Helicopter

Pidgin English says:

Mixmaster blong Jesus Christ.

How awesome is that? How can you go back to the drab and pedestrian 'helicopter' after hearing that?

H/T Izaac
 

Boring but brilliant

So Powderfinger already have several songs in the Hottest 100 Of All Time. And I want to say that this is alright. That Internationalist album is pretty special. And they've got soundtrack ties to Two Hands which is a pretty special movie (oh Heath!).

Now if you like Crowded House (who are brilliant, but in a way they're pretty boring too) and if you like Auggie March (who are brilliant but are also pretty boring), then I reckon you need to at least allow for the fact that Powderfinger deserve some respect.

My favourite Powderfinger song is "Day You Come". It sends chills.

Archive

Lastfm introduced me to Archive today. I like what I have heard so far.

The Aussie hippie

The Aussie hippie from the 60s and 70s is, I gather fairly different in general to the American or English hippie.

The Aussie hippie is still pretty Oz, still pretty ordinary. They just smoked a lot of pot and had long hair. Perhaps this is partly because pop culture always arrived later to Australia back in the olden days. So Aussie bands were dressing like the Beatles of 1963 when it was 1966. So the Aussie hippie always seemed to have a bit of 1970s beard rock to it.

The Aussie hippie, as far as I can tell from photos and books and people I've met, tended to dress in:

• very short, cutoff denim shorts
• beard, always the beard
• dunlop volleys or thongs
• probably a bare torso
• something skanky, printed and floral for the women
• or maybe a blouse thing with too-tight, high-riding flare-jeans
  

But generally they wouldn't be wearing anything. Generally the Aussie hippie would be naked. Because nudism and all the more sensible, preachy sides of hippie alternative lifestyle dominated the Aussie hippie. Things like:

• Steiner schools
• bushwalking
• gardening
• health food
• communism
  

Sat next to Kenny @ dinner

It was Nikki and my 9th wedding anniversary on Wednesday. We went out to Plum in Salamanca. It was a very nicely decorated restaurant.

I ate oysters with caviar and with pomegranate sorbet, which was pretty silly, but it totally worked. I also ate a bit of bogan oysters kilpatrick too. The food was all pretty good I reckon.

Kenny sat next to us. That was awesome. It was like a little providential wedding gift. We didn't talk to him. Nikki glared at me with a glare that said 'Don't say anything to him, don't you dare.'

Music that Clive has given me

I never liked U2 until I watched a ZooTV video with Clive.

Clive told me about Arcade Fire while we were walking through St Kilda. He lent me Neon Bible later that year.

He also gave me his Salt N Pepa CD when he didn't want it anymore.

Clive gave Xavier a La Maison de Mon Reve by Coco Rosie as his first ever CD.

What music has Clive gotten you into?

Time travel

If you were able to travel through time, people always used to wonder, what would happen? Could you kill you parents? It was all foolish guesswork because noone knew. But then some genius in Belgium figured it out and created a real time machine. It sent cabbages and lab mice back and forth in time. And the whole world celebrated. But there was always going to be a but. The Belgians didn't wait long before trying to go back in time themselves and, more courageous still, they chose to travel straight into the paradox, with weapons in hand they went to kill their parents. Books were opened and people put their money down on what would happen next. And the team came back, as planned. Came back as complete lunatics. One had begun peeling off the skin of his forearm, smaller rips already blotched and bloody over his face and arms. The second was just crying in a high, squealing voice, like an animal, like a slaughterhouse, like a child in pain. The third was trying to tear an imagined something out of his mouth. and his face was simply blood, tooth and veins. The study was immediately shut down and everything was destroyed, no records were left and it is impossible to repeat the experiment. The commentary was swift and certain: Allah had plainly cursed this unwelcome interference with kismet and these people had learned their lesson.

jml really doesn't like our national anthem

And has used his great intellect to pull it apart.

To do this, all he has to do is translate it, line by line.

Awesome crappy crime TV

There is awesome crappy crime TV and then there is awful crappy crime TV.

Anything on the ABC with a detective in his 40s is awful. CSI is awful, but in an alluring, watchable way. Inspector Rex is awful. Anything Australian, is, of course, awful (and that includes Underbelly).

There are also things that are awesome, but not crappy. See, for example, Wire in the Blood or Prime Suspect both of which go for a few, movie-length episodes each season and both of which explore the challenges faced by women in the police force. Castle is trying to be in this category, I reckon, but is probably more in the awesome-crappy category. We'll see.

But there's this other category. The awesome crappy category.

Here I will place Bones, Criminial Minds and NCIS. What makes them awesome, while they remain crappy?

1. Ensemble cast. Rather than relying simply on the strength of the development and dynamics of two or three characters (which Bones could probably get away with), these shows explore stacks of characters. Each of these characters have their quirks and pathos.
2. Comedy. Each of these shows have their share of wit. Bones is by far the most successful at this due to its strong cast and script.
   
3. Unique angle. These shows each carve out a pretty unique niche in the crime world, something which each CSI spinoff tries and kind of fails to do. Bones: scientific, sexual tension and comedy angles. Criminial minds: literary quotes and focus-on-the-criminal angle.
   
4. Actors having fun. I like to think that I can kind of tell if actors are having fun on the job. It feels like the actors on these shows enjoy their roles and enjoy working with the cast.
   

Birthday card from Xavvy

Dear Papa,
I hope you have a very good birthday, Papa. I hope you won't get dead for a long time. I hope you won't hurt hisself. I hope you won't put stickers on your computer like Mummy. Papa, you are excellent. I hope you like your presents.
Love from Xavi
(dictated to Mum)

Flipper gig @ The Brisbane

Ma Brainbridge
Were first up and in some ways the highlight of the evening. I was kinda blown away by how tight, energetic, well-mixed, well arranged and generaly good this band was. Strong set. Sludgy, riffy, three-guitar wall of sound.

Midnight Caller
Not so much my cup of tea. They were doing a sort of pop thing, but for my money, it wasn't interesting enough or tuneful enough to grab. But it had the lovely Cross brothers in it and I like them.

Flipper
Then it became clear why the people who didn't seem to fit came to the gig. They belonged to Flipper.

I knew of Flipper because they were one of the bands that Kurt Cobain always advertised on his T-shirts when photographed for Nirvana promotional material - see the insert to In Utero for example.

They came out of the 70s SanFran harcore scene, but slowed their music right down in a very grunge-like way.

I couldn't help compare them to The Saints who supported Nick Cave @ the DEC in January this year.

The Saints 70s-80s stuff is awesome and I really like it. But probably hadn't played since then, so it seemed. And so they seemed old and sleazy and lethargic and dumb. The lead singer flopped around like a drunk uncle and did lame spoken word stuff.

Flipper, one the other hand, still had great energy and clarity. The lead singer was able to summon up the punk fury and force. They were impressive to watch.

When they played music.

The gig
But the thing is the singer got on stage already kinda drunk and making obnoxious, not particulalry funny comments to the sound guy about their sound setup and just got drunker and drunker. Must've drunk at least 8 beers on stage.

When they played music they were awesome, and it seemed like that's what the rest of the band were interested in doing. But Bruce wanted to drink and talk. The newest bandmember and bassist, Rachel, kept trying to hurry him along by calling the next song, or starting the riff on her bass, but he'd cut her off and pick a fight with her about how he wanted to sing a different song.

It was pretty sad. The gig kinda fizzled out. People drifted out. They got members of the audience onstage for a singalong of 'Sex Bomb'. Then the other bandmembers left the stage. And Bruce had a verbal sparring match with Hobart local Andrew Harper

Strange, sad, intriguing gig.

To compare, again, with the Nick Cave gig, Nick Cave also was part of the 70s punk explosion. But he has developed into a powerful, authentic, artist. And also a reliable, skilled, well-crafted performer.

Flipper on the other hand were more of a spectacle. I guess if you wanna stay punk as you get older, you other gotta start to grow up and get a bit healthy, keeping the ethos and energy, but distancing yourself from the total meltdown lifestyle.

Or else numb yourself with alcohol.

90s beanie, bassists and baggy pants bands

I borrowed a Tool and Korn CD from Jason on Thursday. I'm listening to them now.

I like them both without going crazy about them. They are the late 90s equivalent of what Primus, the Chilli Peppers and Faith No More were in the early 90s.

They're the sorts of bands that guys 'mance' to at parties. Generally while wearing hoodies and beanies and baggy jeans.

And they're the sorts of bands that don't neatly fit into any cool subculture. Their subculture is men who like smoking pot,  going to music shops and gawking at bass guitars.

But I like the end result. What does that mean?

October Ferry to Gabriola

I just finished this novel by Malcolm Lowry. A friend of mine, Adam, lent it to me. It's an unfinished work that Lowry's wife edited after he died.

The writing is wonderful. It's messy and stream of consciousness and elaborate. There's no plot and a lot of description. The sort of thing that I love, but that most of my friends don't.

It's set in Canada in the 1940s. It is about exile and home and drinking.

It often speaks about cinema and shows the significant role it was already having in shaping people's hopes and dreams and thoughts about the world.

It also shows just how conservative 1940s Canada was.

Working on a short story

It's a sci-fi thing.

Cecily's online gallery

Cecily has put a gallery of her work online.