Mambo Girl, (1957 Hong Kong)

She Mambo, he Mambo, she crazy, she make you wild, make everybody Mambo too, Daddy see Mambo girl sing, he see her dance, he see her crazy, he see genius in her front foot, magic in her face, but Daddy can’t dance, nor can Mommy, Mambo girl is the daughter of a toilet attendant in Hong Kong, mambo repeat x infinity

Sentences

Email Harpers at 11.17am: Please tell wyatt the orange black scrotum in Olt gained me as a reader
Email from Harpers 12.12pm: I will tell him.
Email from Harpers 12.26pm: I will tell him indeed.

Read it it's good

Warrior in Smith Street Safeway

Best supermarket Sunday rush-hour track ever: The Soft Boys’ ‘I Wanna Destroy You’. My friend Suzy would probably pick ‘Where are the Prawns?’, while Toby, her husband, is a ‘Black Snake Diamond Rock’ guy all the way. See Soft Boys Underwater Moonlight for more examples. Check out Toby's new blog here.

So, what else been happening in the land of Moritzio?
Well, I heartily recommended the deep-fried flounder I had from Djakarta on Bridge Road in Richmond Friday night to most anyone I came in contact with. I was whetting Marc and Brad’s appetite at Sadie’s Party on Saturday, but maybe they were just wet. After all, it had been raining outside and they had just arrived and then to get bombarded by some guy raving about a flounder. Geeze. Marc and Brad looked as if they had come straight off the set of this video.

Later we were discussing the new movie Iron Man and Mia asked if I was going to blog about it. I said probably not, well (brightening up) maybe, if I can think of something interesting to say about it, then I rocketed into a totally killer reading of Gwyneth and RD Jr.’s dynamite chemistry and how it was likely to have been the explosion that detonated her marriage to Chris Martin (doing the wild thing off-set, I reckoned).

Actually I didn’t have a whole lot to say to people on Saturday night. It was an Egyptian-themed party and I could have discussed Tutankhamen I now realise. Miranda said do you remember telling me about the first time you saw your Dad naked? I said ‘yes, I happened upon him urinating in a forested glade while grey digger squirrel hunting, did I mention I made excellent pancakes today?’ The following day I stayed in bed until 2pm finishing Glamorama, before going to the supermarket. I am just accomplishing so little on the weekends in the way of creative enterprise. I think I need to have a baby.

Our Man in Portland

“I went to the Barack Obama rally on the Waterfront yesterday. 75,000 Portlanders showed up (go to KGW.com for pictures). The Decembrists opened up for him. I missed them on the account that I was in line for 3 hours. The line started 25 blocks away from the event (you thought the Cat Power line was long¹). I based all my political votes for the Senate primary based on the music establishments picks. I voted for Steve Novick (he is 4'9 and has a hook for a right hand. I am not kidding) based on the fact that he was vetted and endorsed by Colin Meloy, Britt Daniel and Corin Tucker. Plus on his local ad², it shows him popping a beer cap off of a bottle with his hook.”

— H

¹ Last year, H, De Campo and I were denied entry to a free Cat Power show in an industrial warehouse by the river. We left it too late. The line was long.

² The Ad is here

Boyle & Doyle

Two writers, one’s named Boyle, the other's named Doyle, together they are Boyle and Doyle.

Recent works of Fiction in The New Yorker that when read together, offer interesting counterpoints to the Deadbeat/Schlubby Dad Lit genre.

Boyle’s Dad, 26, after a night drinking margaritas with his ex-band mate, calls up work and tells his boss, Radko, his baby’s dead and then goes out for breakfast and then to the movies.

Doyle’s Dad is a 48 year-old Dubliner with several kids. The youngest is 18 and soon to leave home. You get the sense that the Dad is gonna miss the kid even though he doesn’t get the kid. They watch a movie about a womanizing dwarf and the Dad is like huh?? Dad’s local pub is two k’s from the local he grew up in. Y’see, if nothing else, Dad likes his comfort zones and he likes to get tipsy. Dad goes to Spain with his mates, also 48, gets hammered, gets in a bullring, then goes back to the rental in Valencia and pukes in the pool. Fucking genius.

The stories were so good they made me want to have kids just so I could totally get into the characters’ heads. After that of course I would have to give the kids back. It’s a really good idea. There should be somewhere you can call before you are allowed to read these stories, you know giving childless guys the opportunity to look after babies so they can get the maximum benefit from this stuff.

“I’m a stud muffin,” I shrug. “Take a bite.”

I’m heavy into Bret Easton Ellis’ Glamorama, the Zoolander of literature, although literature might be too strong a word for what it is. Make no mistake Ellis is an amazing writer and I find his ridiculous tale of Victor Anderson, similar to, yet somehow more human than Amis’ Money, a book I was unable to finish. He doesn’t namecheck everybody, but he does namecheck Evan Dando.

Ben Stiller ripped this book off so bad. Thinking I was all insightful, I just read this on wikipedia: “Ellis has stated that he is aware of the similarities, and went on to say that he considered and attempted to take legal action."

I picked up more reading time since I (flew over the top of my handlebars and) wrecked my bike and started taking the tram again. I read Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, which disappointed me.

Kicking_K’s cover story in Plan B this month on disco label Italians-Do-it-Better is my favourite piece of writing in the magazine’s history. I actually felt cool reading it. How Victor Anderson is that? I don’t own any of the label’s stuff, but I think I will ask for the three-vinyl After Dark comp for my birthday. Two of the bands, Glass Candy and the Chromatics, are from Portland. Gee Portland’s changed a lot since Big Daddy Meatstraw were running things (or since I left town).

How cool are those popsicle maracas Jeff Koons designed for Google?

Loved '400 Blows' last night. Got really sad when it ended. Was really enjoying myself in the company of Antoine Doinel.
I went home and read essays on Truffaut and reread the New Yorker ‘New Wave at Fifty’ article from a few weeks back. Critics were never as exuberant in their writing about Truffaut as he was with his movies. I'm mainly referring to Pauline Kael and David Thomson. Godard of course came to despise Truffaut's "style" of entertainment.

Guy at work just casually mentioned how he cried watching the 'Bucket List'. He said he wants to see it again, but only on DVD because he doesn’t want to go through that again’(It’s prompted me to put a photo of Godard and Jean Seberg on the wall of my new workplace, thus establishing where my cinematic allegiances lie).

My trophy for winning the first annual New St Table Tennis Championship on Saturday is proudly displayed on top of the TV set. It’s a garden gnome holding a spade that looks more like a paddle after Tobe and Suze painted it red. Since it was too wet for a barbie, Suzie made lasagne and I put so much of it away. It was really yummy. But my tummy, oh my. I won the championship with a bellyache 7-0 over Joshtown.

Been listening to The Cannanes live at Applecore bootleg I scored off Ricky. It’s a score and a half. I feel like I’m in Tutankhamen’s Tomb for the first time. The Cannanes live at Brunswick Hotel was something I participated in after the TT tourney on Saturday, down the road from tobe and suze, hitting tambourine during the encore though my timing was off, everyone seemed to love it, except James and Gavin who glared and counted every mistake (five apparently). I even stopped mid-song to part my hair. We followed this with a legendary episode of the Name Game, which lasted until 4am. They should try and make a documentary about that!