZY. (For further proof of this see how long the spaces of time between my entries are!) Anyway, hello to Dev if you are reading this! You made my day.

Speaking of Oreos, I have to say that I was slightly alarmed when I tried the latest member of the Nabisco family. That is, Oreos that have half chocolate creme and half peanut butter filling... pretty disturbing, eh? I think the whole American phenomenon of putting peanut butter with sweet things is not something that will ever really catch on in the land of Aus. I know that we have taken on some of the more bizarre English quirks, like spreading YEAST EXTRACT on our toast, but until we have the stars and stripes in the corner of our flag rather than the Union Jack I think that we will reserve such gastronomic bootlickin' for the Poms. But back to the cookies themselves. The peanut butter bit freaks me out the most; it tastes exactly like peanut butter, and yet the colour and consistency are all wrong. If they want it to taste authentic why not just use real peanut butter? Alternatively, if you want to use over-processed crap instead, make it taste like ersatz peanut. I know that sounds crazy, but I like to know where I stand with food; I don't like to be fooled into thinking I'm eating the real deal if I ain't. And if that means the taste has to suffer than so be it. (Yes, it's true that I'm more of a bona fide nut than anything going into that cookie filling!)

And more on Americans. My dear friend Isabelle from year 7 who originally hailed from the Windy City before coming to Melbourne just got her Masters. I just turned 20 a few weeks ago, (happy birthday to me...), and this girl is getting her goddamn post-grad degree. And she's younger than me, too! She always was a real genius type, (so how she ended up at the same high school as me is pretty mind-boggling!), in fact her whole family are. She left Australia after year 7 and went to a school that speeds you through your middle and high school years and then she started studying at the U of Virginia! She had finished her undergrad work by the time she was 17 and now, at 19, she's got her Masters! She's apparently going to take some time out (you'd hope so!) before she gets her Ph. D in either mathematics or cryptography. That girl is amazing, that's for damn sure. We don't make 'em like that in Australia, which is further evidence of our being lazy. I mean, they had to make voting compulsory over here, that should tell you something (and the fact that voting is compulsory and we still ended up with John Howard is also pretty telling).

But as cool as Americans are I think I'd still rather live here. I feel safer in a country where I know chocolate creme/peanut butter Oreos won't ever be successful!

Another look into the creepy inner workings of my soul...

2005-05-10T02:25:00.000+10:00

It's been a while, I know, but I'm going to be far more diligent in future with the blog. Just like I am diligent about my schoolwork, keeping in contact with my friends who aren't at uni, and continuing with my regime of regular exercise...or not...

Anyway, the reason I decided I had to do an entry tonight is that I've had something building up inside me and I just can't keep it in anymore. It's a sick and depraved obsession that I just have to thrash out; without the slings and arrows of my peers and family members. I have Culkinitus. That's right; I have developed a peculiar fixation (an obsessive crush, if you will) on the one and only... Macaulay Culkin. Wait! Don't call in SVU, (thus causing Benson and Stabler to throw me under the hot lights before I can count to three!), because this crush does not include his forays on to the screen during his years as a minor! Rather, I am talking about the long eye-lashed, adorably floppy fringed, bee-stung lipped GROWN MAN that we (well, I) have come to adore. It first began during the publicity for the film 'Party Monster' in which he starred with the cute (albeit, considerably less foxy) Seth Green. I promptly forgot about him after I clipped some pictures out of a magazine and put them into a manila folder of mine that I have dubbed 'The Beautiful People File' (I have the sneaking suspicion that one day this collection of creepy cut-outs will be used as evidence against me in a court of law). Anyway, I had all but blotted out his very existence when I decided to rent 'Saved!'; a supposed anti-'teen movie' in which he has a supporting role – a role that calls on him to be delectably sardonic, I might add. For the record, though, for all its posturing the movie ain't so super-duper; while the script has some amusing moments and it's really quite clever and refreshing, it could have put the boot in more, and it could have done without the cheesy music (including the non-diegetic songs sung by Mandy Moore... *vomit*) and the even cheesier montage moments. But back to the point, the very next day as I tuned into Rage which seemed to be having some kind of sexy Gen-Xy special and what clip was playing? Why, 'Sunday' by Sonic Youth. And who happens to be in that clip pashing his now ex-wife Rachel, with what Iona from 'Pretty In Pink' would have deemed "strong lips" and later licking said lips at the camera? Mr. Culkin, of course. And so the seeds that had been planted by 'Party Monster' and later water'd and sunn'd by 'Saved!' quickly sprouted at the viewing of this clip. And now I have a full-blown case of Culkinitus. It doesn't hurt that his brother Kieran of 'Igby Goes Down' fame is also kind of a Baldwin, but really, the Mrs. Culkin I would like to be would be Mrs. Macaulay. Despite the fact that he has a girlfriend at the moment, (Jackie from 'That 70s' Show'), I still hold out hope that our blissful and eternal union will occur sometime in the near future... *sigh*

It's good that no one actually reads this blog or otherwise I might have had some pretty serious taunting on my hands.

First piece of photographic evidence: Macaulay "Strong Lips" Culkin pashing his then wife...

2005-05-10T02:04:00.000+10:00

Here's a picture I accidentally (it really was an accident, I swear!) stumbled across on the internet. It's the kiss from the 'Sunday' clip. It looks more hot when in motion, I assure you.

Second piece of photographic evidence: Macaulay circa 2004...

2005-05-10T01:45:00.000+10:00

Here's Macaulay in 'Saved!'. He's a total fox in this movie. To watch him is to love him, I assure you.

My favourite ways of procrastinating...

2005-03-29T14:18:00.000+10:00

I'm presently on my Easter break for uni, and I have my work cut out for me, lemme tell ya. I've got a couple of essays to write, books to finish, reading to catch up on, and movies to watch. But do you think I'm actually doing it? Hell no! That's not the way I work, unfortunately. What I do instead is put it off! It's a barrel of laughs, kid, believe you me. In fact, for you reading pleasure, here's a list of my favourite procrasti-rrific ways of wasting time:

Sleeping in: pretty self-explanatory. And so much fun.

Watching telemovies: they're so cheesy and Channel 7 has the absolute best (and by best I mean lamest) ones around. They usually give Jerry Springer a run for his money in terms of tackiness, and they always seem to be based on the most unlikely sounding "true stories". As for instance, today I watched one where an old man kidnapped his 15-year-old granddaughter's baby (who naturally had severe asthma) to protect it from the 30-something de facto of his own daughter who had raped and impregnated the girl and then claimed sole custody of the baby. Unfortunately I missed the ending so I'll never know if, using a ring of friendly truck drivers who took him and the kid around, he escaped from the cops and lived happily ever after! (Does your head in a bit, doesn't it?)

Calling people: when I start ringing people up I know I'm really desperate. That's because I actually really don't like talking on the phone. But it does waste time and on the plus side if talking to a friend who has a problem you can lie to yourself and say it's not your fault that you're wasting time. They need you!

Buying lunch from far away restaurants: it's great because you get to eat something delicious and it takes ages to actually get it and get home again. You win twice!

Writing in my blog: ... oh, dear. I'd better go. I just realised that I'm doing it again. But before I get started on work, I'd better just go down to Noodle Box and get lunch... (I wish that was a joke.)

My lame romantic dilemma...

2005-03-27T12:10:00.000+10:00

OK, so here's the scoop: there's this guy who I went out with before I went overseas last year, and we didn't really break up properly because we still liked each other it's just I wasn't in the picture anymore. Eventually he started seeing someone else, but when I got back to Australia he made it pretty clear that if not for her he'd want to be with me still. And in fact kept flirting with me whenever she wasn't around until I told him to cut it out. Anyway, there's a guy he works with who I have the hugest crush on (Channel 10 would probably say that it was an infatuation of extreme 'bigness', or something equally stupid!) but the ex would probably not be cool with my asking him out because they're friends. Plus, I know all the people that work at the store and I don't want people to think that I only want this other guy to make the ex jealous. (That's really NOT the case, I'm feeling really over the old guy and really into the new one.)

So yeah. Don't quite know why I decided to write that down, but I guess I thought it'd be theraputic or something. Plus I had to update this thing; I'm getting really behind with it but nothing interesting or amusing has happened to me lately!

I'm feeling rather ill presently, because I just scoffed a whole packet of marshmallow eggs.

Vomit.

The worst TV show in the world...

2005-03-10T01:00:00.000+11:00

I wasn't going to talk about television in this blog because it is boring, (except for 'Law and Order', or course), but it seems as though I'm going to do it anyway. I just have to say it... 'Mutant X' is absolutely the most awful thing I have ever witnessed. It's a train wreck. The wooden, robotic acting is complemented by horrendously bland characters. The script-writing is such that you have no emotional involvement with the characters, ie. you don't really care whether they live or die. It's also totally derivative of 'X-Men', (in case you couldn't already gather that from the title!), yet without any of the charm or humour. And the mutants just look like normal people until their powers manifest themselves in the form of purple light coming out of their hands or something, à la 'Charmed'. (BORING!) It's completely fluffy and yet seems to be trying to take itself seriously. The story lines are really dull, and the technology is ripped straight out of 'The Matrix' or something (the poor man's version, anyway). The special effects are up there with 'Dr Who' in terms of lameness, but again, without any of the charm of that series. Plus, the main "hot, hot babe" of the show also stars in 'Days of Our Lives'. 'Nuf said. UGH. It's so, so, so bad. Never watch it.

That is all.

Da Word...

2005-03-06T01:28:00.000+11:00

Here are the top three pretentious words I learnt at school this week.

1. Facture
2. Materiality
3. Objecthood

'Facture' means how something is made; line, composition and colour are elements of facture. As nearly as I can tell 'materiality' and 'objecthood' are an object's physical properties. These are terms used to describe art works or handicrafts; ostensibly anything that has been made.

This week 'Da Word' is brought to you by the good people of the Art History department.

The University of Melbourne™ ... Wankerfying the elite and the bourgeoisie since 1854.

Damned Liberal Party meat goods...

2005-02-27T23:22:00.000+11:00

They sat on the grill seeming innocent enough and in fact rather delicious looking as they sizzled away in their own fat. But these were no ordinary sausages. No, these sausages were forged by Satan's very hand. They were... CONSERVATIVE SAUSAGES! In order to eat one, I had to stand next to a large effigy of Peter Costello they had erected near the BBQ (the effigy, I gleefully add, was later abducted and crudely defaced by some students, before being replaced in its original position. Juvenile though the prank was, just watching those events unfold made me think to myself, "This is what I came to university for!"). But being the left-wing bludger that I am, I'm willing to sacrifice all my ideals in the name of getting something for free. I made a stand by putting plenty of RED ketchup on it (geddit!). Anyway, the point is that later that evening I had stomach pains. Coincidence? I think not!

This noshing on conservative sausage business came about during my O-Week at uni. I spent a bit of time watching the clubs and societies pimp themselves on the last couple of orientation days, which was quite interesting. Checking out the Liberal Club stand I noticed that they had these rather fabulous bumper stickers that proclaimed "RACK OFF LEFTY SCUM" and "SOCIALISM SUX" (notice how they're attempting to reach the hip young cats of today with their adept use of slang? FAB!). Of course I went over immediately; I mean, I just had to have them. I spoke with the young chap manning the booth and we had a convo that went a little something like this:
Me: "Hey, have you got anymore of those bumper stickers?"
Him: "Nah, sorry, they're just for display."
Me: " 'Rack off lefty scum'... that's classic."
Him: "Yeah, there's a lot of them around campus. You wouldn't happen to be lefty scum would you? I wouldn't want to offend you." (This guy is all class, folks!)
Me: "Nah, don't worry about it."
Him: "Because we get a lot of lefty scum wanting those stickers for some reason."
Me: "Yeah... wackos." (I skulk off quickly at this point.)
OK, so he had me pegged. But I wouldn't describe myself as your average campus lefty scum. As for instance, the socialists groups around school shit me more than the Libs. I hold the conservative groups with a certain morbid fascination, whereas the leftist factions serve to infuriate me to an unimaginable degree. And yet you'd probably call me a socialist if you're one of those people who insists on giving labels to people. GO FIGURE, huh?

Anyway, I really did get stomach pains many hours after eating those sausages. So the moral of the story is... well, I don't know. I just felt anecdotal, I guess.

'Candy corn is damn tasty', and other reasons I want to visit the US of A...

2005-02-22T00:44:00.000+11:00

Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen; I want to go to the United States. "Why?", I hear you ask. Well, for some reason I am absolutely fascinated by their culture, (whether or not I enjoy watching it mutilate the Australian culture is another matter altogether, by the way). The people that live there have created a lot of art (music, cinema, literature, as well as visual arts) that I really enjoy. They also have some cities over there that I am DYING to visit (NYC, anyone?). And the natural beauty of some parts of the country also seems exciting and different to that I have experienced in my homeland and in my travels (Yellowstone, anyone?). Plus, apart from my actual interest in them, it can't be a bad thing to try to understand the way the world super power operates and perhaps even WHY it is the world super power.

Perhaps most importantly, though, I have developed an infatuation with the romance of the road and the freedom of the road. Yes, I have read Kerouac (what a shocker, eh?!) and this helped germinate a seed that had been planted by films and other media. I have this total boner for the idea of having my own car and just driving through all the states I want to see, staying in cheap motels, having bad coffee and slices of pie in diners, and working when I need the cash. OK, this might be completely unrealistic but I don't care! I'll have all these mix tapes that I'll play full blast, and drive on empty roads that stretch through desert, with the roof down (the car has to be a convertible... maybe a Mustang, or something!) and the wind in my hair.

The flaws of my plan:
-I don't even have a learner's permit, let alone an international driver's license.
-I'm in debt to the tune of 4 grand with my folks from my last holiday.
-I have no job.
-Getting a green card is almost impossible (the situation is aparently so dire that people will resort to marrying Andie McDowell to get one, if 90s' rom coms are to be believed).
-I am a total wimp and would die traveling on my own.

But it will be worth it when I get there. I mean, have you tried candy corn?

Free condiment charming...

2005-02-16T13:09:00.000+11:00

Mr. Mitchell, if you actually read this you'll notice that I quoted from an article about you! (And acknowledeged the reference down the bottom...) I just thought it was such a perfect way to describe that kind of person that I had to use it; it's gold.
Speaking of gold, I got an email from my favourite high school teacher of all time in which he described his recent trip to India. Therein was this nugget: "And that ashram in Pondicherry where they worship "The Mother" who seems the most unremarkable being whose "wise" sayings were so banal and pedestrian but the whole thing was sooo creepy and Jonestown that I had nightmares that The Mother was after me." How do I love thee, Dunscombe? Let me count the ways.

Paging Mr Pop...

2005-02-11T02:14:00.000+11:00

This is what my hair cut looks like just before it decides to channel Iggy Pop (it does this every two months). However, to be fair to me it's a nicer dress than Ig would wear.

If I ever want Tori Amos on vinyl for my birthday you have my permission to kill me...

2005-01-28T23:29:00.000+11:00

I'm afraid that I may have become a living stereotype. I mean, I'm about to begin my tertiary life at Melbourne University to study freakin' liberal arts, I wear a lot of second-hand clothes, I enjoy far too many things in an ironic sense, and now I am writing a blog. Someone pass me a noose so that I may end my life... Methinks I may have become a de Beauvoir toting, beret sporting, "self-involved, thrift store mannequin"*.

To be fair, though, there is evidence to support the converse viewpoint, too. As for instance:
-I don't use the word "dystopian".
-I got bored when I watched 'Betty Blue' AND 'Dead Man'.
-I like Prince. And I even enjoy the song 'Head'.
-I am totally inept at styling my hair with wax.
-I don't hate the US.
-I don't love the UN.
-If I ever become a film director I think it'd be uber-cool to make a zombie movie.
-I shop at 'Miss Shop' at Myer. Yes, really.
-I own a lot of cosmetics and I ain't about to apologise for it.
-I drink gin & tonics without talking about the colonial symbolism they evoke.
-It's Friday night and I'm not on the door for the latest indie wank brigade to play at Ding Dong. Rather, I am at home watching grisly crime drama with my mother, saying things like "Oh, that guy is good for that triple murder. He's going down for sure!"

So maybe there's still hope for me, yet. My defences may not have crumbled and given way to the image obsessed, pretentious, vain and annoying subculture that seems to be thriving presently among people of my age group (not to mention socio-economic background!). Maybe when I start buying Andy Warhol prints, using raffia bows on presents and spouting the term "post-post modernism" without the corners of my mouth at least twitching I'll start worrying again.

Love to anyone reading this,
Alex, aka; divinetrash

PS. In other news five people DON'T agree that my hair cut resembles that of Iggy Pop circa 1977. I am still yet to be convinced. Maybe it's more of a Lou Reed 'do...

--
* - von Holten, Tim; "Odd job: Boys & Girls Club volunteer, Mister Adam", 2004