The naked truth of a shock jock duped

For those with whom I've discussed this story. It's now as out in the open as it gets.

More of the same, really

What kind of review do you call this, Goodreads reader?

"I know I read this, but I really don't remember anything about it, so I don't think it would be fair for me to give it a rating. "

Come to think of it, I feel that way about some books. Read 'em today, gone from your memory tomorrow.

I've used up all my BookMooch points so now I'm wasting time on Goodreads. Some people who claim to like books so much might spend their spare time reading, but noooo, I have to get all meta on books' asses.

It's true

Tim Tams for breakfast again.

An envelope

Bliggedy-blogger inspired me to post this, because of these.


It goes with these.

Things are looking up

- Feel less rutty (ie no longer in rut)
- Room tidied
- Breaking back of art projects
- Spring arrived!
- More work obtained (poverty fended off again)
- Haircut
- Quazillions of books mooched waiting for me to read!
- internet addiction subsiding (enabling life to be addressed)

In other news, it has been so long since I blogged that blogger has changed its interface in the interim. (Blog, blog; inter, inter).

Dream: 22/8/08

I made a massive cake that was an artwork. The cake was about my height, and it was round, like the chocolate cakes I used to make as a child. It was chocolate and it had cream in the middle. made it outside, and people watched me. I sliced it into ten pieces, or twelve. The division of the cake was a kind of performance.

Unfortunately people started eating the cake. I was alarmed, first that they were wrecking the work, and then realising they might be poisoned, but then I realised the main ingredient was flour so it was OK. I had to work out how to make a cake that would be more hardy and last longer, so I did research on how to combine the flour with more permanent materials. I used a huge cream filled cake-icer thing to make the curly cream shapes between the two layers of cake. The cream was made of a heated liquid plastic that cooled as soon as you applied it. At some point the cake became a pie and the cream went on top of it as though it were tomato sauce.

Now I'm hungry.

I don't feel like being an artist this week.

Where am I?

Crap, it's been a whole month

A lot of months are turning into TBTPM these days.

I just watched the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's movie Australia. It's so campy, it just might work. Maybe. I'm not too sure.

It has David Wenham in it, Bryan Brown and Jack Thompson. I hope Bruce Spence, Barry Otto, Sigrid Thornton, Lynette Curran, Ben Mendelsohn et al don't feel left out.

Oh. Barry Otto, Ben Mendelsohhn, Bruce Spence are already in it. So is David Gulpilil, John Jarratt, Bill Hunter, Kerry Walker, Sandy Gore. It's going to be 'that' kind of movie. They will line up all the faces and we will know it is Australia. No content necessary.

File under we'll see, I s'pose.

But not as much as Mr Far ...

Distracting

I've been trying to work and listen to Radio National at the same time. It doesn't work. I can't concentrate. It works when I'm just making things with my hands, but not when I am reading/writing/working on the computer.

So I need to listen to music instead. But everything distracts me. What could I listen to that wouldn't distract me but that would energise me to work reading/writing/on the computer? No lyrics might be good. Or not English language. Not too wishy washy or la di la. Or too angry or oppressive.

I can tell you now, Jens Lekman doesn't work. He's totally annoying me.

So I don't want to take any more chances. Just need a sure thing.

... OK?

Note to self

Ha bloody ha

ION

I just found orange Fimo in my doona.

Thing is, I haven't made any orange objects on my bed.

Spooooky.

I'm manifesting my Fimo dreams into material reality.

I dreamt about Fimo again last night. I had little beige bits that I was slicing up on my desk. It was naturalistic and earthworks-y. In my dream I was happy.

Anyway. Better get on with it.

I'm tired of that old post

So here is a new post.

That could be a country song. "I'm tired of that ol post". Or have I been listening to too much am radio?

It's been a long-seeming day.

In other news, daylight will now officially be squandered (on the northern hemisphere? in the mornings when I'm not capable of using it?). The prospect of the downhill slide to another unheated Sydney terrace house winter doesn't really raise my spirits.

What should I cook for dinner? No cook, no eat, see.

Blaaaaaah.

Officially drowning

I am coming to realise that I *always* have a layer of stress or anxiety lurking just below the surface of my consciousness (that's if it's not out there for all to see, which it frequently is).

For all my talk about my work (art) being about representation (signification etc), I suppose it actually *is* expressive, in that it's (becoming more and more) a sublimation of my anxieties (about time running out, my not-perfectness, lots of other things). Which might be stuff that shouldn't be indulged, that should remain below the surface. Sublimatedly. Because surfaces are fragile, and I'm not sure I can walk around with all my guts spilling out all the time ... which leads me to a pro-unselfawareness position, see, the weakness of which I'm sure my dear readers would recognise and consequently reject. "Maintain the surface for the sake of preserving the status quo? Never! Break it down!"

(those are my readers speaking).

Anyway, there are a lot of people in the art world who speak sense. I forget to focus on them. Or forget to be rigorous enough to look hard enough for them and listen properly.

I suppose for me art's a safe place to strip down the boundaries of meaning without risk (risk of losing one's grip on meaning in the real world: one's grip on reality).

Sublimation.

Is that noble?

Not So Sure.

Only if it heals or something. The worry is that it perpetuates the issues or negativity that are being sublimated, or gives you a reason to keep unhelpful thoughts s freshly watered.

Heh

I just want to feel connected. Is that too much to ask?

Homme

So, JC is a fucking good drawer. You should look at his illustrations. I really like the New York ones. He draws so effortlessly.

JC, you told me you wrote a novel - what happened to that, eh?

And what about that trip to Sydney? Huh??

A warning, though: it's no NYC. It ain't even Paris.

In the meantime, I'm making more flags. I'm over 'em.

*cough*

What a swell party

Topics of conversation tonight included:

*Which Jane Austen character are you most like?
*Does reading Archie comics as a child give you unrealistic ideas about what teenagerhood will be like?
*The emphasis on scatology in French culture
*Cost/benefit analyses in everyday life and 'Freakonomics'
*Hill End
*Sideways [film]
*The woman who gave birth to rabbits (fake!)
*The possible formation of a photographic lighting ownership cooperative

I can't remember any more. There was a lot of wine and food and goodness.

That is all.

Back and hyperventilating

I'm back from my thingo. I didn't *really* get that much work done but everyone likes to tell me that it will all absorb itself and make sense later. I don't know about that. I think getting work done is getting work done, and not getting work done is not getting it done.

Actually I don't know that I really think that.

So anyway. I feel overwhelmed by the big city and all the work that has piled up in my absence and the money I didn't earn while I was away and all that jazz.

This is the house I stayed in and part of its garden. Well, really, this is a picture of part of the house that I stayed in and a picture of part of its garden.

*sigh*

You may say to yourself, my god! What have I done?

David Byrne is just a magnificent performer. I love this song. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was little in the soundtrack to Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Everything about this is great.

Dream 11/2/08

When I closed my computer to go to sleep, the review I'd been drafting was automatically posted on Facebook, in all its notes-y, drafty glory. By the time I woke up, everyone in the world had read my draft and knew all about what I *really* think.

It's a world of procrastination from where I'm sitting

I'm so tired
I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired
My mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No, no, no

I'm so tired
I don't know what to do
I'm so tired
My mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you
But I know what you would do

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke
It's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep
I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks
I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

I'm so tired
I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired
I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walther Raleigh
He was such a stupid git

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke
It's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep
I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks
I'm going insane
You know, I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

I need energy

Time's a-wasting

It's 'another post' o'clock

I am striking while the posting energy iron is hot.

In a strange twist of deja-vu-esque 2007-2008 synchronicity, I am shortly to go on another residency.

I am going to this house in a small village for a month:


It's going to be beautiful, productive, peaceful, old, interesting, sometimes lonely and probably some other things that I cannot yet predict.

There, the posting iron will not only not be hot, it won't even exist. That's correct. No internetiendo! It's a gaspworthy thing, yessir.

I will, however, survive.

Meh meh meh

All this rain and dampness is really starting to bring me down.
























Update: today's falls are in fact heavy to very heavy.

Nuff said.

Dream 4/2/08

I have moved to Melbourne. I move in with Teigan and his gf, who is in fact my very short, wacky and extroverted playwright friend Van. She makes her living reading tarot cards in the street. She has a wig on and glasses. Their home is full of sixties design furniture and very intellectual books I haven't read, and their conversations are very involved and lively. Fitzroy, where they live, is unbelievably busy and exciting. I buy bread two doors up from our house. You can just break off what you need and they sell you that. You can buy just a few mouthfuls of a bread roll if that's all you want. The freshness and quality of the food is incredible. The girl at the bakery makes friends with me and walks me around for a while. We go to an improbably happening Turkish or Hungarian bar full of young people dressed as Berlin Communists circa 1930s. They are all dancing to loud, frenetic music. I watch from outside. After, they chat to me and are very friendly, giving me ethnic sweets to eat. I keep walking, feeling like I am somewhere wonderful I cannot appreciate. I meet people on the streets who are all young and interesting and want to talk to me, but it feels lonely. I realise there must be artists I know here, but I don't know where they are. I put a token in a street vending machine and it spits out hundreds of yellow counters. You can redeem them at a couch shop, but it is a scam and you don't get anything for your money. I am balanced on a gate and it tumbles off its hinges to the ground. I realise I have made a terrible mistake moving here. I wonder if it is too late to move back home before the winter comes.

How often do you clean your silver?

Gross-Off

Just keeping you up to date on the kitchen painting extravaganza (ie, we're painting our kitchen). Look at this:


Ew!

That's not even paint going over, it's just a soft wipe of sugar soap with hardly any pressure. It reminds me of that ad from my youth for a product called Tarn-Off, which one was supposed to use to clean metals. It was always so satisfying watching the dirt disappear before your eyes. That's what doing our ceiling was like. Purge! Purge!!

Also of interest is the Justin Timberlake dropcloth. Not everybody has one of these. Below, it can be seen protecting the kitchen table.


Now we've started using it as a tablecloth.

Dream 30/1/2008

I was on a journey with my parents and a friend, I can't remember who. It was on some kind of train, like a carnival ride (a ghost or love train). I realised after a while that we were going to the arctic circle on some kind of tour that was part party. My parents were excited about it. We each had a certain amount of rations including hot drinks in a thermos. I had warm clothes for the weather. We arrived in bitter cold at dusk at the base of a frozen cliff face by a frozen stream. All was white. There was a kind of protected area of rock. Our very old, gnarled but tough and strong leader began to haul up poles and stretching membranes over them to make some kind of geodesic dome for shelter. It was surprisingly warm and cosy. The atmosphere and camraderie among the travellers was very strong and positive, and there was a sense that a great adventure was being undertaken.

ADABTM

Another day, another beer too many. I'm dehydrating in this heat.

Also, I am having flashbacks of my old full-time job. Boo! Working is

SO

BORING

that you have to go for drinks all the time afterwards. It isn't balanced! Sorry about the lame-as post. This is one of those lulls that people have that make them forget that they're actually happy, you know, just the absence of joyful feelings for a little while. I'm tired, is all.

You could fry an egg out here

It's so fucking humid today, I've come over all Slash.
Regarding the coiffeur, of course. This happy little fellow might also prove instructional.

Live and Learn

I was given this book for my birthday (among other thoughtful presents):


I haven't started reading it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I'd like to be like Joan Didion. She seems so collected, so smart. I feel that I will be smarter, happier, more focused and engaged when I am reading this book. Those qualities will transfer themselves to me.

Lying to George

George is a little bit freaky in this scene, but his passion is magnificent.

Liable for something

I left my bike locked up on Abercrombie St for two nights and it had the wheels stolen off it.

I drank a lot of different kinds of alcohol and suffered a terrible hangover.

I feel all right about these things, because I'm willing to be responsible for the consequences of my actions. Just gotta wear 'em.

What I don't feel so great about is my lack of willpower in getting things done. Doing what needs doing. I don't feel great taking responsibility for the consequences of my inaction. I"m trying to think of an example ... not doing or going to something I said I would and hence feeling empty or guilty.

On the upside, I do a mean lamb roast and potatoes that are to die for.

It's raining, it's raining again.

Well, it's pelting down. I'm going to pour meself a whiskey and go fire up the Weber nonetheless. Fuck it, eh.

Guess what?

This is the third post this month with that title.

*sigh*

Wherefore imagination?

[today was a Good Day]

Guess what?

Yes, it's true. I'm a cake-scoffing age-pluserer.

Oh here's a story - I was at a birthday party once, and I overheard a conversation about capricorns so I cut into it. We talked about what capricorns are meant to be like (as one does). She says, wouldn't it be weird to just bump into someone who has the same birthday as you. I say, yeah, if I ever met Martin Luther King Jr, I would find that strange. She laughs and says she'll probably never meet Elvis, so it might never happen. That rings a bell - what date is your birthday, I say? January 15th, she says. Huh, me too, I say.

And then we fell into a big hole that had been created in the space-time continuum, and - oh, but that's another story.

Lyrics I like IV (okay so it's the whole song)

Go without,
Til the need seeps in,
You low animal,
Collect your novel petals for the stem,

And glow,
Glow,
Melt and flow,
Eviscerate your fragile frame,
And spill it out on the ragged floor,
A thousand different versions of yourself,

And if the old guard still offend,
They got nothing left on which you depend,
So enlist every ounce,
Of your bright blood,
And off with their heads,

Jump from the hook,
You're not obliged to swallow anything you despise,
See, those unrepenting buzzards want your life,
And they got no right,
As sure as you have eyes,
They got no right,

Just put yourself in my shoes,
And see that I do what I do,
Because the old guard still offend,
(Their pudgy hearts and slimy hands)
We got nothing left on which we depend,
So we waste every ounce,
Of your bright blood,
And off with their heads,

Jump from the hook,
And you're not obliged,
To swallow anything that you despise

Lyrics I like III

Honey I'm a prize
and you're a catch
and we're a perfect match.

Lyrics I like II

You won't be happy with me
But give me one more chance
You won't be happy anyway

Why do we still live here
In this repulsive town?
All our friends are in New York

Lyrics I like I

I know
that girl you found
keeps that kind of window closed

Huh what right uh

I think I am too self-centred for music. How eye-openingly ... I don't know. Lyrics make me overstimulated.

I am listening to a mix CD I made recently to give to a friend. It's really good. Right now I can only listen to Led Zeppelin or the Beatles or the Velvet Underground. Or quite a lot of other things. Hmm.

When I started blogging, it was this kind of free diaristic kind of thing. Now I have all these phantom audiences of readers (you know who you are! ha. I even know who you are, mostly. probably) that I consider when I 'blog'. I like having readers. My ego likes it. But now I think of the diferent audiences and self-inhibit. Not that this was ever a tell-all deep thing anyway. But maybe it might have been.

I feel that I've blandified.

Anyway. I've got to work on that.

I am moving furniture. I've been all over the shop today. Up, down, up. Unreleased energy, then tired, then antsy, then happy. Now moving drawers and shelves. At 12.30 am. Ah! Peaches is on. Must dash.

I've got a short little span of attention and oh, my nights are so long /Paul Simon

No spoilers

No Country For Old Men was a lot like Blood Simple meets Fargo. That's all I have to say about it.

Oh my gawd

I just ate an entire packet of Green and Black's milk chocolate.

If I had my time all over again, I would change nothing. Maybe I'd leave a bit for later so I could still be eating it now.

I'm all high now. I wish I lived in Switzerland. Think of all the fine quality confectionery. I'd be fat as a mountain.

2008

Welcome to previously unacknowledged readers.

Life in 2008 is going to be interesting. It is interesting already. I have felt like I have a new life with greater frequency of late. I mean, lately I have more frequently experienced the feeling that my life has taken an interesting new turn. That's what I mean.

I like it: it's good. I also know the most amazing people, for which I consider myself very fortunate. I also have a strong feeling of my own autonomy that I don't always feel. Instead of the guilty feeling that it's all about me. [Which it still, of course, is.] I'm feeling perspectival clarity instead of the regularly programmed perspectival distortion. Or maybe I'm just distorting things positively for a change, who knows. I believe it's perspectival accuracy.

Just got to kick this fucked up sleeping pattern.

And eat something.

I'm going to watch No Country For Old Men tonight.

Guess what?

After 18 months of sitting on it, I have finally made the amendments to my Masters paper.

I am going to get it printed now and start the next round of administrative blah so I can graduate in April.

Yes, I am a powerful, self-actualised and in-control human [now], since you asked.