Friday, October 31, 2003

I knew this bloke would pop up again. Say hello and probably goodbye to Mr Inferno.

Thursday, October 30, 2003

I noticed my toilet paper has poems written on it. As a writer, can you get a more severe critique than that? I wonder if sorbent hired someone to write the poems or just bought the poems off a struggling artist. Because if you knew where your poems were going to be published, you'd probably think twice. "Is it going to be published in a Poetry Compendium for students in the HSC? Oh, people are going to be wiping their arses on it. Well, either way, I get paid, right?" I reckon on the hierarchy of professional writers, the guy who writes poems for toilet paper ranks just below the guy who writes greeting cards. But above the web-diarist for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Was pretty crook yesterday - still not 100% today. I feel like there is a stone sitting in my stomach. A fullness and hunger at the same time + indigestion when all I've had to eat is two pieces of toast. Anywho - popped out just now to go to the doctors, get an appointment. When I asked the receptionist if I could see a doctor sometime today I had to repeat myself twice. She's one of these people who asks you a question and then doesn't listen to the answer. A handicap for a receptionist if ever there was one. I ask you, if you could guess why someone is standing at the receptionists desk in a doctors surgery, what would your guess be? Maybe they want to see a doctor? Why do they always ask what you want as if you are going to request a grilled wallaby and a schooner of whiskey? You what???!??! You want to see a doctor???!?!??! Goodness me, I've had some strange requests in my time, blah blah blah. Are you sure you wouldn't prefer to see me fart into a bowl of cornflakes? Anyway - 10:15. She wrote it down for me. I hope she was just trying to be helpful, but I have a feeling it's because she thinks I'm mentally deficient.

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Just came home from seeing a mate Colin and his band Quern play at the Hopetoun in Surry Hills. I think his band is really coming along nicely. Couple of beers, nice. The Hopetoun is a bit of a shit hole, truth be told. It should probably be called the "Abandon all Hopetoun." Writ in blood in letters large across the entrance. Dank, smelly with a proponderance of matt black splashed about the place. As you leave the bar there is a doorway with a set of stairs going almost straight down to another bar called "the Pit." I confess I very nearly fell headlong down the bloody thing. No doubt coming face to face with Judas encased in a block of ice, or Han Solo in a block of carbonite.
My old flat mate, band mate and school mate Rossco gave me a lift along with his fiance Jo. As I was out the front waiting for them a police car cruised past three times. I was actually hoping they would ask if I lived around here, so I could tell them yes, hook a thumb over my shoulder and say 'right here, in fact.' Sadly they just shone a light in my face as they drove past. Curses.

Anywho - a good night and now a biography of Oscar Wilde on the history channel. I've always been an admirer of Oscar Wilde. I know nowadays he is regarded as a gay icon, but I think that sells him short. He really should be a icon of non-conformity, he stood more for freedom of existence, of freedom to be different. His end was so tragic that you wish you could go back in time and save him, tell him everything will be OK one day. If, however, you did that, we wouldn't regard him so highly. It was his martyrdom (among other things) that makes him such a powerful figure. Less tragic than tragedy.

We were talking about weird food - things like chip sandwiches, chicken chips and chocolate, dipping fries into chocolate sundaes, deep fried mars bars. We eventually got to talking about Elvis and his weakness for Deep-fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I put forward the opinion that any food can be made to taste better by deep-frying it. Andrew said he would prefer a plain old fresh apple to say, a deep fried apple. I couldn't disagree. But what about a bunch of deep-fried grapes?

Monday, October 27, 2003

Daredevil stunt goes awry

Of course, Reality TV could have some of this stuff, as well.

Reality TV programs...aren't. If they were about Reality(tm) they would all feature people sitting in their loungerooms watching TV. I guess that wouldn't be all that interesting. I think it would be good, though. A real breakthough. Like that program with George Clooney where he was a bomber pilot or something and was live to air. No safety nets - if you flub a line or trip over a chair, out it goes! Just like real life. Except in real life the whole thing is ad-libbed. Now we're getting somewhere. A film or TV show or whatever where the actors are given details of their characters, or perhaps build them over time, so they understand how their character behaves in certain situations, their motivations, etc. They are presented with a situation and act it out. No lines, no scripts. A set, some props and Action! Now THAT'S reality TV.

Saw a music video on Fox the other day - Lenny Kravitz 'American Woman.' The original film clip had Heather Graham in it, behaving in a particularly lascivious and salacious manner. For some reason the film clip I saw didn't have Heather Graham in it at all. I don't know why she isn't in this version but I can report that the clip is much poorer for her absence. In fact the whole thing is a non-event. Various youngish women lounging in the desert in skimpy clothing, pouting with haughty expressions of assumed attitude. This is presented as attractive and uniquely representative of the title. Here are some underdressed young women in the desert. Clearly they are American Women. How we tell that I don't know. But at least the hazy logic of the original was redeemed by Roller Girl.

Here we are later in the day.

Now we ARE merry.


Here is a pic of myself(middle), Karl Bosworth(left) and Andrew Parker(right) at the SCG on debut at the members pavillion. By this stage we had already had a couple and were almost merry. But not quite.

This is the first post in my blog. Hopefully it wont be the last.