Deep End

Classic coming-undone coming-of-age story that gets young boys’ obsession with sex just about right. It’s pretty hard to take, but then again, so are young boys. The film is about a 15 year-old but it’s not for a 15 year-old. I’ll show it to my 15 year-old and he’ll either turn gay or admit that he is gay (something I would have already suspected anyway).

Story is about Mike, a virgin in the traditional sense (fornication) and also in regards to doing a job. All this is about to change. He’s cute and he’s hired at the local swimming pool. He looks like a cross between Parker Stephenson and Shawn Cassidy. He starts work and all the housewives want to bone him, repressed London coming unglued as Mike delivers more medicated shampoo to door #4 and 5. The Lolita-like redhead nymph is a legal age dynamo sex bait of the bath house. Her natural charm and effectiveness makes Natalie Portman rather unnecessary. She’s doing it to Mike’s former swimming coach. Her fiance is a pompous drip who studies blue movies with academic discernment. She torments Mike in wicked ways. He grows up fast. The repercussions are severe.

Two sequences stand out as total classics: One unfolds at a blue movie cinema, rivaling Mickey Rourke’s turn in The Diner for outright hilarity, but also delving deeper (hence the title, no, not really). The other takes place outside a peep show and involves the ingestion of numerous hot dogs and the pilfering of a life-size nude cardboard cut-out culminating in a ridiculous ruckus on a crowded tube train.

There’s an urge to refer to this film as Deep Red, for the contrast of perverse red against the rank landscape of 1970s London suburbia is luridly outstanding. The camera work is artful, the editing is droll, the performances are classic, the climax a tad unwieldy. Cat Stevens and Can provide the soundtrack that loses to Performance in a tenth-round knockout, but puts on a hell of a fight. Directed by Jerzy Skolimowski.

Role Models movie

Paul Rudd wrote and starred in this obnoxious vehicle that’s a real worthless piece of crap. Jane Lynch steals every scene from these douches.

I'm back on the beer again

Last night’s beef satay from ____ on _______ in ______ was the worst I ever tasted.

Worthless crap

In the City of Sylvia (2007) by Jose Luis Guerin
If the underused goth in the pub had raped, then murdered the vapid artiste, I would have still left the cinema unsatisfied.

Get your flippers out

Two and a quarter hours of riveting Flipper action last night at the Arty. A lot of cool people were there hanging out and having fun. Sadie was a wild child in her element up the front. Singer Bruce kept a watchful eye on her as best he could. She mussed his hair, stole his water and spat on him. Bruce couldn't have looked more proud if she was his own kin.

Before the show their new bassist, a Tasmanian Black Walnut-haired minx named Rachel from San Francisco, offered me her scarf as it’s frightfully cold in Melbourne and I seemed underdressed to her. I declined her offer, said I’d probably besmirch it. She said it would take a lot to besmirch it… Still, I said no.

Anyway Flipper were great!

what a stupid thing to write, makes no sense

"If you're starting to get annoyed when people cough without covering their mouths, spare a thought for the thousands at increased risk of serious illness from swine flu".

- from the good daily

Okkervil River last night

I got lucky. The woman in my life won two free tickets to see some Texans* rock out, so that’s what we did last night. I woke up in a crusty state of being this morning. She kissed me goodbye and left the house in her cute new coat (The light-brown buttons are mushroom-shaped). A few hours later, I’m on a north-facing park bench digesting my Atomica breakfast (scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns and flat white) wondering if that coat of hers was really worth it. It’s a beautiful autumn day.

* At one point I remarked on how the singer’s schtick is stretching alliterative phrasing into pliable melodies, but no one seemed to give a shit.

Torch Rockers

Zabriskie Point and The State of Things

Zabriskie Point
Corny-ass, hippy-dippy, drippy dumbshit lameness on a grand visual scale, culminating in an uncomfortable-looking sandstorm orgy in the desert. It’s enough to make you want to work for Rod Taylor’s housing developer (the film’s emblem of evil), but you no longer can, see his revolutionary daughter Daria exploded him so he be unable to make you an offer. Viva the Revolucion’!


The State of Things
A sluggishly hip, innocuous thing by Wim Wenders about a sci-fi movie that can’t get made, which is sad because it looks more fun than the one about the director who goes off in search of money to finish it which is what we’re watching! So, director leaves cast and crew in a drunken Lisbon stupor and flies to LA where he puts the top down and becomes Phillip Marlowe in an attempt to find the egregious moneybags. 1980, in black and white with pornographic synthesizers busted out at the most peculiar moments.

See New Estate before you die, or else I will kill you

Discuss

Ten Things You Probably Didn’t Know About A Movie You Have Probably Never Seen

• The name of this silent movie is "Haxan – Witchcraft through the Ages" and it came out in 1922. The execution of its niche objectives is a solid 8/10
• Be forewarned it will terrify your children
• The crazy-eyed red devils are tongue-darting pervs
• The juxtaposition of naked female tush with devils whose long sharp claws poke at them with tireless fervour is good image-making
• Narrative by director Benjamin Christenson has a pleasing ironic tone (I don’t have any examples except when he gets one of the cute actresses into a thumbscrew and pretends she likes it when in fact she is yelping)
• There are 7 parts to it
• The music (doubtlessly added retrospectively) suxx eggs and complaints regarding the badness of it were plentiful afterwards by the moviegoing contingency. A lot of silents have this problem. Makes you wonder if the movie would have been better off without it and I don’t think it woulda
• Did you know something like four million men and women were destroyed in the middle ages in the cruellest fashion for behaving in a way incomprehensible to doctors, monks and other God-fearing sucks? Hard to comprehend, I know, but once you put it into terms that people can understand such as Def Leppard would not have been able to make ‘Adrenalize’ after ‘Hysteria’ the full force of its destructive impact really hits home
• The advance of civilization was defined by the sophisticated techniques people were toasted and tortured with.
• The costume imagery and photography (brilliant blue for twilight and red for hell, plus sepia-tones for poor-house interiors) are so consistently great that you begin to lose interest in the whole operation, which is sad, but inevitable in a movie that contains no dramatic narrative or discernible flow

Shallow flicks, man.

Couple a flicks by Louis Malle, one, ‘Les Amants’, would be wise to give the flick to, poor Jeanne Moreau, the film is such a disgrace and insult to her sexuality (apparently it made her hugely popular – go figure). Requires a suspension of disbelief so hallucinatory I’m certain it’s a recommendation from the director that we all go take a flying leap.

Jesse loved it, he saw Jeanne’s boobies after all, sez I’ve changed now that I’m engaged, suspects I’d call Dorothy a trollop if I saw Wizard of Oz. My beef was with the total lack of psychological detail to validate the character’s ludicrous actions. Some awakening. I think Tristan was in my corner on this one, but he wasn’t saying much, he was too busy enjoying the ribbing I was getting from Monsieur Jackson Sheperd.

By movie’s end, I wanted to shake Mr. Malle and say what planet are you on? To its credit, the movie was strongly paced and I didn’t look at my watch once.

Next came a good one (Le Feu Follett) about an alcoholic with a good melancholy score by Erik Satie. Get this: the guy finishes The Great Gatsby and then he offs himself! The whole time I thought the actor (well-played) was Alain Delon, mirroring his own descent into alcoholism, but no, just some other hunk who had gone to seed named Alain.

Both films were preceded by the seed that germinated Wes Anderson’s fun Life Aquatic picture: a deliciously entertaining Jacques Cousteau short from the 50s when Malle was his DP.

Must be heard to be heard

I ordered Japanese for three last night in my Sean Connery voice.

Caution: Disinterest

Hungover today. Mixing red wine and champagne after seeing Steve Coogan who was damn near terrible wasn’t very smart. We had front row seats. Yayy! Imagine getting roped on stage by one of his slutty caricatures who he then pretends to bang behind the curtain. Perish the thought. Trotted off to my fav book shop at lunchtime to lift my mood. Went there with the intention of hoarding some Flannery O’ Connor or Carson McCuller based on this exchange I had with H earlier:

B: What was the last book by a woman that you read?
H: Mary Gaitskill's Veronica or Zadie Smith's On Beauty. I've recently read some more Flannery O'Connor short stories, but I thought she was a man. Actually, I stand corrected, I read Carson Mcculler's the Heart is a Lonely Hunter earlier this year, and loved it. Wrote like a deranged man. After perusing the hundreds of titles in my bookshelf, I can confirm that these are the only 4 female novelists that I own.

I ended up with Thomas Berger’s Feud about quarreling neighbours in 1930s small-town America. I selected four pages at random and every one was a winner – two of them were potentially laugh-out loud given the appropriate context. After getting back to work, I went on Amazon where there are four reviews all raves and thoughtfully constructed. I like this one for mentioning the saintly Charles Portis:

“This book is a cruel masterpiece of cynical and nasty slapstick humor. The protagonists, the Bullards and the Beelers, are both families of barely sentient wit who behave in ways that are competely understandable, completely human, and completely stupid. Berger's writing and plotting, though, are first-rate-- I laughed out loud throughout this thing, and I've read it three times over the last 25 years (time to read it again). You've met people like this before in the works of Flannery O'Connor, Faulkner, Charles Portis, and Erskine Caldwell, but Berger's light touch makes "The Feud" a real find.”

They had a Flannery O Connor book of short stories there A Good Man is Hard to Find, but I put it back and picked up two James Purdy books. I’ve heard good things about him. Gore Vidal calls him a genius. I was tempted to buy both, but I got freaked out by the almost fuchsia-coloured covers and the publisher Gay Modern Classics while at the same time Hercules and Love Affair came on my iPOD, I almost had a crisis of identity.

I’m still on the lookout for books by women writers. One of my goals this year is to read Middlemarch.

SIDE A: Taurean Trouble / SIDE B: 100% more Toby Dutton for your buck

Yeppity yep, apart from the BIG NEWS, it's getting towards Taurean time again!!

So you better grab a texta and draw some pretty little cell bars on the calendar square that reads Saturday May 9th because you are required to come celebrate the bull, the beer, the me, the bands, the other deliciously rad Taureans and the new NEW ESTATE!!! WOO!

Old Bar shall be hosting this awesome roll-up roll-up event, with extra special guests on the night Midnight Caller and Elizabeth Pistol Club.

And... surely a pre-funk at UFHQ, or dinner somewhere (??) will be in order, so put forward your ideas and we'll get something sorted!

De Campo xx

Little pleasures, cont...

Back again at the eucalypt tree with the big hole in it, I clicked my tongue a couple times and my two friends hurried out to see what the hubbub was all about. I had been whistling along to an acoustic version of Cold Blooded Old Times prior to that and who knows maybe that encouraged them to crawl out and take a long look at me. Them two are like two winged lovers in tie-dyed t-shirts.

Really quite animated with me again this time. Scratching the part of their green head where most people have ears. Their friendliness makes me suspect that people give them treats. One is more yellow and green then the other one who is red and blue. They kept twisting their heads and looking at me like a dog trying to make sense of things. The red and blue one flapped its wings and flew to an upper branch where it teetered on skinny branches and munched on these little tiny fruits.

A big guy in a loose fitting muscle shirt showed up and parked it on the bench nearby while his fat blonde Labrador went down to the river. I left the birds eating the bark off the tree and strolled passed the huffing and puffing dude on the bench, who I recognised as Gary Lyon, the ex-football guy. I almost told him about the birds, but he didn’t look too happy. He was sweaty and despondent. His dog was immersed in the Yarra barking at him.

Little pleasures

The rainbow lorikeets who live in one of the trees at the park where I stroll on my lunchbreak are back and almost started talking to me today. I repeat: they were gone, but now they’re back and almost chatty.

Unstoppable Forces @ Summer Tones

I have very little recall regarding Mistletone’s fun-filled Summer Tones music party. The guy who protects patrons by keeping recalcitrants at bay wouldn’t let me into the kitchen to have a pizza at the end of the night. Not to worry De Campo and I moseyed over to the 24 hr Mcdonalds. Sadly it was closed. There were a number of people milling there for whatever reason. I guess they were surprised as we were that it was shut. We walked to Acland Street and found a burger joint. The streets were rather quiet kind of refreshing when you consider the state of Brunswick street these days. I fell asleep back at our hotel room midway through eating my Mexican-themed cheeseburger with guacamole and jalapenos. I woke up this morning and ate it cold. It was still pretty good though I wouldn’t give it more than two stars. I had some of de Campo’s too because she hadn’t finished hers either. She didn’t find it was very good cold. It was thoughtful of her to put them in the refrigerator and told her as much.

We got our things together, showered and tried to become more human. We talked about the wild night we just had. I remarked on my garbling remarkably incoherent self. I vaulted on stage during the Panel of Judges set and was just as quickly ordered off by their none-too-amused singer. Probably a good move in retrospect. I did the same thing at Applecore last weekend during Actor/Model and flipped the keyboard switch on Ricky’s guitar pedal, the sound cut out prematurely ending their set.

Unstoppable Forces DJ’ed when the doors opened yesterday. Feisty Jes Cogger who DJs in the front bar on weekends, showed up to give us moral support, which was lovely. The essential Carla (‘oh my darling, hot, hot Steve’) Thomas was our entourage. The decks were located at the top of the stairs of what is one of Melbourne’s most excellent drinking rooms. We had a great time and we played a lot of sweet tracks. From memory we spun Silver Jews’ Party Barge, Travelling Wilbury’s Handle with Care, De Campo played three in a row, Slumber Party Madeupmymind, She & Him’s something or other, Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s Wrapped Up, then I played three in a row, while De Campo went to get Coronas, Flying Burrito Bros’ Burrito #2, a cool live version of Pavement’s Father to a Sister of a Thought and Kath Bloom’s We didn’t do this to you. My memory becomes hazy after this, I can remember what we played I just can’t remember the exact order they were played in. Under the Blacklight by Rilo Kiley, Royal Trux’ The Spectre, Spoon’s Don’t You Evah, Billy Squier’s In the Dark, Tommy Roe’s Sweet Pea, Straight down to the Bitter End by Yo La Tengo, Lilliput’s Igel, The Breeder’s Tipp City, Cotton Fields by CCR, Rebound by Sebadoh, Sunday Girl (French) by Blondie (that was for Carla) and again Rilo Kiley with Smoke Detector.

The Treetops started playing, we left the turntables smoking and took our gear back to the nearby hotel and drank some peach vodka with Jes and Carla and watched American Idol. The Novotel is not a hotel I would recommend. Between the hotel and the pub was a park and we lounged there before heading back to the club to watch Kes Band.





I love the Kes Band, but this set seemed to plod more than usual. I complained about this to Simon Grounds, a man who knows about this stuff and Simon said you got to hand it to them they came with a plan to play turgidly and they stuck to it. I was just pissed that the music didn’t make me dance. I shot a query at one of the Mistletone directors about liquid compensation for our amazing DJ set and he pointed me upstairs to the green room where I saw Dan Deacon eat the largest chunk of guacamole I have ever seen. Just this huge blob of guac teetering on this strip of red capsicum. Subliminally I suppose, guacamole would play an important part in my choice of eats throughout the rest of the day. Quesadillas for dinner and the aforementioned burger at 2am.

Three stages and hundred or so bands. The basement bar was home to the best most-debauched action and out of some real good ones, I think the Twerps’ set was my favourite. I’m totally smitten with those guys. Last night was a fricking riot.

OMG!!! JCVD!!!!

OMG!!! JCVD!!!!

It’d be easier to borrow a tent because I’d prefer not to drive if I don’t have to

Amelia

Haha!

That would be ace! She just has to work out how to get her parents’ tent between now and then

Cheers

He wants to meet her for lunch

Gnarlikins-a-go-go!!

She wanted a bird then she wanted a forest with birds flying in the distant vista

HAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Did you find a golden ticket?

I threw mine up

You should get the album image as a tattoo

For brekkie

Hugh was pretty hunky wasn’t he

That sounds terrific. She is an absolute hoot.

I decided to follow Party Barge with Traveling Wilburys

Tell her to hold up, she’s next in the queue!

McGuane Remembers Updike

It’s surprising how quickly a writer’s death provides a seismic reading for anyone who had taken an interest in his work. The news of Updike’s death really startled me; he had written so well and so importantly for so long and until so recently that his absence is hard to contemplate. Something is missing. I had a spell of indignation as I thought of the nonentities who won the Nobel Prize while he was eligible through being alive. Now he’s disqualified! Terrible.

I met Updike a few times and today have been looking back on those encounters, baffling one and all. Harry Crews and I had won awards at the American Academy and found ourselves pressed against the wall of a large room staring across substantial space at a large collegial group of Northeastern writers who seemed to know their way around the place. Crews was content to remain, but I wandered haplessly into no man’s land, where Bernard Malamud felt sorry for me and led me to the group in the middle of the room, where he introduced me all round, and to John Updike, who peered at me and said, “We don’t know who you are.” Well, I got over it and kept reading Updike, admiring his daring, the high finish of his prose, his extraordinary erudition, and, sometimes in the face of some quite nasty critical attention, his undaunted commitment to his work. As a regular and accessible commentator on art and literature, he hasn’t had an equal since Edmund Wilson. It is impossible to imagine a less complacent major writer.

I don’t know if some assonance is suggested by noting that I felt the same sort of blow at the death of Rabbit Angstrom, an unwillingness to let him go. I sent Updike a note to this effect and got a warm reply in which he expressed some mystification that everyone was so attached to Rabbit. My translation suggests he wasn’t comfortable with this august tetralogy towering over the rest of his work. But that’s what happened.

Thomas McGuane, January 28, New Yorker

Rant from H sponsored by Miss Lonelyhearts

Speaking of savagery with the pen, I am finally reading the copy of "Lucky Jim" that you got me. I plan to continue to make up my own book clubs. This will be paired with Martin Amis's "The Information". The other pairings include the Jim Harrison collection I got from you tied with McGuane's "Nobody's Angel". This sub-sect of the club will be entitled "Writer's that Moritz loves who are deeply indebted to Hemingway, who by the way, Moritz can't stand". The next suite will consist of German writers (I always read Russian or Latin writers) that wll involve Kafka's "The Trial" and Thomas Mann's "Death In Venice and other collected stories". This will alternately be known as "Fassbinders Mix-tape". The final book club will consist solely of Melville's "Pierre, Or the Ambiguities". I am going to the coast this weekend, and always carry a Melville novel that I have absolutely no intention of reading.

- H

extract from forthcoming novel

"No compunction whatsoever to relieve myself with a claw hammer.
A feeling I was pretty unaccustomed to!"

Tic Tacs are inferior in every way

WHAT?

In Bruges got a nod for best original screenplay. That frigging disgusts me.

Man, I’m struggling a bit with Oscar, not being Dominican and shit. My inability to be held captive by its mercurial energy gave me horrible night sweats last night until I realised it was only the full moon, but still.

Year in Reading

Books I’ve read in sequence, and in brackets, how I’d rank them. Below that is a short spiel on each.

Hey Jack by Barry Hannah (20)
Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman (26)
Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer (1)
Norwood by Charles Portis (6)
Panama by Thomas McGuane (13)
Reinhardt in Love by Thomas Berger (2)
The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray (26)
Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (11)
The Loved One by Ev Waugh (29)
Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis (10)
Mao II by Don Delillo (28)
Couple of Comedians by Don Carpenter (14)
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail by Hunter S Thompson (16)
Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson (17)
Anagrams by Lorrie Moore (5)
Like Life by Lorrie Moore (18)
A Cool Million by Nathanael West (20)
CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller (22)
Ask the Dust by John Fante (12)
Born Standing Up by Steve Martin (24)
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (4)
Ninety in the Shade by Thomas McGuane (3)
Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This by Bruce Beresford (25)
Gulcher by Richard Meltzer (15)
Professor of Desire by Philip Roth (30)
The Summer he Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison (7)
The Boat by Nam Le (27)
This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff (8)
Keep the Change by Thomas McGuane (9)
Black Postcards by Dean Wareham (23)
A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison (19)

Hey Jack by Barry Hannah
Very good novella about a doctor of questionable repute. Full of the trademark Hannah razzle-dazzle.

Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman
Didn’t finish it. Hell I lived it when I was 12.

Armies of the Night by Norman Mailer
Mailer, in incendiary 3rd person, takes in a Vietnam war demonstration. Causes a ruckus. Thrown in the slammer. Even more than Hunter S Thompson, Mailer dishes verbs like fists, and his furious prose cuts through diamonds. Exudes a heavyweight literary scholarship that doesn’t seem to exist anymore.

Norwood by Charles Portis
Angel of a book with a knucklehead charm.

Panama by Thomas McGuane
The crawling out of the ass of frozen elephants now behind him, ex punk star Chet Pomeroy retires to Key West with a coke-affected brain that forgets simple things like what his dog’s name is and whether or not his Daddy perished in a Michigan fire. Wasn’t as good the third time through; still a fav though.

Reinhardt in Love by Thomas Berger
Comic immortality, set in Cincinnati, among the bureaucrats, thieves, plagiarists and Black Panthers, a town Mark Twain said he’d like to be when the world ends because it’s twenty years behind. Standing heroically amongst it all: Carlo Reinhardt.

The Smoking Diaries by Simon Gray
Fascinating perspectives on life and art and getting old from the pen of the late playwright.

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov
Slim and spellbinding. As I recall, the final scene in the dark is extraordinarily vivid and suspenseful.

The Loved One by Ev Waugh
Regrettable, as California must have been for Waugh.

Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis
Biblical in its delicious spearing of celebrity culture. Loved it.

Mao II by Don Delillo
Didn’t work for me at all.

Couple of Comedians by Don Carpenter
Funny borderline psychotic world of a platinum-selling comedy/singing duo. Narrator is the deadpan and his partner is the genius. Carraway to his Gatsby.

Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’71 by Hunter S Thompson
Thompson’s last great book. Mighty.

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S Thompson
Oral biography using Plimpton’s Paris Review technique (see also definitive books on Truman and Edie).

Anagrams by Lorrie Moore
Lorrie writes the best brainiest, wittiest single women around. This one shall we say has an active imagination. Tells a lot of elaborate jokes ad the strike rate is damn near 100 per cent. Has drawn comparisons to Sally Bowles and I can see that.

Like Life by Lorrie Moore
More stories about bracing wit as tonic for life’s eternal disappointments

A Cool Million by Nathanael West
Inventive whimsy of misfortune befalls main character in his quest for bourgeois respectability

CATCH 22 by Joseph Heller
A reader-friendly Gravity’s Rainbow

Ask the Dust by John Fante
Starving for literary prestige in Thirties L.A.

Born Standing Up by Steve Martin
Starving for stardom in Sixties L.A.

Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Devil descends or rather ascends on Moscow in early Twentieth Century, terrorising literary mag editors, theatregoers, and accountants with elements of the dark supernatural. Accompanied by a seven foot jockey and an enormously fat cat with a cold black heart made of shit. On the ‘Amazing Race’ a few weeks ago contestants went to Bulgakov’s apartment as part of their scavenger hunt.

Ninety in the Shade by Thomas McGuane
A second read of this ensured its entry into the echelon of my favourite books. Never would I have thought a novel about fishing guides could be so essential.

Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This by Bruce Beresford
Reading this, I recall being struck by its similarity in style and thought to the Simon Gray diaries, only to discover, in these pages, that Beresford read it and hated it! Curiously indirect bit of self-loathing perhaps? This book is a classic.

Gulcher by Richard Meltzer
Series of short, random essays from one of my writing heroes.

Professor of Desire by Philip Roth
I hated this book!

The Summer He Didn’t Die by Jim Harrison
I loved this book!

The Boat by Nam Le
Auspicious debut. First story is the piece de resistance, though I’ve yet to finish the rest.

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff
Seriously great.

Keep the Change by Thomas McGuane
Wonderful book. The scene where Joe shows up to meet the lawyer covered in cologne samples and the reaction he gets is so priceless it had me laughing out loud on the tram. You really can’t ask for more than that first thing in the morning.

Black Postcards by Dean Wareham.
Like I needed an excuse to pull out my Galaxie 500 and Luna albums. As good as the Steve Martin book (another honest book about the implications of being an urbane artist), or any of Dean’s musical achievements.

A Good Day to Die by Jim Harrison
Hillbilly rewrite of Jules & Jim. Narrated by cultured, reckless feller. Disturbing and heartbreaking.

4 Days and 4 Nights in Daylesford

photos by de campo

Year in Music

Albums I reviewed for Plan B this year, in order of preference, accompanied by tantalising review extract.

CCR reissues
“Creedence is Creedence is Creedence, Man! Shall I continue? Sure!” (And by golly he did..)

Softboiled Eggies, Try it Again
“Floating on a galaxy of warm, downbeat poly-rhythms, crush-worthy singer Janet does Mari Elliot dub reggae, Raincoats’ covers and tears up future dance parties with a triumph called Can You Send Blame? “

Flavour Crystals, Ambergris
“At first I wanted the songs to slide off the rails a bit, but not anymore. I’m cold. I don’t want to be surprised. Just soothed.”

Yellow Moon Band, Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World
“Needs a sticker on it that says, ‘Now you’re jammin’!”

Inner Space Soundtrack, Sven Libaek
“Wes Anderson plucked this rare pearl from the clamshell of soundtrack obscurity and plugged a few cuts into his Steve Zissou picture where they fit like an old pair of flippers.”

Destroyer, Trouble in Dreams
“The mood is caterwaul casual and the message is the world is fucked.”

Beaches
“Pronounce Bitches like a louche Mexican and there you have it: Beaches, a stone-cold classic.”

Atlas Sound, Let the blind lead those who can see but cannot feel
“The tall, skinny deer caught in the strobe lights of Deerhunter’s dazzling art-rock, singer Bradford Cox brings seven layers of stoned noise to this, his official debut under Atlas Sound (a name he’s recorded with since he was 12).”

Boyracer, Flickering B+W
“Like the motto stencilled on Charley Varrick’s van, Boyracer are one of ‘the last of the independents’.”

Pivot, O Soundtrack my Heart
“A stunning assault on the John Carpenter precinct of electronic rock...minimalism so absolute they named a vodka after it.”

The Lord Dog Bird, The Lord Dog Bird
“When done this well, 4-tracks speak truer to our messed-up existence than any other method — additional tracks just seem superfluous.”

Taman Shud, Goolutionites and the Real People
“Give some top grade acid to an environmentally-conscious hard rock band whose name means ‘The Ultimate End’ and suddenly all they want to do is save trees.”

Castanets, In the Vines
“Ringing guitar tones hang in the air like vultures in some weird burrito western.”

Part Wild Horses Mane on Both Sides, Bataille de Battle
“The ‘War and Peace’ of scorching flute skronks.”



Gable, 7 Guitars with a Cloud of Milk (Loaf)
“Attention Deficit Twee (ADT) from Paree, sporting a deadpan melancholee.”

Spectrum, Milesago
“You won't find any Neu-inflected space trance here, only an earthy Mike Rudd imploring you to 'Do the Crab' (from the ten-minute, four part 'Sideways Saga') with a humour that’s hard to decode.”

KES Band
“It's like Raymond Carver without Gordon Lish. He needs an editor.”

Star Spangled Banger
“Often likened to Bonzo Dog Band, who, if I’m not mistaken, are today’s musical equivalent of a stop sign no one pays any attention to.”

Renfro
“She said it sounds like The Blow on a bad day, I said it's not that good.”

Grand Salvo, Death
“A neat concept from Down Under about a bear, a bird, a rat, a rabbit and a hunter. Still it’s hard to care about a dying rat. And why no marsupials?”

The Bronx, The Bronx
“Angus Youngish riffs, but more relentless than AC/DC ever were. Gives me a reason to be unhappy about a lot of stuff I should care a lot less about.”

The Condors, Wait for it
“That band from that seaside bar who you kept begging to play Two Tickets to Paradise the night you got totally shitfaced and busy with the Mother of your ex-girlfriend's fiancé, who walked in and saw you all over Mother with a bottle of beer foaming in your hand.”

The All New Adventures of Us, Best Loved Goodnight Tales
“Northampton’s very own Friends. The Ross of the group mourns a world gone sad (“Does anyone remember laughter?”) and makes dreadful admissions (“I know a girl with two grazed knees and I like her”), while the others marshal a fearlessly militant twee.”

Alberta Cross, The Thief & The Heartbreaker
“My advice is dump those shitty Ryan Adams’ records in the river and try on some Tom Petty (but don’t whiten your teeth!).”

I’m listening to New Order with my shirt on backwards!

Only I don’t know it yet. When I go outside for a walk I will attempt to put my iPOD in my breast pocket and I will discover there’s no breast pocket nor is there an alligator insignia down the front. That is when I will realise that my shirt is on backwards. I will quickly duck down a secluded side street and remedy the situation. Then I’ll ask myself why not one person had alerted me to this fact. I will wonder, am I that unworthy of people’s attention. A solitary tear will drop from my eye.

Define twee

Literary-minded, musically-spineless and the singers are usually these awfully tedious people who feel superior because they’ve read all of F Scott Fitzgerald’s books. Oscar Wilde said people are either charming or tedious. So basically what I’m saying is you have Jarvis Cocker at one end and some wispy dude in spectacles with a trenchant head cold giving cardigans a band name on the other. Their fans are interchangeable so a night out can be a humourless soul-sucking disaster. I imagine them to be very good at trivia. Twee has become a pejorative for mediocre bands of a certain style that royally suck. Probably the best example of twee is a Melbourne band named after a seasonal mammal.












not twee

The bombastic cries of a man living too long in Sasquatch country

Steve Malkmus review

Guest Playlist 18th November Night of the Assassins 3CR (The Moritza Midnight Special)

Freeway - Beaches
Everything with You- The Pains of Being Pure at Heart
Song for Tiki- Lindsay Low Hand
Kindling for the Master (Polmo Polvo Remix)- Stephen Malkmus
Operation- Deerhunter
Alchemy- Richard Lloyd
Hey! Little Child- Alex Chilton
What's Going On - Jungle Brothers
Strange Victory, Strange Defeat- Silver Jews
Let's Hang On- The Four Seasons
Life in Suburbs- New Estate
Place in the Sun- Triffids
Elevation- Television
When a Whiskey Buys a Whiskey- Craven Fops
Fuck Books- Times New Viking
Minimum Amount of Fuss- Flywheel
Agoraphobia- Deerhunter
Ooga- Ooga Boogas
Bad Sneakers- Steely Dan Katy Lied
The Analog Kid- Rush
Be Careful, Baby, Be very Careful- Dory Previn
Viaduct- The Pastels

Saturday between 11.30am and five o' clock

Got on my bike and took Mia’s birthday gift back to the shop where I bought it from (she already had the gift apparently, at least that’s what her husband said even though he thinks I don’t trust him, but I do) asked the clerk if they had the new deerhunter in, not for Mia, for me (for my forthcoming bike ride to Suzy’s school fair) they didn’t, so I tried somewhere else, they didn’t have it there either, so I bought Mia something from somewhere else and thought screw it, I wanted deerhunter, I needed it and got on my bike and went to Polyester Records, sun on my face, wind at my rear (note I said “at” not “out”) and they had it by George, they had it. Went home and loaded it on iTunes, put a bloody mary in me, conversed with Zelda Fitzgerald, Noel Coward and Chuck Paulahnik, the drink was multi-faceted with a lot of different types of quality in it, I appreciated the effort that went into making it and said as much, hopped back on my bike, strapped with an updated iPOD, the music was so warm and nice in my ears, the tunes lightening my lobe, the bike path led me right to Suzy’s school, though Toby had to wave me down as I actually shot past it, came back, parked it, walked out on the artificial grass where stalls were assembled, Suzy’s friend Shay was there, toby, her and I went and ordered a bottle of champagne, it was the only option really, beer would have been better but the person manning the booze tent organised a bunch of winter beer that’s best to sip, thinking about it now makes me thirsty, gee, my writing is awfully sensual, Toby handed me a birthday gift in the form of The Ultramagnetic MC’s Critical Beatdown on vinyl, my goodness, an erudite selection, thank you Toby, Dave Reeder then walked up, he had his shades on you could tell he’d been dealt a crazy blow the night previous and it turns out Go Genre Everything and copious booze were behind it, Mia and her husband, plus Sadie and her followers turned up after that, I exchanged pleasantries with them all, informed Mia I did not have her present with me even though I bought it less than an hour earlier (left it at home), and then I had to jet, bid farewell while Mia was singing a couple of numbers, headed back, lost my bearings in Clifton Hill, retrieved them on wellington street, took a right at the Tote, turned left on Smith Street, parked my bike there and walked to Mario’s Pizza parlour, my final destination, people were outside caning beers, inside Jane Dust was belting her lungs out in her own big-hearted way, her shiny Charlie’s Angels hair, wavy and terrific, pearls in her ears, by the time I squeezed myself up front and said hello to her sissy, who hugged me and asked why I was sweaty, her last song finished, ugh, went up and chatted to Clare Moore, who was there with Kaye Patterson, apparently a smashing singer, the word on the street is they have formed an act called Patterson and Moore, they expressed concern the name might sound too much like an accounting firm and they’re right but I didn’t say anything, at the end of the day the music will be what matters I looked down my shoulder and wouldn’t you believe I was standing next to a table full of free pizza, so I used my position to an advantage and had a slice! It was good pizza, Phillippa who was standing next to the pizza too, said that she used to order the Volcano when she worked at the Tote and I could understand why she did when that one came out because that one was particularly tasty with hot salami and capers, I was eyeing the merchandise next to the pizza, some nice gatefold vinyl of the ooga boogas who were launching their album with Jane Dust, a personal friend of mine as support and plenty of free pizza. I had my eyes more on the pizza than the music, but the pizza was too hot so I talked to the merch girl about the merch and she was from Virginia but I didn’t figure that at all, until she said so and I said I’d liked to hear the music first before I buy the album and then the Ooga boogas started playing and the pizza was no longer hot, but the music sure was and I turned to Elizabeth, my fingers covered in grease and said this is the kind of show where they don’t give you any serviettes and you just wipe your hands on your face. She said that good, huh? I nodded with a big ole grin. Bought the vinyl, but I think I’ll give it to Mia and take back the other thing I bought her.

Me circa 11am tomorrow

"THEY...CALL...A-LA-BA-MA...THE...CRRRIMMMM-SON TII-IIIIIDE."

Boogie Down Productions

Phone rings amidst subtle synthesiser interference. Receiver lifted: “Yo Kris I really knocked the boots on these two big butt females last night…Yeesh. I’m on my way to Latin Quarter to find two more freaks…WORD…”

That’s the late Scott La Rock relaying a tawdry message to his proud partner KRS-One at the intro of Boogie Down Productions’ Super Hoe, Kris then goes on to rave about his partner’s prurient, panther-like prowess for the next four minutes.

I first heard the South Bronx pair on Portland Community Radio. KBOO had a monster reggae hour, dishing crackly 60s echo chamber dub straight into my earhole with good, old-fashioned alacrity. My interest in reggae stemmed from an interest in the Patrick Ewing, dominant Georgetown Hoya center. I learned he liked reggae because he played a lot of it when he guest hosted MTV, an episode I taped and watched over and over again (He was also from Jamaica, which might have helped). He played a version of Bob Marley’s Jammin’ intercut with footage of him slam-dunking the basketball. I pictured myself making rum and running guns in the Caribbean with some disgusting renegades. It was kind of funky.

Reggae was a gateway into rap, which would prove to have an even greater affect on my quality of life. The KBOO rap show was on after midnight on school nights. When I remembered to set my alarm, I woke up and recorded it. Damn it was so good. The show introduced me to some of the mid-80s greats: Just-Ice, King Tee, Gigolo Tony, TLA Rock, Mantronix (my hero) and Audio Two, to name a few. Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded wasn’t the first rap tape I ever bought, but it proved to be the most formative in expanding my ever-widening hardcore gangster persona.

I picked it up from 2nd Avenue Records in downtown Portland on my 14th birthday. It was me Mike, Ben, Jimbo and damn if I can remember who else, chaperoned around by my Mother. We were inside McDonalds eating lunch when we saw her fall down in the middle of the street. We collapsed from laughter our mouths crammed full of cheeseburger. Certainly a low-point in this teenager’s life.

Ramblin' Man

The laksa available from Blue Chillies lunch special might be a tad too coconutty, but the trick is to not slurp the whole soup (which I’ve done regrettably and got a hiding by my internals), but merely gorge on the solids. Chomp down hard on the spongy tofu and the spicy coconut flavour explodes in your mouth with bombastic aplomb. After lunch, we were lucky to find one of those trendy shops on Gertrude Street giving away stuff for almost nothing. I came away with a t-shirt and de campo a dress, this gave us plenty of momentum, then we bought a clock, four trucker caps ($4), some mosquito repellent in the form of a low-frequency sonar device (50% off) we were on a roll! Picked up a six-pack of beer ($13.95), then I made pizza dough, the outcome was okay but there were a few false starts. Watched Wolf Creek, which is not a disgrace, nor is it anything special either. Certainly rubbish compared to America’s Next Top Model.

FrankenMcCain

If I was McCain's campaign manager (arguably the most loathsome job in America), I would have instructed him to pull his sport coat over his face anytime Obama was speaking. Although this may cast the image of unnerving pervy guilt, it would probabaly have played better in Columbus, Ohio than the maniacal face gestures, eye rolling, and tongue lolling antics that Mccain subjected us to. You would think after three debates some might have told him how he comes off in a split screen image.

For Halloween, I am going as "FrankenMcCain". I have got a McCain mask, bolts for the neck, green make-up and a sash that calls me "FrankenMcCain an erratic monster". Elizah will be wearing a "Miss Alaska" sash (or an Idaho journalism major sash. The jury is still out). The only mechanical question, is how do I pull off drinking my Makers, considering that I can't lift my arms above my belt? Long Twizzle straws.

- email from H

Check out my new watch

It’s flipping fabulous. Just don’t ask me what time it is.

Deerhunter, Microcastle

I have had Deerhunter's Microcastle downloaded for over a month now. A new genre has been born, "Prurient Power Pop". Lilting melodies and great rave-ups often obscure the fact of how creepy Bradford's lyrics can be. Kind of like that inscrutable van parked ominously down the block. It can either a guy in a clown suit handing out candy to kids ... or even worse, the government ala "Burn After Reading" staking you out.
By all accounts, Deerhunter tore up NXNW. Someone in the crowd asked how much Bradford weighed, violence almost broke out, the cool younger Benicio del Toro-esque guitarist puked behind the amplifier, continued to swig Makers and then they tore the roof off of Holocene with their set.

- email from H

My Dad Falls Down, My Old Leather Jacket Turns Me into a Tosser, Ashton Kutcher Plays Himself and a Horse Gets Overly Friendly Before Bedtime

Two dreams I experienced lying down last night, they may have been the same dream but I doubt it, the only constant was the presence of my dear old Dad, and there’s also the issue that one took place during the day and the other at night, so since day comes before night I’ll tell you that one first, I’m standing in the bedroom I grew up in and Dad comes in stinking drunk and sunburned from playing golf, he falls into my wardrobe and is laying there in a heap cackling and I get a little worried because I know his knees aren’t the best.

I leave the room in a huff not because of Dad’s behaviour but because I’m a jerk and I’m depressed as hell and I’m a serious artist living with my parents in the suburbs and Ashton Kutcher is in the dining room and he’s in my face all ebullient and he’s trying to get my attention and it takes awhile to register just who this annoying jackass is, and even when I do, I do not acknowledge him in any way, I snub him because I am an arrogant jackass and I got so much angst to burn and I’m wearing the leather jacket I bought in London in ’96 on Portobello Road that I ended up leaving there because it was deadweight and I guess I kind of miss it and it’s fitting me here more comfortably than it ever has and I’ve got my anti-nuclear power t-shirt on and I’m brooding my way through the kitchen and there’s Ashton’s Dad Gary, my Dad’s golf partner, who was a bearded guy I actually knew back in high school and he worked for the Portland Police Department and he’s all giddy, I don’t acknowledge him either as I move through the kitchen and into the family room where I sit down on the couch in a heap staring at my crotch with an overwhelming sense of numbness to it all.

Next I’m in an anonymous barn on the top floor and it’s dark and I’m laying down among the stacks of hay and Dad is with me and he’s really impressed that my horse (colour:brown) is such a friendly feller, sleeping next to me and licking my face like a dog and I’m thinking horses are just the most affectionate creatures in the world and then the big fella, who has most of his weight on me, which surprisingly doesn’t hurt, has to get up and relieve himself like we all do at night sometimes but this guy he really has to go and he goes all over the side wall and Dad and I look at each other like oh man and then the big feller lies back down beside me and together we fall fast asleep.

THE END

The Mother and The Whore and an Orphan Named Chuong

“That portrait is so bleak I feel obliged to disapprove of, even to despise it. But its power over me is such that I can’t despise it without despising myself in the bargain.”

— Jonathan Rosenbaum, writing about Jean Eustache’s The Mother and The Whore (1973)

My thoughts exactly Mr. Rosenbaum, I too, found this wildly hard-hitting film very confronting. Thinking about it now saddens me immensely, which is crazy because leaving the theatre the other night I couldn’t help thinking about how its characters were so overwrought, drunkenly poetic and frankly nuts that my only response to this 215 minute film was my, what audacity! The film will be forever marked by tragedy (the suicide of the director and one of the lead actresses) that illustrates the futility with what the movie was trying to say artistically. Now David Foster Wallace has taken his own life over similar frustrations. Must take a minute silence and vow to be less intimidated by DFW's Infinite Jest, a big, brainy, baggy, bloated book I’ve stopped and started at least three times.

and now for something way different, almost wacky...

On a hot morning sometime in August, I was at Dha Nang airport feeling impressively seedy. A tall European couple stood in front of the communal TV, preventing me and my interesting lady friend from watching an Olympic event involving mayhem in the pool, there was no swimming involved but there was treading in the water and the men were armed with spearguns and I think I saw a young manatee floating within the bloody melee, I persisted to watch this asinine spectacle, reading was simply not an option physiologically, I was having a hard enough time keeping the beef noodle soup and four cups of coffee down. So as I was saying, these awful, awfully inconsiderate people blocking the TV happened to be embalmed in various types of plastic surgery spanning the cosmetic rulebook from routine augmentations to more radical procedures involving sow ears and advances in decompressed fish oils, our making funny of them kept us in a buoyant mood. De Camponator’s boarding pass said Jolee for Joleen, her middle name, minus the ‘N’. A lot like Jolie, if you ask me.

I tell her instead of getting a refreshing towellette like everyone else does — you get a Cambodian boy named Chuong! This provided further amusement until the airline announced it was time to board and we dragged ourselves into the cockpit and got us there.

Hoi An

Hanoi, it was the best of times, it was the occasional mountain of despair. Maybe the infernal temperatures made everyone a bit tetchy under their silk. Our unwillingness to cooperate with thieves was probably underestimated by them a little bit. The results were often upsetting for both parties in different ways.

On to Hoi An, Hanoi’s anagrammatic cute kid sister. The Lorrie Moore to Wendy O. Williams’ Hanoi (terrible analogy). Incidentally, De Campi (rhymes with shrimp scampi) was reading Moore’s 'Anagrams' at the time. If only I had been listening to The Plasmatics huh? Not really, however I am deeply familiar with her film Reform School Girls. We had lots of fun talking about that book Anagrams, De Campo and I, these conversations were impossible to ignore and should be anthologised. It’s a shame more people couldn't hear them.

First day we made it one block on our bikes, before we got hot and had beer. We were then bombarded by a girl, who was annoying at first, but ultimately charmed our pants off. We gladly accompanied her to her house down a cosy village street where her Mother served us noodle soup and her sister took down our measurements. I had two serves, De Campi one. We got on the back of their motorbikes later and went to karaoke in a lush outdoor setting decorated in Christmas lights where we were the only Whiteys.

Singers sang songs that they knew all the words to, they didn’t need teleprompters — good thing because there weren’t any! Guy on stage played lounge keyb. Everyone drank hot beers in cold glasses filled with ice. De Campo and I drank em warm. Just throw your empties under the table was the etiquette. De Campo watched singers closely and commented: “Great mic control,” she said. The fella wore a ‘under the ineluence’ t-shirt. (Don’t think there are ‘f’s’ in Vietnam alphabet, or else it might say ‘effluence’). She continued: “Now you see, when he has those really big notes he pulls the MIC away.“ One tune by a singer named Carthy did more for complex melodies than Elvis Costello. Another song sounded like the Arthur theme. Music was good, far too many ballads though.

The night ended in an alleyway on a plastic stool sitting in a circle with some old guys eating noodles. We devoured these great noodles, while giant rats darted between our legs. A few days later the family presented us with some new nice fitting clothing.

The second day in Hoi An, I genuinely figured De Campo had been kidnapped when we lost each other at a busy intersection. I freaked out and started imagining terrible things. Her mashed head poking out of Pepsi trucks cruising by, a bruised, mangled hand creeping over the side of a dumpster, or screaming from the open shutters of a setback house. I even saw a bike that looked like the one she was riding on the side of the road nearby.

What could I do?

I went back to the hotel room and put on more sunscreen. I didn’t want to get sunburned. I returned to where I lost her. I developed another movie treatment for Judge Reinhold as I sat at the lights. American Aussie expat going on a rescue rampage to stop a group of angry fundamentalists from holding his girl for ransom. Not Without my Girlfriend, it would be called.

It was pretty exciting when we ran into each other on a side street. We hit a bar and had a rejuvenating tequila shot.

There was Big American Randy who ran Randy’s books, we had a browse of his shelves, he watched us hawklike from a comfy chair under lamplight in the corner, eating some dish that smelled meaty that he had heated up in the microwave. We said goodbye to good old Randy without buying anything and Randy said “All these books and you didn’t find anything you liked?” That’s right Randy your books are shit. Enjoy your bean burrito!

Hoi An was so great. At one point, I smacked a huge cockroach that was on the wall with de campo’s thong and it ricocheted off the curtain and into her stocking. That was like the most serious run-in we had in Hoi An. Night before we flew the coop, we drank vodka and since we couldn’t close the cap properly we drank the whole bottle and sat on the balcony watching rats sneaking into garbage bags on the streets below. Back to our roots!

Hanoi Day 3: Journeying

Last night I met Journey’s Steve Perry and Neil Schon in my dreams. I was singing them the words to their hit song Firewater (the lyrics consist of one word screeched operatically: Firewater). They really don’t have a song called Firewater and probably for that reason they didn’t seem too amused, however I was assured by a young lady afterwards that they were so I woke up feeling rather confident starting my day.

I'm rather surprised by the mildness of that dream considering what I discovered in the bathroom prior to going to bed. Behind the medicine cabinet was a frightening view into the wall cavity — a portal to a netherworld, large enough for a person to sneak through (I even looked behind the mirror to make sure it wasn't too way). Anyway I went to bed scared as hell and dreamt about Journey. I began to consider that that and the Traffic Lights could produce a supernatural short story set in Hanoi with some degree of weird potential about "Journeying" through time and space.

We had to be up early to get the bus to the bay for our overnight cruise.

There was a guy on the bus that we nicknamed Brian after one of Gavin’s characters in his novel. Brian kept saying stupid things to the tour guide and the four of us were snickering in the back of the bus like the cool kids in class. Industry: “What brand of scooter do they make the most of here?” Cultural differences in law enforcement: “In Australia police flash their lights.”

The boat was like a nicer version of a pirate ship and made of dark rose-coloured timbers. The food was fresh seafood and excellent. The cruise director was a bit of a scamp and a boor. He made a series of calculating moves regarding money and the completion of evaluation surveys that bugged me.

The views were nice and samey. The water was calm like our moods. We saw caves and went kayaking. I flipped the kayak and put De Campo in the drink. Blake and Contessa saw a giant water millipede. Contessa slipped on my wet footprint and broke three toes trying to get into the boat. I cited bad karma over the spring roll incident. We kicked back in the ship’s bowels and had some rejuvenating tequila shots.

At midnight we imbibed a warm bottle of sparkling rose to celebrate Blake’s birthday. It was a subdued moment.

Contessa didn’t go to the doctor. She would wait until the following night in Bangkok. Furthermore I had to get to Hanoi and collect my card from the bank before it closed on Friday!

We farewelled Blake and Contessa with tapas at La Salsa near the Cathedral in Hanoi. It was sultry. We sat on the balcony in the awesome heat, drizzling sweat, eating goast and blue cheese as the sun set and cheered a good forty-seven times (not Blake's age). My face gleamed like a perverted maniac covered in petroleum jelly.

My search for St John’s Wort, a natural anxiety fix continued fruitlessly, perhaps owing to the constantly agitated state this town is running on - they don’t have the time to be depressed. Their synapses are too wired for ambiguous soul-sucking fears. They’re too concerned about the next three seconds than anything else. This town MOVES!

Later, we perused the night market, De Campo and I. Knife-wielding maniacs on mopeds slashed open her bag at a busy intersection and her eyeglasses fell out. Meanwhile I bought three Lacoste shirts that fit perfectly. Score!

Postscript Day 2: Hanoi

Forgot to tell you why Blake and Contessa weren’t at their hotel the morning we were set to go to Ho Chi Minh’s together. Their hotel room stunk so bad of mould they had to leave in the middle of the night, Blake banging his suitcase violently down the stairs, waking the staff in sleeping bags in front of the desk (pretty common place for them to sleep).

When they tried to leave, the staff put their biggest crew guy (5’3”) in front of the door. Tensions mounted when Contessa sat on their Buddha shrine. “I thought it was a box. I was tired!!” They paid the hotel who overcharged them then paid a taxi driver who overcharged them to pay for a hotel who overcharged them.

Also, I neglected to mention what we did after catching up and sharing war stories at the Parisian cafe — we visited the Temple of Literature, a place of learning since 1070. “Just think people have been bored here for a thousand years,” cracked Blake, an architect transforming the high-roller’s room of a Macao casino.

We had a good look around and then we saw an alluring balcony across the street and thought how refreshing it would be to have a drink there. This was Koto’s, a happening place designed by benevolent sorts to get aimless cretins or disadvantaged punks off the street and into the mindset of a hot shit chef or bartender. The cocktails they made there were incendiary. Blake and I imbibed chilli-infused concoctions and began singing Bad Company’s Feel Like Making Love involuntarily. We also discussed Toto, but I am pretty sure that’s because Toto rhymes with Koto. I saved a couple slices of chilli from my drink to have with one of the spring rolls that were included in the Koto sampler plate we ordered, but never had the chance to use them as Contessa ate the last spring roll with utter disregard for my feelings!

Day 2: Hanoi Pt II

Don't get me wrong there's still some absolute assholes in Vietnam like the taxi driver who slammed the car door on De Campo and pulled a billy club out of his trunk and threatened to beat me with it when we said he was an absolute asshole for trying to rip us off on cab fare coming back from Ho Chi Minh's place.

De Campo, teary and shaken, took his number down, he sped off, a shopkeeper notified the police, we ran into our travel companions outside a Parisian cafe on the way to the police station, filed a report, then had a rejuvenating shot of tequila and a beer chaser back at the aforementioned cafe with our friends. Whew.

It was 11.45am.

Man that guy was a demonic dickhead.

Perhaps my pink polo shirt and baby blue fanny pack made me look too vulnerable and fatalistic like Judge Reinhold playing Harvey Keitel's pimp in Taxi Driver.

I told Blake and Contessa about my ironic Brando dream the night before and Blake said he'd 'been trying to get a booking with Brando for weeks and weeks and nothing.'That raised my spirits if not my fortunes. Heading to dinner the ATM ate my bank card. Got to the restaurant and had more rejuvenating tequila shots.

Da ting about extremely chaotic cities like dis is that the highs are galvanising and ecstatic and the lows call for rejuvenating tequila shots.

Day 2: Hanoi Pt I

I had a fitful sleep dreaming that I met Marlon Brando and his accountant, a young James Caan, at a corporate conference, and exuberantly, almost obnoxiously, laid on the charm. Brando was unamused, or if he was amused he did not show it, however I was assured by a young lady afterwards that he was so I woke up feeling rather confident to start the day.

Our travel companions weren't in their hotel so we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum by ourselves. Prior to his death in 1969 Ho Chi - Uncle Ho to his people ('you ever notice how Ho Chi Minh and Col. Sanders are never seen in the same place?' Blake asked and I said 'well he's been dead for almost forty years...')- requested his ashes be spread equally throughout North and South Vietnam. Instead he was placed in a glass case in a freezing cold room surrounded by stone-faced guards, accessible to visitors at fifty cents a pop (A distasteful joke about Ho Chi Minh's head in a jar of rice liqueur was inevitable). Keep quiet though. De Campo said "He's trapped in a glass case of emotion!" and nearly got jabbed with a bayonet by one of the guards.

I have a hard time detecting flaws in Ho Chi Minh's politics/ideologies. He lived in France for thirty years under a different name and was there during World War II when Germany occupied France and France occupied Vietnam, so there's no doubt what side of the fence he was on then. Though I'm pretty sure Fascism appalled him.

According to the guidebooks, Communism best suited Ho Chi Minh's anti-colonialism.
He seemed like a freedom fighter and Communism was probably the best way to rally large numbers of people. The costs of being Communist was huge. The US specialised in sending messages to the big people (Russia and China) by crushing the little people (Vietnam). After years of funding France's ultimately failed attempt to take Vietnam, the US stepped in and it was awful. Just awful.

Ho Chi Minh lived an admirable life in a home of modest means with an unexciting Peugeot that's still in the garage. If this is a smokescreen to cover up a life of cocaine bars and loose women, please correct me, but Ho Chi seems an altrusitic chap who gave his all the the people. I wonder if Bruce Springsteen has Uncle Ho's head embroidered on the buttcheeks of his jeans.

Day 1: Hanoi

Compliments on my fanny pack continued in Hanoi. Our travel companions were aglow, abuzzed and agush over its strange aesthetic powers.

I had fun riding bikes around the Old Quarter with Blake the next morning. He maintained his composure and his hair ended up pretty much the same way it started. Dukovny-esque.

It was pretty trippy dodging the high-paced throngs. Old guys pulling carts of mangoes suddenly apearing from out of the blue, lots of women in pointy straw hats carting avocados and bananas hanging from baskets at the end of bamboo poles they had balanced on their shoulders, mopeds up the ying-yang tooting their horns, greyhounds swivelling on spits in a giggle of yelping blazes...

Across the street from the Quilt Society where Blake and Contessa were finalising the purcase of an exquisite bed spread, De Campo and I were shooting through the saloon doors of Highway 4 and sauntering in like a couple of shit-eating cowpokes hankering for a thirst.

Highway 4 specialised in rice liqueurs. Big jars like the kind scientists keep fetuses in were collected around the bar and full of the stuff. The most interesting ones contained geckos and honeybees. The English guy who ran the place was sitting nearby. He had Steven Seagal karate hair and porkchop sideburns. He pointed at the rice liqueurs menu and suggested we stick to the fruity ones. Blake had a White Ginseng called One Night, Five times. The Great Contessa's tasted like floor varnish. De Campo's were the tastiest if the least adventurous. I had Traffic Lights, a tricoloured cocktail (red= Mulberry liquer; amber=orange juice; and green=creme de yum) that turned me into a clairvoyant. I was suddenly nine minutes ahead of everyone as I sped through the red light and quickly approached the yellow. 'What Traffic Lights?' quipped Blake.

My stomach ached for food and the wild horse pie, grlled dogmeat and crickets on the menu had me twisted up in nervous knots. Who would have known, not even my psychic drink could have foresaw this, me sticking a roasted sparrow into my hungry maw a few hours later, but that's what I did and you know what, it was good, but not as good as the corndog shrimp or the crabmeat and at least I didn't eat the head however I will say this: the talons were fantastic!

No One Gets Out of Here Alive (or Linda Hunt call your lawyer)

The apocalyptic cab ride from the airport to Hanoi's old quarter was like a scene from a weird movie: Escape from New York or the Year of Living Dangerously, except the cab driver wasn't the bodacious Adrienne Barbeau and I am no Linda Hunt (though my uncharacteristic emotive performance forthcoming should earn me an award in the academy of life if there ever was one).

It took us a little over a half an hour to cross over the street to get to the Hanoi queen II, our hotel, by which time at least a thousand scooters zipped by full-throttle. I already hate the motor maniacs. The rule of the road is there is no rule of the road so run like buggery, be assertive and pray they brake!

No wonder these kids are so adept at videogames their moped hand-eye is startling.

Please kill me.

The acne-complected teenage desk clerk had bad news. The family in the room we booked were apparently very sick. Sensing mischief in the impish cock of the desk clerks pimply brow we called bullshit - the turd nonetheless relocated us to the Queenstar, a hotel that smelled of mice with louvred windows peering into a ventilation shaft festering with a great deal of mould. I drove a beer into my stomach to take the edge off and grabbed the phone (it didn't work of course had to call the desk dill in to work a turn key), checking the recommendations in our rough guide. We found a vacancy near the cathedral.

As we departed the queenstar lobby, I was handed the phone. It was the unscrupulous desk clerk of a ratbag at the Hanoi Queen II. A terse argument ensued. I endeavoured to eviscerate his corrupt soul. I took him apart with a flurry of hard nouns he would have gotten the gist of because the next thing I knew he had lost his cool, raised his voice and effectively snapped. He shouted in my ear and then he hung up the phone. Linda Hunt eat your heart out. Unbeknownst to me, he had whispered dark voodoo vengeance upon my vacation experiences. I would pay.

The next hotel was clean with balcony and our holiday companions, Blake Menzies and the Great Contessa, over from Macao, were right around the corner from us. We walked over and raided their fridge. They were watching Indochine on the laptop and never looked some goddamn life-affirming. We needed them more than they needed us to be sure and they would deliver by God...

*the remaining manuscript has been lost*

Dead Fish Bar/Restaurant, Siem Reap, an emotional watershed

We had some time to kill before the glorious night market opened so we took refuge inside this bar and restaurant called the Deadfish. Don't know what compelled us inside as it had a really dilapidated facade and building materials cluttering the entry (we both agreed later that it had an amenable ring of familiarity like it had been written up in the hotel guidebook or something).

Constructed from reclaimed timbers, sheathed in corrugated iron, sat on slabs of concrete, the Deadfish is a tall, dark A-frame with four floating mezzanine floors (vertiginous dining areas). A neat trick I never considered for expediting snacks are these trays fixed to diagonal beams delivering drinks from the bar to levels 2-4 via a system of pulleys (the kitchen has its own food lift).

Architecturally Deadfish recalled one of those optical illusion prints by Escher (as in you turn the building inside out and shake it and it's not too different) that are popular with 19 year-olds who are into crystals and Frank Black solo records. The darkness and use of timbers give it a more rustic, log cabin feel as opposed to some airy-fairy print. We were super stoked.

Now whoever said Angkor draft was no fun needs to have their esophagus keg-tested by Deadfish inc. The two pints I drained were effervescent, full-bodied, luscious, thirst-quenching, drippy, runny and damn tasty.

After a couple of those, I had a look around and in one section I noticed a creepy amphibian trawling the shallow waters for lichen under the sub-floor of the guesthouse of which there are rooms for rent at reasonable rates. We were warned not to get too close to the fucker because they'll rip your arm off. A one metre gap of dryland between the creature and the short fence stood a statue of a miniature croc. Some stairs nearby led to a toilet were I had an agreeable number one and returned to the landing near the stairs.

It's a little hard to describe on an emotional level what happened next but needless to say on the far wall what I thought was a concrete crocodile was a real one and I was certain of this once it winked at me. De Campo exited the loo too and nearly crapped herself when it yawned in her personal vicinity. Only a short knee high fence separated us from this magnificent survivor of yesteryear. Five emerged from the depths of the sub-floor when plates of fish were brandished. We ended up feeding them two plates of guppies. It was a lot like feeding dogs, but more fun. Evidently these dudes live under the guesthouse, which was built on a crocodile farm. They have to keep them there or else they'll be turned into wallets.

Siem Reap

We have cable in our hotel room. Been watching some exciting kickboxing. Real nail biters. Russia responds violently to the genocide in Georgia. There is civilian atrocity all over CNN. Jurassic Park dubbed in Cambodian is arguably a better film though the Laura Dern voice is all wrong. However the Goldblum character nails the louche smoothness just fine.

The flight over was even smoother than Cambodia's Goldblum. Clouds like cotton candy and big foamy bubble baths, I snoozed a lot of the way. I don't think it was a coincidence when I awoke the second time an air hostess stood before me with a refreshing towellette - I had drool connecting my chin to my grey fleece.

A massage and a mind-altering pizza coupled with a trip to Angkor wat, an extraordinary temple, led to a weird spell of dehydration that caused me to think aloud while watching Cameron Crowe's elizabethtown back at the room. Orlando Bloom is a designer of some bullshit shoe that looks like crap. He talks on his cellphone way too goddamn much, the superficial jerk. Kirsten Dunst is sickly as the stewardess sent from God. This veiled Christian rock movie totally sucks, but it's kind of fun to sit there and bag it out after a day visiting temples and consider how much more meaningful your life is compared to these douchebags.

Beers are seventy-five cents and deodorant is three dollars fifty. We are drunk all the time and we smell. When the cocktail lounge at the pool picks up, the whole place turns into a pastel party headlined by Sergio Mendes in the back of your mind. I read Chapter Ten of Gavin's side-splittingly witty novel and Catch 22 submerged from the neckdown. Construction noise pretty pervasive. Stacks of 2x4s fall off trucks next door, jackhammers fart aggressively into the street. There's always this guy swinging a sledgehammer into a tin sheet. What's up with that. Angle grinders, motorbikes, young children playing and squeeze toys that sound like monkeys going at it fill the air. You get used to it after awhile. The air is ultra thick with humidity. Mostly cloudy, a mixed blessing as it dimishes the sun's blistering intensity, but diminishes colour possibilities when checking out the temples. Our hotel earns four stars (would be five if it had a fridge).

I sure thought Siem Reap was total chaos the day we arrived - now I'm totally digging it and I've made it 24 hours without an epic struggle on the toilet.

Shoutout to Sunsense, innovators in sunscreen Technology. I tend to avoid protecting my legs from the sun. My leghair is a type of screen made of hair, requiring vast amounts of ultra-violet to perforate the epidermis.

On the third day, I woke up without diarrhea and a curious compunction to spend money, so I procured a somewhat wacky-looking fanny pack and have it strapped to myself in all situations including those involving pre-marital relations.

The seafood salads here are the best in the world ever. De Campo rates the rice paper rolls even higher and she is not wrong. We had a gorgeous lunch inside a butterfly sanctuary. The restaurant pays poor people from the country good money to catch them. Behind my chair a gigantic neon-brite butterfly that looked like a crawdaddy with the wings of a bat, a very unwieldy flyer, grounded itself and I played an indirect part in the rescue of the big creature as it proceeded to get covered in small ants.

Our first morning my mirrored sunglasses came apart in my hands and I replaced them with rose-tinted Ray Bans for the meagre sum of $4. Just to give you an idea of the cost of things.

I've never seen so many bananas attached to one scooter.

I tried the Cambodian specialty, the Amok, on a degustation plate, and found it to next to awful. I kindly informed an English couple who had sidled up next to us at the balcony of this restaurant that the salads were good, the Amok bad. The English fella, who had a spectacular tan and a muscular build in the mold of Lorenzo lamas, kindly informed me that he was willing to give the Amok a try and that he would disregard my other recommendation about the salad also. I think he was practicing some form of reverse discrimination as I was not a man of colour.

Attention Pockets!!

I’ve got it really bad for the new Silver Jews album. I’m singing the songs even when they’re not being sung to me. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted from a floppy disk and and more.

“We’re coming out of the black patch/we’re coming out of the pockets!”

When a song about squirrels sums up your place in the world, even though that place was never a place you've been known to frequent or come out of no less you’ve got no choice but to GIVE IN.

Like I said, I actually don’t know if I’ve ever come out of either of those places, but nevertheless I still see if strangers have an acorn or two to spare in their pockets. It's not very often that they do, but we all need a reason to get up in the morning now don't we