ahh... how I'd love to have been there...

The Church helps me make sense of my world

Nonononoonono...

Not *that* Church.

This Church -




I love highway driving, except for when it gets boring and monotonous. Driving by myself is actually more fun than with company because I get to play music really, really loudly, which makes for a lot less monotony.

On the way down to MsFoil's place on Friday I played Devo. Are we not men? We are Devo. Are we not men? D. E.V. O... It brought back some really great memories of other times in other cars singing at the top of my voice with another friend who was actually also really into driving along a highway playing loud music and singing. It's a shame she's not around any more...

Anyway, on the way back I played The Church. A few years ago they released a cracker compilation that you should all buy, because the band not only chose the songs, and the track order, they even get royalties, unlike pretty much every other Church compilation out there. Of course it's not exactly what I'd choose, but then it's hard to narrow down 30 years of back catalogue and make everyone happy, and me being the gracious (shut up) person that I am, I accept this.

Tantalised is on it, and if I play it once, I play it at least three times, and very, very loudly. Not only is it a great studio track, it's the best live song I've ever heard. Well, aside from some jazz and some classical stuff but that's a different sort of experience. Above is the video they made, but with the radio edit. Below is a clip someone else has made, but with the album edit:




One of the many times I've seen these gents play was March 2000 at the Metro. I had partaken of a certain party substance, or to be less coy, dropped some acid. My friends and I stood centre stage as per usual, and the boys came on... all dressed in white shirts and jeans. As far as I know they've never done that before or since, at least, not in Australia. They kicked off and were backlit by rotating gels like a rainbow. The effect was extraordinary, and I think everyone, altered state or not, was gobsmacked. It was like arriving to a dinner party you've been looking forward to and discovering it's actually a surprise party for you. Surprise!

And ladies, may I just add that Steve Kilbey in white jeans is an extremely, extremely fine sight.

The last song on the set list was Tantalised (two encores came after but that was just the icing on an already mindblowingly-thickly-iced cake). It's an astounding song live. I don't know how to explain it. The bass is your heartbeat, speeding up, slowing down. The twin lead guitars are blood rushing through your veins. The drum is your head pounding with thought, frustration, desire, anticipation, adrenaline, fear, excitement, potential. Dense layers enfold you, smothered and cocooned at the same time - which is the essence of The Church to me, I want full audio immersion when I listen to them so that I can hear all the tiny ghosts at the end of the hall that you can't see, but know are there.

Why do I always get run away with my feelings with The Church? If you know the song, also imagine it about 10 minutes long and with strobe lighting. This doesn't even begin to do it justice (although it does have some Kilbey White Jean Action):




I had broken up with Wizbang. I was about to travel to Europe. Two people I love hadn't died (only one at that stage). I hadn't met Tiny Toasty's father and discovered what fear and litigation was really all about. I wasn't yet a mum, and a single one at that (which is certainly better than still being with the father, but still limiting at times). I was at the top of the world, or at least quite close, where I hadn't been for such a long time. I really wish I could get back up there again. At this point in time I'm writing that with a certain modicum of hope, not hopelessness, which is the way I've felt for the past couple of years. It's still relatively neutral, but I feel there's more positive than negative now.

Here's to the long climb back up. I think the view will be splendid. Just remember the Thermos, will you?

Why I think the Liberals stink.

I've mentioned this on another page but really, I wanted to write it as many times as I could:

Poor fucking form from the Liberals last night. When Gillard spoke to the crowd and acknowledged Abbott, her Labor audience clapped. When Abbott mentioned Gillard, his Liberal audience booed.

Poor. Fucking. Form.

Boys Keep Swingin'

I was in the war... but I didn't see you there...

Need some inspiration?

http://www.whatthefuckshouldimakefordinner.com/

Heh.

Farrrrrque

I don't want to write down my passwords, but I am *always* forgetting the password to get into this blog. WTF?

To Autumn

I had an English teacher in senior high school called Mrs Anderson. She was short with steel-grey hair, glasses, and a ferocious attitude with a capital A.T.T.I.T.U.D.E. Yes, she got called Angry behind her back. Yes, she was loved and feared in equal measure. She also had a real passion for reading aloud,* which was a bit different to the usual mixture of enthusiasm, sarcasm and droll humour from the rest of the English/History staff. I will never forget her reading of Keats' poems. One of our friends still knows most of this off by heart (smartypants) and will recite en mode if pressed. Firm, ripe and fruity.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

* Believe me when I say that reading Equus with her was traumatic for more than one in our class.

I spy

with my little eye -

• fake plaits in a shade I'll never be (way too light)
• two pairs of barely worn happy shoes
• my old school Mary Janes (yay)
  
• another pair of sewing shears (yay again)
• excessive quantities of useless white socks (puzzling)
  
• a table mirror I had forgotten about
• a couple of djellaba, which I find quite lovely but no-one else in our group seems to think so
  
• two old camping frocks which are going to be pulled apart to make new ones at some point in the next decade

There's light at the bottom of the Wall O'Doomy Boxes. Actually, there's an old camping trunk with all this crud in it, but it's nearly the end of the slog I thought would go on forever. I wish I'd taken photos. Victory is just over there! It's having a nice cup of tea. Better reach it before the pot gets cold.

Episode VII: Return of the Nerd

So, you know, Wedge Antilles





or Boba Fett?




Depends on what kind of Star Wars dag you are, really.

Boba used to be my main street-cred minor character hero until Episodes I, II and III came out. You get to see what's behind the armour, and it's not disappointing (far from it, Temuera Morrison, yes please), but then the revelation - Boba is a Clone!? Damn. I could never love a clone. Unless he was a real spunk and brought his brother over and we all got drunk and... ahem. No, I could never love a clone.

Wedge is slightly nerdy-looking (although clean cut and fresh, and that ain't bad) but he's an ace X-wing pilot, and apparently the ladies love a pilot. Perhaps that's what pilots looked like in the 70's, I was too young to notice. He's such an ace that he knows how to negotiate very tight spaces, which you're allowed to misconstrue as a single entendre if you so desire. He also saves Lukes life once or twice in the mighty Death Star battles... but we won't hold that against him.

So, edgy bounty hunter Bob or clean-cut X-wing pilot Wedgie?



Edit: Wedgie was played by Denis Lawson, who's not only Scottish (bonus points), and the uncle of Ewan McGregor (bonus bonus points) but much spunkier when out from under the helmet and easily recognisable from UK telly. How did I not piece it together earlier? Mostly because I was presuming he was a Seppo. Ladies... we have a winner. Sorry Bob.

Lucky?

Travelling up the Princes this arvo (as you do) I saw a sight for... well, I don't know what sort of eyes. If they were sore, I think this site would have made them sorer. Or perhaps water slightly.

Imagine a Very Hot Car, and by that, I mean some White Trash DoofMobile. LOTS of stickers on the back window, including a really big one of the steer with enormous horns that I always thought was a brand logo, but might, in fact, just be a single entendre. BIG chromilicious exhaust. And a GINORMOUS freaking mudguard - I say that in the singular because there was only one, big, wide, thick, long chunk of manhood, I mean, mudguard. Another single entendre, methinks. It certainly dominated the design theme of Classic Yob.

But! Gentle Reader! That was not the icing on the cake.

The icing was three of these:



Real.

Lifesized.

Rivetted onto the mudguard in a row.

Very, very shiny, distractingly glinting in the sun, polished with care - probably by the Classic Yob's girlfriend, if Classic Yob was in a good mood. I understand this to be the ritual through scientific observation - in the 70's, my brother's girlfriend was occasionally allowed to use the white crayon on the tyres of his Totally Hot Holden.

I wish I had've had a camera with me, but then, I was going 100k/h, so there's NO way I could have captured its unbridled glory.

I really hope those horseshoes bring him luck, otherwise, the owner just looks even more of a d!ckh34d, eh?