Vale the Literary Pugilist

H has proposed a Mailer bio-pic ala I’m Not There, in which six actors/actresses play Norman Mailer (though he says you can't use Mickey Rourke or Whoopi Goldberg - too obvious, I guess).

The lovely Susan Dey as a cockfight referee in a small San Diego fishing village, early 1900s.

Jimmy Smits as the dubious accountant Ozzy Osborne mutters to. Jimmy massages Ozzy's wife while Ozzy naps in his chair.

Harmony Korine as himself, filming himself getting beat-up outside convenience stores all in the name of cinema verite, but after multiple trips to the hospital, he quits when he realises he only has 24 seconds of footage.

Kelly Osborne as Tracy St. Claire a bored goth interning at the New Republic

Unorthodox 80s lightweight Livingston Bramble, as Jackie Jones, a sex-crazed TV repairman down-on-his-luck


Patrick Swayze is Tina Livingston a reformed serial killer transvestite/radical novelist who uses semi colons instead of questions mark and hyphens instead of the letter g.

Kevin Rudd

He deserves a chance to f%#k it up

Muriel Lake Incident @ Cinema Paradiso, ACCA, Melbourne

The security chap was kind enough to hustle over and urge De Campo and I to check this thing out, as it had just begun.

We donned headphones and peered into the black of this miniature movie theatre where a film in black and white is being shown on the little big screen. You can hear it through headphones and even though the miniature cinema is empty you can hear patrons squirming in their vinyl seats and whispering loudly (“I thought this was supposed to be Orson Welles”).

Empty cinemas are ghostly.

Muriel Lake Incident is a disconcerting experiment in watching a movie while listening to people talk during a movie.

What’d you think? asked the chap as we walked out legless, our mouths agape and our viscus slugged. “That was frightening,” was all I could say and it was so much more than that.

Dinosaur Jr, Eddy Current Suppression Ring Live!

One of those reviews that don'r run for whatever (perhaps obvious) reason(s)

Forum, Melbourne - The ironic girl air guitaring in front of me gets the Mentos thumbs-up from her boyfriend and three of his mates, it’s unpleasant but satisfying that I burp into her hair singing ‘Rabbits’. Dino Jr. on a full stomach is like taking a bullet in the gut. Must remind myself not to eat African food before big-time rock shows. J Mascis wears a Wipers t-shirt (ode to the Godfather of high-octane grunge) though he probably doesn’t deserve it. Ennui has never sounded so monolithic and unwaveringly trashy. I suspect the mix licks but my mate Steve says its legit, J just can’t control his volume control, burying the vocals, the bassist (a beastly Lou Barlow) and his beatmaster, sending ‘Beyond’s’ voluptuous bomb ditties into the vacuum of the Forum’s vaulted ceiling. The dino dudes doze after a speedy set by ECSR that sees Brendan Suppression climb the speaker stacks and sass his raps on the lower level roof while Eddy and the boyz spark a nu-rave Life without Buildings and slay like the second coming of ? and The Mysterians.

Pointless persiflage/ Cold Sore Country

I’m skipping a Bryan Brown double at the flicks tonight, which is a shame I hear Austrian movies are pretty good, but I’ve simply had enough stimuli for the week in the last two days and am longing to get cosy on the couch with a bowl of De Campo’s Pesto Pasta. Apologies for the pointless post I’m a pretty pointless guy and am keen to remind posterity of how I was on this day in November, my 35th looming like a leopard through the ferny dusk of my post-pubescence.

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A cold sore has emerged and no, it ain’t a damn case of herpes. Try telling that to De Campo who don’t believe me, she’s certain that that’s what all cold sores are, a case of damn herpes. I have a special crème I've grown accustomed to that I apply to the area five times a day. It’s healing up rather well and I look less like David St Hubbins after a gig at a trade show in Waikiki everyday. Of course I used to get cold sores back in high school but that was when my face was a magnet for any monstrous type skin condition (my parents used to make me eat dinner in the other room and my brother used to call me Swamp Thing)

I believe I acquired the cold sore through the use of a Mentholatum used to stop me from biting my nails. Given that it’s only the early stages in the ‘stop and grow’ process the bitter polish stings the corner of my mouth where I still like to bite, not as often as I once did, but still enough to make my mouth look like David St Hubbins raising the roof at a roofing convention in Cape canaveral.

Bliss-out moment of the week: My barber Craig is so cool he plays vinyl records in his shop just like the olden days! He let me put on a record yesterday when side A of the Smashing Pumpkins had finished: Can’s Ege Bamyisi. It was up so loud I was in heavendrinking Coopers Ale on his couch using the other side of my mouth.

Two films from Bergman

All these women (1964)

A pretentious music critic romps around —in a highly offensive manner— the estate of a near-dead genius on cello, groping the genius’ wives and irritating the viewer with maximum detestability.

Scenes from a Marriage (1973)

Sexless strife and trenchant powerplays among bourgeoisies in crisis. Starring Liv Ullmann, who, I had to remind myself, is only an actress, and this, only a film. Masterful.