Sydney, it's you

Luved Sydney majorly as it was totally tops and cool as in sweet and nuts as in funny, and hot, especially Saturday when we took the ferry to Manly and came back a bit pink after a long walk on the corso and a school of fish and chips.

Bel was the host with the most and the toast.

We hit gigs both nights and De Campi and I noticed how decent the crowds were. In Melbourne the pretentiousness can at times be positively gag-worthy. Not in Sydney, good people, a polite and rather swell bunch. De Campo thought they were dorky.

'Pretty destroyed' are the first words uttered on Richard Buckner’s newest album Meadow and it kind of summed up his feelings also. When the three of us arrived at The Basement on Friday night, this absolute rustic wonder of a place, we spotted RB in the smoking section, mood ebullient, burning cigarettes down to his fingers, telling anecdotes with a stoned vigour.

Sadly his chatter was spent when he took the stage treating the audience like we weren’t even there and that’s not very nice, retreating into himself like a freaking terrapin. The way he played his songs, as one elongated growling organism, deluded the set, for Richard he be no Fiery Furnace. Olivia later said Bucky was lameo but tears we’re gushing from her ducts when he played certain songs, so what the heck. I probably enjoyed Buck’s set more than my companions (“If Lurch were a minstrel,” zinged the Mistress) but I doubt I’ll put on another one of his records for a little while and that’s no good plus I must say the slow-roasted mushrooms in the meal were the best part and I don’t even consider myself a friend of the fungi.

Met support act Edith Frost, the gel who made Bel reach for her imaginary revolver, in the smoking section afterwards. Edith lives outside Frisco in Hitchcock territory, but she didn’t know that.

The site of a steely-eyed Stan Grant (CNN anchor) front and centre was a bit unnerving at first. The mistress and D made a big deal about how loud he uttered the word trout, which is pretty funny when you think about it. “He really is very handsome,” the mistress said the next morning over coffee and the two of us nearly choked on our seeded toast.

Before Wilco and after Manly, we had a Thai meal next to the open window next to the sidewalk opposite the Enmore Theatre and a nice bottle of Sav with it and life never seemed so good. Wilco were really patchy, I think they may have misplaced their edge, or singer Jeff left it at the rehab clinic, the venue was superb however and they played ‘Spiders (Kidsmoke)’, so I left feeling pretty damn happy.

David Kilgour, The Far Now

When Constable Clean and his smiling heavies swept through Melbourne last month me and the entire cast of Russell Coight’s All Aussie Adventures, started getting down! The hot chicks, hell, they probably dug that shit the most!

I was detained at the box office, but I could hear what was going on from around the curtain and it was beginning to make my toes tremble. By the time I got in I told everyone “hi!” and began slowly devouring a vast quantity of snags Russell was barbequing. Now if I had showed the same modest appetite around the cooker as Mr. Kilgour had brought to the Corner that eve I probably wouldn’t have been sitting down for so long afterwards. Nevertheless, a night of indescribable pleasure was had, but geez Russell, next time go a bit easy on the mosquito coils, it’s a non-smoking venue.

Now Mr. K. he played virtually every song off his latest entitled 'Far Now', a collectionof pleasant psych rock with small stakes set to classy grooves that together add up to a handsome addition to the K canon and as breezy as a slight autumn wind up your rear entry. Opener Sun of God, this weird meditative guitar thing using like 39 guitars or so, including, but not limited to, serene burbles of feedback, stoned drones, a Brian Jones-slide thing that’s a treat and a half among heaps more. BBC World is windows-down action in the order of Kilgour’s charming ’92 effort Here Come The Cars. “I got drunk on the Yenesei,” sings Kilgour on Yenesei before a well-muted Luna-esque jam closes proceedings, guitars howling faintly like a wolfpack across the canyon looking at some dag-nasty animal carcass. But prettier. Like say our own Popolice. Closer ’Out of the Moment’ so rustic and woodsy is like a visit to a logging camp without actually going there and getting hit in the head by an axe handle by your Dad.

The music suffers when Tane Takoma ain’t working the beat like a crime scene reporter, his fedora tilted and his slacks pressed like my man Joe Mitchell. The Dylan influenced stuff kind of stinks too, as Lorraine mentioned that night and that I’m onjly picking up on now, plus the few delicate pieces that don’t seem to go anywhere, they may have been tossed off on the porch or something, they came alive a bit better live and man, Russell cannot get enough of Mr. K. You know he picked up The Clean Anthology and when he’s out in the dust winding up the dingoes, he kicks it to Tally-Ho!

Hey, Glovebox Rox

Sure it took place a few days ago but I don’t care dude I’m a busy man I have a lot of things going on in my life and before I can process what happened you know I’m in the middle of something else and so it goes…

Caught Dylan Moran live at the Arts Centre on Friday night. Best thirty-nine bucks I ever spent. We were up in the balcony and it’s a steep one, folks, seriously, it’s like we were carved into the face of a sharp rock and down below, under the spotlight, is this little speck and he’s Irish and he’s pulling his hair exasperated-like and barking out gut-busting indignities at the world, throwing jaffas at the crowd, etc. and it’s so delightful, his misery, so gigantically riveting, this escapism (more the remarkable given that I had just survived an unusually demanding day at work that depended wholly on my leadership, something I do not know how to do or like to do, preferring short bursts of activity and long, slow mental drifts) and so grotesquely endearing I wanted to tuck him into my sock and bend over and watch him rant on my leg.

Post-coital Dylan Moran, De Campi, Tobe and Suze left the city for Brunswick in a tram that became very crowded very fast we were relieved to get off at the Brunswick Green, one of the best pubs in town (and there are many), who happened to be playing some Pixies’ rip-off by Ryan Adams called Nuclear, one of his better songs actually, it's real good, we ate a plate of wildly great chips, gorged hard, this is after De campo complained vehemenently at the price of two longnecks ($18) but hey the chips weren’t even ours, they were Kirsty Stegwazi’s, who we ran into serendipitously, it was her birthday, what a fine lady, we munched her chips and she didn't even seem to mind, nor make any effort to stop us, got to love her. De Campo was noticeably chuffed. Lucky Kirsty luvs her sum De Campo.

We sneakily stormed Cloud City with a slab strapped to our undershirts, still the owners, these young kids, who have had noise complaints and threats from the police and who despite our indiscreetness, tried to stop us from entering, presumably because of our propensity for zaniness (plus the the whole cops thing of course) and it wasn’t until Prince Nania came to the rescue that the chumps cooled their jets and let us in and we extracted the lagers from our undershirts. On stage Barrage (who seemed subdued and not giving a shit), Panel of Judges (rock me Amadeus, I mean c'mon, that new Sister Ray/Krautrock number is the best) and The Renderers, who were country in the places they weren’t Velvety.

We then moseyed up to the Railway Tavern, this three-storey monstrosity because I heard some weird disco rubbish that sounded kind of fun coming from the inside, it was a smart move because eventually we caught Glovebox in their alarming flesh. Good grief, the lead singer looked like a middle-aged aerobics instructor at a Florida retirement condo circa ’86 crossed with a jack o’ lantern, Jackie Stallone and one of Mike Myers' Jewish ladies singing horrific, X-rated lyrics. It was a little hard to take, but still...I danced.

Fairweather Accent

I scrapped my Aussie accent for the one I used to have, the one that’s been long dormant like a volatile volcano, so I’m using that and treating the other like ash. When I first came to this country, I picked up the Aussie accent straightaway. I was a type of Zelig person, a human chameleon.

After almost eight years, my original accent, if that’s what you even call it, it’s from a different country, surely it must be something, is now sounding really exotic to me, so I’m reverting back to that, whatever ‘that’ is. Sadly, my Aussie verbal jangle doesn’t captivate me like it used to. I’ve even started pronouncing the ‘r’ in Melbourne again. For any listeners out there, I still put a ‘tree’ at the end of cemetery, but I’ve officially dropped “to-mah-toe” for “to-may-toe”.

It’s kind of odd because I go for my immigration interview on Saturday afternoon. Some of the things I’ll appreciate about being an Australian citizen if they allow me to be is firstly being one; then voting the prime minister out of office, the odious little lap dog, the utterly spineless micro-manager who's guaranteed a legacy of pure rotten to-may-toe-ness; having a second passport and just voting in general.

Easter was fun. I went and saw lots of bands. Saw Deerhoof. They were tops. De Campo got a black, Bonds-t-shirt and a CD by LCD Soundsystem called Sound of Silver. It’s a modern dance record with punk cred and it’s monstrously good. Decampo gave me a book of essays by David Foster Wallace called Consider the Lobster. Read some of that, yeah. It’s freaking great but his intelligence is so bracing the prose comes off as mechanical sometimes and there’s so much information it occasionally reads like it’s computer-generated brilliance, but eventually you realise it’s impossible to fault it and you end up loving it, but become a bit numb with envy because he’s so far ahead of the pack with the brain of a scientist, the sensibility of a hipster and the dazzle of a magician. Disconcertingly great. I’m currently in the middle of an entertaining essay he wrote about the adult entertainment industry. After opening gifts, we rode our bikes to Pascoe Vale and ate prawns with De Campo’s family in the backyard of her sister's place over looking the city. It was our first trip out of Fitzroy (excl. city) and it was excellent.

Otherwise, I spent too much money and partied loads (hi Mom!). Gregarious Melbourne, I spoke in a Romanian accent the entire time. I bought the Velvet Underground in Print at the remainders shop. It’s Loaded and I'm penniless.

The Lives of Others

Left the house twice over the weekend. The first was to buy a juice, taco mix and some clearance shorts, the second time was to witness movie mastery. The film was The Lives of Others. De Campo and I loved the hell out of it. More than Le Grand Illusion, for moi. She dug it harder than Chinatown.

Initially tipped off by The New Yorker, after reading a stunning rave review by Anthony Lane, who’s basically your average cinephile trapped in the body of one of the most lissom and stylish prose writers around.

Written and directed by a 33 year-old stallion named Florian Henckel vons Dommersmark, in his debut, the movie is set in frigging, mid-80s Berlin, and it’s about the goddamn government placing a dashing playwright under surveillance (wiretaps, cameras, stake-outs, etc) for possible subversion. Stupendously great drama ensues.

The Lives of Others has something profound to say about all kinds of interesting things: big-city loneliness, lovelessness, paranoia (is it still paranoia if it’s warranted, or is that simply fear?), creating art in a torturous society governed by absolute power-trippers (creative compromise), not to mention comradeship, good will and straight-up, huge-hearted humanity.

Here’s a link to an amazing article about von Dommersmarck, giving excellent insight into his impressive outsized ambitions. I mean just look at the guy, his head is the size of a watermelon. He looks like Vincent D’Onofrio as a young Orson Welles.

Lulabelle & Brock

The woman on the left is 47 year-old Lula belle Wolverton-Shagpile. A former drinker, she gave her life to the flight industry and has since seen forty-one continents! She wrote a controversial high-flyin’ romp during the Me Decade called ‘Peanuts and Perfume Over Peru’ that went on to star Jacqueline Bissett and Gil Gerard (ABC Movie of the Week, September 9th 1980). She’s famous for saying ‘Don’t you go there!’

The fellow to her right is none other than Lula’s fourth husband, strongman Brock Womack. Brock is a retired stuntman and the occasional catalogue model for colourful cotton shirts. Born and bred on Cannery Row, Brock played Burt Reynolds’ double in several films, including Hooper, where he kicked Jan Michael Vincent’s ass! Brock once spent a week with Richard Harris in Southeast Asia that neither of them can remember. He occasionally experiences semi-serious flashbacks involving Harris in a tutu running wild on the streets of Hanoi, but Brock is perfectly untroubled by it and deeply smitten with his one and only Shagster.

Updike's Rabbit at Rest

I closed the book on Rabbit at Rest yesterday morning, holding back the tears like Mick Hucknall holding back the years. The book cut me up real bad and bravo to a review written by Martin Amis that I read subsequently, page after page you are acutely aware of your own heart, the odd murmur and strange palpitations, as John Updike opens Rabbit up and describes in astonishing, humourous detail the effect of bacon-wrapped scallops and cakes on Rabbit’s ailing ticker.

The four masterful Rabbit novels represent the four decades in which they were written, interpret that however you want, I can't be bothered, 1,500 pages total and concluding in 1990 where it began, thirty years earlier, on the basketball court, this time the 55 year-old squaring off against a sleek cat named Tiger, the first to 21 in the Florida sun. And to think Rabbit hadn’t even digested his breakfast bear claw…

If I had been in a private setting, and not on a tram concussed by a bevy of crass schoolgirls, I most certainly would have been on the floor howling. But as it was, only a few teardrops fell. It is quite some book. For an opportunity to win my copy of Rabbit at Rest simply tell me in the comments box what was the last book that made me cry and I will send it to you, dog-ears, pear stains (don’t ask) and all.

From the Dept. of Alarming Developments

It’s Moritz not Mortitz. One tee not two. I kindly thank you and appreciate your support.

Tunes, Inc.

Probably a rambling post because I feel like doing some shit and don’t have a coherent thing to hang it on. Whores were mad radical on Saturday night at Exile. Shame if you missed them. I took a very good photo on Sunday afternoon back at the same joint of my wonderful friend Mia, but you can’t see it I won’t let you. The light was frigging perfect too. Eastern sunlight, au naturel at 5.55pm or thereabouts.

Mia was accompanied by a flock of birds on tape, to which she sang along to her pretty little heart’s content, ‘whilst’ strumming a dwarfish Hawaiian guitar. Mia’s so tuneful she’s Tunes, Inc. After her set we dished up some crazy ass BBQ. I had three pints of German lager. I am a beer enthusiast with various areas available for functions.

Saturday morning De Campo and I pedalled to Queen Vic Market and went via the Townhall Hotel. There we ordered breakfast. For an extra four dollars I could have supplemented my American Breakfast with a shot of bourbon, but no. After two yellow jackets joined us outside, we moved inside where good music was being played. At the market we loaded up on lambchops and sausages, Bacardi, produce, champagne and Rose`. We had a barbeque later on and lots of people showed up it was gnarly.

De Campo was curious whether I differentiated between going to the grocery store or the Market. Other than the fact the food is better and cheaper, I really couldn’t. The radicalness of this thought really diminishes on paper.

She bought a cigarette case at the Market for ten bucks and had it engraved for free. “What do you want it to say?” the guy asks. “De Campo,” she said. “I was hoping it was going to be something easy like Mandy.”

Perhaps it took some daring for a Monday, but last night, for pure pleasure I listened to a whole swag of Go Genre Everything material I had amassed over the weekend. Their shows severely screw with people. On Saturday night, suitably bent, I finally peered into the band’s eye and it was like finding the essence of one of John Ashberry’s more abstract offerings. Tremendous!

Guy Blackman followed Mia on Sunday. Guy plays piano pop and he’s openly gay about it and can be quite charming. I told De Campo who wasn’t coping very well to stick around, Guy’s set will be really uplifting. Sadly his first song was a certified slog entitled Marriage, where his lugubrious vocals ponder who would dispose of his body and handle the paperwork should he get hit by a bus. Luckily the set unfolded marvellously, getting better by the song and accumulating players at an equal rate (bass, cello, lead, drums). By the end of his set the music was so fully-formed and unreal it was like we were floating on air when we were merely sitting having just had sausages and macaroni salad. Impressive result!

Down to the last fifty pages of Rabbit at Rest. His family is disgusted with him, the mood is stark and he’s on a midnight drive to Florida. Yeehaw.

Tales of the Unexpected (Golden Stains)

Toby and Suze usually accompany De Campo and I to our bush rock festivals, but no, not this time, not for Golden Plains. No big deal, right? Well I didn’t think it was, but their absence proved to have a deeply profound effect on the Unstoppable Forces psyche. We cried some. Squealed a bit. We came to the conclusion that without Tobe and Suze, all Golden Plains is, is dust in the wind. All it is, is dust in the wind (it is very windy there by the way and dusty too). We’ll probably go back.

Mentally I was a bit mental. My cynical attitude didn’t wash at all. Nor did my tolerance for freaks constantly jutting into my grill and staying there. The festering festival crowd seemed overly crowded to me this time even though it was significantly leaner than Merediths of yore. Somehow, everywhere I went, some obnoxious dildo was eating up my space, obliviously rubbing his legs next to mine on a picnic blanket, for inst, while piggishly making out with some girl, burying her face with his vulgar technique. The fact that you’re a shit in a burgundy velvet bathrobe is embarrassing to me. Please get out of my face. You are wearing a cocktail dress over a pair of jeans and you have a beard. Please move away from my vicinity urgently.

My cynicism did not suffer fools lightly. I was a magnet for acid-bent dildos and it continually harshened my marshmallow mellow. I really wasn’t prepared for this event. Just couldn’t get it together. I guess I am one of those Golden Plains’ casualties. Normally I am a bouncing ball, very energetic, I don’t know what happened I was completely flat all weekend. Maybe I was in the throes of some existential crisis. But really, who cares?

A week of carousing didn’t help. Tuesday night was Yo La Tengo, which was so good I got drunk. Thursday night we went and saw David Kilgour w Crayon Fields and Panel of Judges. It was electrifying and David’s band played ‘Point that Thing Somewhere Else’, which is like the Mt Everest of velvety guitar pop. I packed four days of work into four days, which was strenuous and harsh. My 33 1/3 Wowee Zowee proposal got rejected. Not that that hurt so much. Truth is my submission was very puerile, but it was an attempt to write something structured, which is new to me and so for the opportunity to do that, I am grateful.

To be fair the music at Golden Plains was generally awful. I don’t blame Yo La Tengo nor Eddy Current Suppression Ring. Those cats rule, as do a few others, but overall the line-up was a horrendous doggie-pile of genres that would require significant re-jig to make work more effectively. Lack of guitar pop was devastating and overwhelming influx of World Beat was jagged, jolting and buzz-killingly dire.

So we were held captive by Golden Plains all weekend. We could have never expected such an oppressive environment, but our tent did almost blow away! As the song goes life is a tale of unexpectedness (it doesn’t actually go like that, but it is a song by Toby Dutton. Man I’m looking forward to some live sets by Flywheel).

AVIS supplied the wheels for our weekend getaway. I hadn’t driven anywhere for six years. It was like I was navigating a cruise ship. We got stuck in the underground carpark for an hour trying to work out how the bloody thing operated! I got nervous and hot and the confined space made me very claustrophobic. I felt like Marcello in 8 ½ stuck in traffic in a dream. Once underway, the driving was easy. Always remember no matter what side of the road you're on, you (the driver) need to be in the middle hugging the dotted line of a two-laner. I was taught this by my ex-wife’s best friend, a Meyer shopgirl who fiendishly grew to despise me. She snubbed me on the tram once. I recall I had a ghostly pallor and I said I had glandular fever and she said well I am not surprised you look terrible.

Applecore #5

I do declare those backyard shindigs held by the Applecore gang really encapsulate what this city’s got going on: community spirit, feel for good times and rock and roll fun.

This is how it unfolded for me: Carla arrives at Unstoppable Forces Headquarters (UFHQ) at 12.30pm on Saturday. I hand her a Bloody Mary. We listen to some prog. De Campo knocks back a cranberry vodka. I pour ‘em both a refill. We listen to some more prog. Armed with Doritos and an Esky full of champagne we head out the door. We hail a cab, we buy a slab, we put the beer in the boot of the cab. We find the party. We pay our fee ($5). They hand us an apple. I fail to partake in apple goodness, but anyway, I like it here, it’s nice. Tables and chairs, an old, rusted tin shed, a stage with a gazebo, a van with Applecore sprayed across its windscreen, an outhouse and several fruit trees.

An integral part of Applecore is Ricky French, superstar, daredevil axeman for Actor/Model. Ricky works for Harry the Hirer and has delivered all the furniture, including a gazebo in a big truck. Suze, Toby, James, Miranda and Felix are here and Dane Certificate is on stage. Excitement levels are rising. A dreadlocked bassist who busts out a solo reminding me of early Nirvana even though I have no idea what that might sound like. I’m pretty sloshed by 2.30pm standards. Anyway, it’s a starter dish as good as any cup of Dooger’s Clam Chowder (Seaside Ore, est. 1981).

Aleks and the Ramps go nuts with ease and we almost die of fun. Their good spirited guitarist Simon has sideburns closing in on his nose. I suggest he shaves his moustache and goatee in order to look like Abe Lincoln (De Campo will pursue this directive and finally succeed six hours later with a blunt razor – OUCH!).

I take James and Miranda’s boy Felix onto my lap and he gets comfortable by suckling my arm. His parents reveal the hickeys he has given them. I am impressed and hand Felix back to them and go to the toilet.

Sadly I am unable to relax my urethra. They are playing Wowee Zowee between sets, merely one of several external forces that have caused me to booze excitedly. “I don’t need a minister to call me a groom.” The voice outside the john is familiar to me. Hey it’s Carla (oh my, hot, hot Steve)! So we sing a few bars together ("We call her Barbara/ Breeding like larva…Dental surf combat/ Get out those hard-hats/ And sing us some skat!!, etc. etc.) before I mosey over to Toby and Suze’s place three doors down to use their toilet in quietude. Toby is playing Sleepy Township’s Caribbean Delight and we dance like fools. Toby puts his hand through the window. Luckily De Campo is there to bandage it because I am gone.

The next three acts recall classic bands on these labels: 4AD (Pikelet), Sub Pop (Scissors for Sparrows), Kill Rock Stars (Applecross). Talkshow Boy is more of a DIY’er. "Talkshow Boy I make you fishball soup! Fishball!" is uttered by who else but the lovely De Campo, fresh from bandaging Toby's finger.

Something happens between the start of the Shooting at Unarmed Men and the end and I don’t mean it just gets dark. Everybody starts going a bit crackers. Percussion instruments are tossed into the fray and we fight over them like hyenas, celebrating in a mad, drunken manner that continues on through Actor/Model’s set. How I don’t fracture any bones I am not sure.

We leave the party singing Pavement, sing Pavement in the cab all the way to the After Dark and sing Pavement walking in the door of the bar, Outward Obtooce, Carla, Coinflow Dollar, De Campo and I, as Pikelet strums a guitar for a hundred or so hushed sitters.

The night indeed becomes very surreal, hard-to-explain by this point. I am moved in very special ways. The Kes Band unleash a jam that is completely utterly extraordinary. I feel like I am in the Scottish highlands at an obscure pub being surreally blown away by an otherworldly jam band. I love them.

Postscript: Well, I just hope the vodka tonic that overturned in my lap occurred after Kes played because I recall making a right spectacle of myself out on the dance floor. The next morning the back of my shirt was thoroughly covered in cranberry juice. Very Odd.

Stay tuned for next week’s episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Robert Stack is going to have a go at this one and its complexities could very well spell his demise.

The Diplomat

I snapped at a colleague then kissed his ass. Such is life.

Rejected questions for Yo La Tengo’s Ira Kaplan by T. Boy Donutt and Reall Deal N

1. Favourite South Australian band from 1983? (RL)
2. So, you guys are married yeah!? What about the other guy does he join in, you know, the fat guy? (TD)
3. Sunny side up, over easy or Eggs Jackson? (RL)
4. Who put the bump in the bump a bump a bump? Who put the ram in the ram a lama ding dong? (TD)
5. Can you make a Roman Catholic*? (RL)
6. Can you loan me a tenner? (TD)
7. Favourite alternative form of energy? (RL)
8. Did you build that city on rock and roll? (TD)

* a drink apparently

Public Service Announcement

Went to see Little Children yesterday. The only reason we didn’t walk out of it is because apparently I had hit a woman in the head with my bike helmet while trying to find my seat, she turned around and yelled Jesusand I didn’t say I was sorry, I didn’t hear her, it was during a very loud preview, then part way through the movie as the whole enterprise was getting exceedingly worse by the second I felt gripped by a terrible anxiety because I was too scared to get up and cross her path again until the movie was over figuring she would have forgotten about it by then and that is sad because Little Children, and De Campo will be disgusted by the fact that I am wasting my energy writing about it, I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt so repulsed by something so horrid. I also had a hangover. Went out the night before and saw Spider Vomit (NO), Kill Boogie (NO), Lindsay Lowhand (YES!). WHOAaaa-hey.

Art is kooky, in order for it to work, it has to be killer (of course), but at its most base level, it needs to have a heart and this movie, not only is it missing pretty much every essential organ (except rod and fanny), it does not understand life.

I was happy to go see it in the first place because it’s set in a salubrious suburb on the east coast satisfying my alacrity for Cheever's dark satires, not to mention my current literary obsession (Rabbit at Rest, incredible) and being homesick for U.S. suburbia in general.

Kate Winslet is a stay-at-home Mom and Patrick Wilson is a stay-at-home Dad. They meet in the park where their kids play and start having sex after Kate makes an implausible move to ruffle the stiff, conservative Mothers in the park, who are so tediously condescended to by the filmmaker its freaking pathetic. Kate’s unsatisfied at home because her husband jerks off all the time. The less said about him the better. (“We need to talk,” storms Kate. “Can’t you see I’m at work,” he replies, a pair of polka dot underpants smothering his face. It should be funny but it’s not. It’s awkward and embarrassing. ) Patrick is married to Jennifer Connelly in one of the most unsubstantial roles for a female of her calibre I’ve ever seen. Patrick tells Kate Jennifer makes documentaries. “You mean like Michael Moore?” she says. Is it just me or is that a really foolish thing to say. Actually no, because it turns out she makes documentaries about Iraq too that are extremely tacky. A clumsy voice-over done by some sleazy soap guy gives the movie a ghastly jolt. The moments when Winslet is off-screen are absolute torture.

The movie ends with a message of hope and that is its greatest offence. There’s other strangeness too. The number of loving close-ups of mangled hands and unkempt feet are just bizarre. And it actually isn’t nice to see Jackie Earle Haley, the rat-faced teen hooligan from the 1970s (Bad News Bears, Breaking Away, etc), back in movies because the character he plays is so utterly detestable he is pointless.

The director is Todd Fields. The fact that he and I went to both Mt. Hood Community College and Southern Oregon State College has always stuck with me. The only other person I know to have done this is my college roommate. Therefore I always thought Todd and I had some sort of kinship. Now I don’t believe I could even share a shortbread cookie with him. I think he’s a screwy closet Republican, extraordinarily naïve, who has assembled an extremely unsympathetic cast of characters.

This might sound arrogant, but I believe I have already accomplished more valuable work than what Mr. Fields has accomplished, despite glowing reviews by Mr. Denby in the New Yorker. I didn’t make Little Children.

Fucken Denby.

I don’t understand, a couple years ago, he was complaining about upstart foreigners (Von Trier; the guy who did 21 Grams, which I thought was a vastly underrated comedy and this Russian asshole who made an awful movie about the perils of San Franciscan real estate) making movies set in America, that were hateful and contemptuous of U.S. values. The argument being their knowledge of American culture purely based on vile American TV.

Why not add my erstwhile soulmate and his pretentious perversities and creepy foot fetishes to the mix? I don’t see the difference. Consider this my Public Service Announcement. I urge you not to go and see this foul, heartless, miserable little turd. I was upset for a very long time afterwards until I found a great-looking, second-hand copy of Martin Amis’ Money at the Elgin Street bookshop. That cheered me up immensely. I’m going to go read Rabbit at Rest now. A tremendously funny and compassionate work of art.

Golf Day

Played golf today for the first time since our company last held its annual golf day. The hot sun beat down hard on my neck and I had difficulty handling the sheer hotness of it all. I didn’t kick any ass, I just got really thirsty.

I drank a red and orange Gatorade (preferring the orange I think it has a more natural flavour), two bottles of water, one that I brought myself but it got so hot in my bag I could hardy drink it, others were generously supplied by friendly chap in a cart he also gave me a Schweppes and had to duck when I whacked a shot off the 14th straight into his cart accidentally and I only went to the bathroom once in the course of five hours of action because I was so dehydrated.

Squirming on the grass at the final hole, my vertebrae miraculously snapped back into place. Back at the clubhouse, in the cotton blend company of khaki, I tried to join in conversations about retirement villages and Chinese developers with expensive watches, but my input was pretty minimal I drank an entire jug of beer by myself. The highlight was standing in the sprinkler, which made my clothes smell like barnyard animal.

Slacker Ennui

Any news I am bored shitless.

The Jarvis Cocker Record

Actually not Joe Cocker’s son, to dispel a myth that has persisted ever since I developed chest hair. Despite the obnoxious similarities, Jarv’s Dad was a different Cocker and furthermore, Jarv’s Dad bolted early, leaving lil’ Jarv to be raised by mum, a bohemian from Sheffield and coincidentally the mining town setting for the comic hit The Full Monty. Purely a coincidence I swear.

Even though I don’t like the music on this CD very much at all it is a very attractive case featuring an array of fantastic photographs of JC a fantastic man in his own right, who of course once had a band named Pulp, a very good band who did some very good things. They specialised in anthems that succinctly summarised youth culture and all its perversions, hang-ups, come-ups, addictions and comedowns. Cheeky, hook-filled pith. Damn they ruled, and they continue to do so as well. I could easily listen to Babies, Mis-shapes, Party Hard every Saturday night for the remainder of my life and still want just a little more soul. Feel free to not take my word for it, I’d love to be corrected, but the eponymous solo record is a huge disappointment.

Don’t Let Him Waste Your Time is decent enough and straightforward and his voice is always a pleasure. Black Magic steals the tune of a tired 60s number (Crimson and Clover) and has a fairly monstrous kick drum and toothy synth fang. Heavy Weather is a vague rewrite of Different Class’s Something Changed, an encouraging, if slightly pointless development. I Will Kill Again is a more condescending version of Easton Ellis' Patrick Bateman, or something, set to music.

To its discredit, the production on this album is so radio-friendly it sounds like it could be from anyone (not least the guy from Verve), which might be okay if the songs were as catchy as the album’s best and most inspired tune (From Auschwitz to Ipswich), but they’re not and often times the songs sound either laboriously overworked or lazily underworked I can’t tell, so you lean back on the couch, cut your losses while gazing fondly at the swoon-worthy artwork and remind yourself it ain’t Joe Cocker.

Scorcese's Departed

Finally saw it. Wished I hadn't. Reminded me of 'In The Cut' it was so bad. And the music sure licked. Some racket by some Boston/Irish punk-pop thing who absolutely bite played repeatedly throughout the film. Marty what are you doing? Raiding Matt Damon's iPOD? I was completely mortified. Plus he recycled songs that he has already used before in better movies. I thought it was bad when Dirty Dancing used Mean Streets' Be My Baby, but this was much worse.

The actors seemed very cozy in their misogynistic roles. The plot stank. This was one wincingly terrible comedy of masculinity. Mark Wahlberg, praised for his repulsive one-liners - sucked! Ray Winstone was in it and he was good. Brought some subtlety and nailed the Boston accent, which is like my least favourite noise in the world (the only other decent Boston accent I can think of is the one Ben Sliney used in United 93, but he was playing himself). Destroy the faux Boston accent!

I sure like Ray Winstone. Have you seen Nil by Mouth? It's an oldie (well it's not that old), but it's a goodie. Ray Winstone, boy is he good in that one too. Nil by Mouth was directed by Gary Oldham, who would have been a more interesting casting choice than Nicholson in this, even though Gary has done that part (hyperbolic nutjob) to death.

Two Guys Discuss Deerhoof’s New Album

M: I hate to say I'm over it, but I've listened to ‘Friend Opportunity’ I think 5 times in the past 24 hours.

Moderator: Oh mah lawd. Better than ‘Runners Four’?

M: It's proggier.

I feel like I'm 14 and listening to ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ on headphones for
the first time. I'm giddy. I really can't explain it, it covers so much
ground it's like I'm on the TGV or something. As soon as you're dumbstruck
by one moment, the song bolts off in some other direction, but it's exciting
natural rather than jarring. It's really left me spinning.

You know when you hear something for the first time and it makes you jump
outta your chair and look around to see if anyone else heard it, although
you know nobodies there? It's like that.

I'm surreptitiously listening to 'Matchbook Seeks Maniac' on my Ipod at work right now.

H: I have listened to ‘Friend Opportunity’ twice. I would agree with Matt in its proggy, aural/oral? textures. Don't worry Shane it has enough leftfield feral cats being thrown from a bridge guitar squiggles to continually
please. A mash up of ‘Runners Four’ and ‘Apple O'.

This morning I asked Elizah if she wanted to hear the good news or the bad
news just before we went to work: the bad news is that Jackson just shit his
pants, the good news is that Pitchfork gave the new Deerhoof an 8.9. She was
not amused.

M: You just saved a bunch of money on your car insurance.

Seriously though, did you notice this morning's review took about ten words to mention Yes (teases mullet lovingly)? Again, Shane, don't worry too much, the atonal aural nonsequiters are still there, but man so are those gigantic prehistoric riffs. Reference Believe E.S.P. Also, Jerrell, how about Cast Off Crown? That just freaks me out. It's got maybe 7 different suites (Yes displayed ultimate pretension by listing these on their records, continues teasing) within 3 minutes. WTF?


Two hours later, H has a final thought…


I think what really pissed Elizah off was that I let Jackson wallow in his shit for 5 minutes as I read the review.

why i'm jazz fusion today

1. What shirt are you wearing?

Baby blue short-sleeve under an argyle v-neck. I'm overdressed.

2. Name the brand of your shoes you're currently wearing?

Jack Purcell (no relation to the terrier).

3. Bright or Dark Room?

Bright enough. Still in the orifice.

4. What do you think about the person who took this survey before you?

Foxy brown!

5. Where is your nearest 7-11?

North of the Glenferrie underpass. I buy edible underpants there.

6. Who told you he/she loved you last?

De Campo did. She be honeybunny-ish.

7. How many drugs have you done in the last three days?

None. Seriously.

8. How many rolls of film do you need developed?

None.

9. What do you do when vending machines steal your money?

Walk away anticipating the good fortune that’s about to come my way.

10. Are you touchy feely?

Crazy, Madly, Deepak Chakra.

11. Name three things that you have on you at all times.

Watch, belt, pack a chewie (Extra White).

12. What was the last thing you paid for with cash?

drycleaning.

13. Does anything hurt on your body right now?

Throat does a bit.

14. How much cash do you have on you?

Five and some change.

15. What's a word that rhymes with “DOOR?”

Pedroalmododoor.