Oscars last night

Jon Stewart made me laugh as much as Ellen what’s-her-name did, so that was good. Best picture, whatever, the Coen Bros are such smarmy dills. I wanted to poke the little brother hard in the gums (and I’m non-violent) because he did the same gag twice. The taller brother I found to be quite handsome. The little brother showed a lot of gum when he opened his mouth (probably a good idea he didn’t speak).

Daniel-Day Lewis would come away a winner regardless. He kissed george Clooney on the way to the podium that will count against him. Every time they mentioned best actor I get disgusted because I missed seeing Viggo in that Russian mob movie.

I love Laura Linney almost as much as my sister. They are pretty much the same person (in so much as my brother is Mark Ruffalo, except my sis watch too much tv). Ellen Page = barf.

Jen Garner looks better to my eyes everyday, yet has she inflated her lips several pounds? Nicole’s surgeon meanwhile is turning her into a winter weasel.

Javier Bardem looked like he came straight from a bar fight. Actors today so physical. Remember when it was just Russell crowe and David Hyde-Pierce? As Fred willard’s Mike LaFontaine might spout: wha happened? Some neat actors in supporting men’s category. Hal Holbrook from Creepshow. Tilda’s acceptance speech bugged me for some reason. I think I need to watch The Deep End again just to cleanse myself of what I saw her do last night.

Amy Adams (pictured) sang and looked pretty. De Campo and I then talk about eating breakfast next to her at Cheebos on Sunset Boulevard back in 2007. Man, those were different times.

Deakins got two nods for cinematography but no dice. Never forget Dave Kehr saying that Deakins probably knows more about light than anyone else on the planet. Interesting!

Watching Atonement collect nominations like costume design made me want to puke. The whole look of the thing is execrable.

I swear there were more animation movies from this year than three. Ratotuille looks good, although I’m plenty sick of the way middle-age actors whinge like babies in these movies; their voices are excruciatingly painful! Peter & the wolf looks good. I once re-enacted that story for one of my classes in high school. Special voices for the animals (Stanislavski-influenced) leaving a positive impression.

What’s Sound Editing? That actually makes no sense. Do they mean sound dubbing? Bourne Ultimatum won it, well deserved, the movie's technically brilliant, anyone who argues over that is an idiot. Same goes for Transformers. God I would never see that crap. Anyone who says otherwise should be taken out and eradicated.

Owen Wilson didn’t make any jokes nor did he attempt any, admirable. Seth Rogen and his sleazy fat friend have become so greatly insufferable. It’s sad downfall time for those boys and I dare say it is their own bloody fault. Cormac McCArthy gave the Coen brothers a standing ovation because his books stand to make a million from all the publicity.

Mcguane

Thomas Mcguane’s Panama tells the story of Chet Pomeroy, a rock star burned out in the Florida Keys. He’s full of so much cocaine he can’t remember his dog’s name (it’s Dierdre) or the fact he married Catherine in Panama ten years ago. He still gets loaded and the addled moments in this story are like crossing a busy street blindfolded.

Panama is a darker read the second time through much like Miss Lonelyhearts, another book I found simply hilarious the first time. Or maybe the humour diminishes the second time and you are left with a sadness. Panama is genuinely sad though. Goofy Chet doesn’t want to face up to the fact his Dad is alive; he tells people he perished in the Boston fire. The final scene between father and son will tear your heart into little pieces. Miss Lonelyhearts on the other hand, has a sardonic streak running through it like a tremor in that Kevin bacon movie.

I couldn’t sleep Sunday night, so at 4am I picked up Panama and didn’t go to sleep until I finished it. Then I had a dream about Thomas McGuane. This is notable for the fact it don’t happen too often to people I don’t know too well. This makes McGuane the second artistic fixation to walk into my dreams (Malkmus being the first; the only difference is Malk and I are now good friends. Just kidding…or am I?).

I’ve been obsessing a lot about McGuane lately. Follow this link to read a pretty good piece. Ordered an expensive biography about him on the weekend. I listened to a radio show he gave in 1985 and I positively identified his answers as being identical to the ones I would have given to the questions even though he was 45 at the time with several books behind him, a family, a ranch in Montana and on a successful book tour of New York, a place I’ve never been.

In the dream we are on a mountain. McGuane gives a talk and then disappears. I begin scrambling around the premises trying to find him. I bump into someone who looks like him only much younger. ‘Hey, you’re that guy!’
‘No I am his son. I star in his movies.’ (McGuane made a couple of obscure films in the 70s in which he romanced the hell out of his co-stars, Elizabeth Ashley and Margot Kidder. Ashley wrote about it in a tell-all book that I have at home). In my dream I have seven copies of the aforementioned biography in my backpack for him to sign all in a variety of formats with different dust-jackets.

I finally find McGuane and say ‘I would have kicked myself if I didn’t take you aside and tell you how much you mean to me’ and he said something like ‘c’mon let’s go powwow’. ‘Your accent is wild,’ he says and I told him it’s Melbourne via Portland and then I looked down and saw that his writing hand was a stump and his wife walked up and her mouth was all deformed and I couldn’t understand her and I got really upset.

If anyone is capable of analysing this dream I would appreciate your insight.

Explosive combo

Seeing sonic youth tonight play daydream nation in its entirety. I’m going to all you can eat Indian beforehand

She crazy

A woman came up to me on Glenferrie Road around lunchtime and yelled: "They thievin' lie when they get caught up with...they do!"

Simply an Enormous

- January 23

To the Victorian countryside in a blue Toyota on loan from the odious Avis rental car company. They are jerks and screw you with hidden costs. Bollicking bastards. Not only that the CD in the car doesn’t pump out enough bass. On the plus side, we arrive at 4.59pm - one minute before they close.

We reach Guildford and the Divine Miss Lovely’s 40th birthday party at 8pm, six hours after party started. That’s okay there’s still nine hours of fun to go. Miranda looks exciting and muscular and she is speechless throughout.

The party is a bloody ripper. The microphone needs to put a restraining order on me.
At one point, G Roy has the weight of the world on his shoulders and his ankle gives out.

Wake up next morning covered in bites. After a splendid bbq breakfast, supplemented by a Martin Amis-like routine from G Roy involving his feet (two English brothers: one is an effete, intellectual; the other an uncultured thug) we’re feeling fine like it’s 1989. A group of us bids farewell to our darling hosts to take a dip in nearby Vaughn Springs, only to be forced out when a leech grabs KB and refuses to let go. Everybody shrieks out, except G Roy who stays in the murky drink until he is attacked; it takes awhile perhaps due to his toxicity levels, sadly the suction occurs out of reach on his backside, and its not until courageous daughter Sadie joins him in the muck, destroying the leech and dragging Dad out of infested Spring water to safety.

The entrepreneurial Hugh sees moneymaking potential in this and suggests we make a sea-devil out of G Roy and charge admission, using Vaughn Springs as a pilot before taking the show to Europe.

It makes sense.

Following this, a three-car caravan reconvenes for jugs at Guildford Pub in their great, big beer garden with sizable thrones to match. Fond memories of our time there being recalled just now.

Next stop Book Heaven resulting in the procurement of a veritable phalange of hot titles. Waugh, Portis, Nabokov, Paris Review from ’63 (cranky interviews with Waugh and perelman inside), De Campee snares an old German camera that sounds abominable when it clicks. This trip took place so long ago I have already finished Norwood, Charles Portis’ debut from ’66, though that’s not saying much, you can get through it in a couple of days. It is exactly the type of book I would love to write some day. The comedy hits that awkward pitch that I find endearing without ever drawing attention to itself or announcing its attentions: the literary deadpan. Brilliant.

We stay at Woodend and drink a paddle of beer at Holgate brewery, an ingenious way to consume seven shots of dark beer, prior to gorging on three courses.

Sanatorium Lake the next day for an up-close visit with a falcon and over to Dayleford’s Lake House for a decadent lunch during kookaburra feeding time. The mains are $38 and to be honest they aren’t that good.

Oops, I almost forgot our visit to Mt Macedon winery. Go there now, it’s lovely. Drink a bottle of their blush and eat cheese on the porch.

In Daylesford we find Double Nut Chalet, a marvel of splendid accommodation, look it up, it is a dream.

We drive home the next day.

Now I took down something I posted drunk Friday night at 3am because I wanted to make a few amendments to it and lift my work up to a standard of professionalism I deem acceptable. Instead of the German Shepherd taking a most extraordinary shit it is now simply an enormous crap. Revised entry reads thus: "I got off the tram the other day not feeling my best and on the footpath there was a German Shepherd taking an enormous crap and its owner, this bald prick in a pink shirt, forearm covered in tatts, snarled at me and then looked down at his dog, whose mouth he had tied up in his lead and shouted c’mon, dragging the dog away and leaving the pile in the middle of the footpath; meanwhile today I was in a cab driving by a parked car and there was a dude who opened the door and tossed two banana peels out on the street.”

I also wanted to add that all people are stupid and lazy and we need to collectively join together to remove all the scum off the streets.