The Substratum Dream of a Flagpole Skater...

I am the flag-pole skater, and I’m pursuing my dream in a small, slow circle.

My dream, born from years of yearning for something different, is to skate.

To skate on a platform.

To skate on a small, circular platform.

To skate in slow circles on a small, circular platform longer than anyone ever has before.

The previous record, set in the winter of 1934 by a bear wearing a fez hat, is well within my reach.

127 hours and 43 minutes of continuous skate.

That was what that big Russian bear wearing his fez hat and his shock collar achieved before he fell.

I can, and will, eclipse that noble bear’s efforts.

Not because I’m forced to do so, not because I’m paid to do so, but because I want to do so.

Because it is my dream.

On my platform, on my pole, high above my house, I push one skate in front of the other, then I repeat.

I have done this now for over 45 minutes.

This leaves me with less than 126 hours left to eclipse the mighty bear’s effort, to accomplish my dream.

I am determined, I am focused, I will accomplish my goal.

People have often responded with curiosity when I tell them of my dream.

What? Why?

This seems to be the broader public hotel community common consensus.

This unenlightened attitude overwhelms the public sphere, yet confuses me horribly in conversation.

To properly stop, to properly think, to properly theorise, it is necessary focus on something thoughtless.

Only when one’s mind is truly distracted can it be truly insightful.

I push one skate in front of the other, and then I repeat.

The only way forward for us, for them, and for you, is to freely do what others have been forced to do.

Only then is it possible to understand, to empathise, and to change.

The philanthropic philosopher funding my mission is the only one who understands.

He bought me my skates, he paid for the platform, and he even stole the pole.

But these objects are truly mine, he says, for this is my mission, my dream, my idea.

We know my noble mission will lead us to enlightenment, to ideas, to empathy, to a new way.

Of this we are both unconditionally sure.

Since that bleary night at the Bear-Flag brothel when I explained to him my mind; we’ve both been sure.

He erected the platform on a pole above his department store, and then bequeathed it to me as my own.

He has given me his store, given me his heart, given me every available opportunity to realise my mind.

I know this will happen; I know this won’t end up being what they claim it will be.

When the 100th hour passes, and it hasn’t yet happened, I know I will worry, he has warned me that I will.
But the nobility of the mission mustn’t be forgotten; for this is a matter of utmost importance.

I look down at the inquisitive crowds of children and animals swarming in and out of the store.

I think of my designated bed in the store windows below longingly, not long now.
Only about 125 hours.

I just wish we had thought of a can or a bucket for a toilet, I really need to piss.

boy lilikoi...

Jonsi, lead singer of almighty Sigur Ros, is working on a solo album.
Producer Peter Katis, who has worked with the also-awesome Interpol and Frightened Rabbit, reckons: "It's going to be a largely acoustic guitar record but also with a lot of 'out there' string arrangements...strings, woodwinds, brass, and double bass, actually." Sounds exciting. Anything with the angelic icelandic voice of yes please is bound to be amazing.
If this first single is anything to go by, we're in for a treat..

mmmm...
You can download the track at his website here, if you join teh mailing list.

Previous Jonsi Blogerature

in a time of turgid sheen...

If you loved me you’d let me live in peace.
You love giving, the giving of grief.
I deny I’m like you but I know that I am.
I feel I’ll never act a man.

I’m thirsty for real nights.
Nights we can come to grips.
Nights we can understand, just for a second.
Seconds we can feel full,
full of the knowledge and knowing the known.
Knowing full-well that that knowledge will never last,
yet hoping that it might.
I rose from a dream, a dream of hoping that it would.

She’s and screens flicker, blur and bend.
Words rattle under the tepid towel.
I need your sense of stability.
I hate your phantom senility.
To name all your sheets you need me alive.
To frame all your thoughts you need me to die.

The loveliest lords love like nothing.
The loneliest lads lie in hard rain.
Picking pills from the pocket going fucking insane.
Wandering the city streets leaves us laying back to back.

Forming our tale in a time of turgid sheen.
We look more and find less than people past.
Simple times call for simple measures.
Complex times call for simple pleasures.
I think that I know, I know that I don’t.
Give her a tour, she’ll find it alright.

Blue blankets of apathy wrap up my mornings.
If you’re dying to be lead, you’re dying to be dead.
Hiding from the sun, hiding from no-one.
Obsessive introspection can’t become the norm.
Laying around feeling sorry and sinful won’t help anyone.
Nearly everyone else has it worse.
Wake up from yourself, wake from the troubled slumber.

Let’s pause and find our own inventions.
Find things of us, things of them.
Things of his and hers and theirs.
Stop staring at the banal and start staring at each other.

Remember when our oldest friend left us here to rot?
The phone won’t ring and loving won’t come.
Not from there, not from them.
Although we find and figure and find, they won’t be found.
Not now, not again, not ever.
To pre-empt December stains lay the blanket over the bowl.
The four-armed hat stand stares blankly at the hole.

Quantifiable evidence amounts to qualitative cock.
There’s plenty of time to know nothing and to love every minute.
There’s plenty of love in the minute corner of the clock.
Breaking off the minute hand,
making the most of the moment.

Throw caution to your mother, throw your mother to the wind.
She will find you one day, bigger and better than her door.
You will leave her and pray, smaller and meeker than before.
But strength will find you one day, strength will make you more.

A stronger sense of the sane hides somewhere in the future.
Stop with the searching and go with the flow.
The river of life ain’t as cloudy as it seems.
In the clearest of waters you’ll discover the dreams.

don't read the news...

SERIOUSLY.

It's bad for your mental health.

A brief run down of what the internet had to tell me tonight to send me to sleep:

http://www.theage.com.au/world/global-oil-supply-far-worse-than-admitted-20091110-i7gu.html?autostart=1

"The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, says a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying"

Nice.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/britain-presses-on-with-big-brother-telecoms-database-20091110-i7j4.html

"LONDON: Every phone call, text message, email and website visit made by Britons is to be stored for a year and will be available for monitoring by government bodies.
All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by British law to keep a record of every customer's personal communications, showing who they have contacted, when and where, as well as the websites they have visited"

NICE.

http://news.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/hayden-wants-aborigines-to-play-cricket-20091111-ia1t.html

Matt Hayden goes to the Tiwi Islands to promote sport, exercise and a healthy lifestlye amongst indigenous children. Fair enough...

BUT

He went there as an ambassador for the Macquarie Bank to kindly donate $24,000 of their money to the local girls soccer club...

Macquarie Bank CEO Alan Moss earns an estimated $33m a year.

Investment banking cheif Nicholas Moore earns $32.9m a year.

Head of corporate finance Michael Carapiet earns $23m a year.

Chairman David Clarke earned almost $19m last year.

Deputy managing director Richard Sheppard earned $10.2m last year.

NICE.

If these blokes donated their spare change to Haydos's valiant charity efforts, there would be a veritable fuckload of pretty pimped-out girl's soccer stadiums in remote indigenous communities in no time...

Just sayin'.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/rabbits-get-new-penises-20091110-i7kg.html

"SCIENTISTS in the US have engineered artificial penises in rabbits using cells from the animals to grow tailor-made organs, with some rabbits hopping to it and fathering baby rabbits within months"

Crazy...

The moral of the story is that the world is inconcievably fucked-up and incomprehensibly bizarre.

If you read about it before you go to bed you probably won't be all that keen on waking up.

Although you might find pictures like this by accident that remind you life is worth living..

Behold the East-African naked mole-rat:

Apparently an east-african naked mole-rat looks rather a lot like a penis with legs:

Heh.

chilled summer waves...

To celebrate the warm weather I've been checking out this so-called "chill-wave" genre on my too-regular breaks from writing FUCKING ESSAYS..
After essays..
SUMMER!!!
Lets hear it for summer. Clap! Clap! Clap!
Yeah! Woo!

Yeah so "chill-wave"..
This stuff simply oozes summer..
Intricately layered syched-out synthy waves of dream-pop beats dripping with woozy washed-out vocals..
MMMMM...

Memory Casette - Surfin'


Washed Out - Belong


and last but certainly not least..
Neon Indian
These guys are the shit and they're coming to Melbourne!!
They're playing at what promises to be a most excellently chill summer festival..
Sandcastles, a new SUPER-CHEAP festival being held on the hallowed sands of ye olde St. Kilda beach on the 9th of Jan..
The line-up offers up a diverse and generally delicious sonic platter..
Everything from Miami Horror synths to My Disco eerie-weird minimalism to The Frowning Clouds ramblin' rock n' roll..
Not to mention Neon Indian!!!
These guys make some seriously legit chill-shit.
If they don't inspire some super-chill babes to do some super-chilled dancing on the sand while the sun sets in a superbly-chilled fashion, I dont know what will.
Nomination for both funniest song title AND video-clip of the year to boot..

Neon Indian - Should Have Taken Acid With You


Did I mention SUMMER!!??
You, me, park, beer, watermelon. Now.

good morning mice and men...

I'm at my most creative,
the morning after beer.
top hat, mickey mouse,
the winking little cunt.
laughing at my sordid state,
his sparking red diamantes,
mock my endless seeds.
m-i-c-k-e-y...m-o-u-s-e,
I fucking despise you.
especially your ears and nose and soul.
junkies are nicer.
the girl with the brown eyes and sad smile and scabs,
is so much nicer.
she scabs only on my cigarettes and her forearms,
you scab on the mind of the masses.
put a syringe in your eyeball, mouse.
twist it twice.
draw it out.
twist and shout.
these pages fill themselves with ease,
every time I encounter your kind,
with the scratching of the pen,
I’ll try to stab you blind.

a peaceful and nuclear-free future...

Just a quick rant, its waaay too late and I should be writing essays instead of blogs...
Procrastination Nation...
Yeah so...
An interesting article by Geoffrey Garrett over at The National Times today..

The debate over climate change reform has reached the US senate. The bill that has already passed congress is expected to be highly ammended before it passes the senate. Some of  the proposed changes to the current bill, which is supposedly quite green, seem to be designed to ensure the bill isn't so radical and revolutionary that it will cause panic amongst big business. As I've written about before, I worry that Obama is opening himself up to propaganda attack from conservative America by being quite so open about his more left-centric political rhetoric and policy decisions. As Garrett's article points out, reform policy such as the health care bill, put forward by the administration and passed by the overwhelmingly democrat, Obama-loving house of congress are being toned down and tempered by ammendments put forward by the less-left senate. Maybe having a leader with strong ideologies being kept in check with the political mainstream by a moderate senate is a good thing...

As I was saying, some of the changes being championed by, amongst others, former presidential candidate John Kerry seem to be aimed at tempering the bill as to avoid too much of an ideological backlash from the right. Although some of the taxes and tarrif changes will probably make it more difficult to significantly encourage big polluters to reduce emissions, in the real world of politcal game-playing they may be a necessary evil. The Rudd government took a similarly frustrating but possibly politically unavoidable option when they offered up big compensation dollars to Australia's dirtiest polluters as part of the emissions trading scheme legislation...
BUT....
As you can see, it is a pretty big but...
As well as changes to tarrifs and the ugly probability of America not submitting itself to binding emissions cuts anytime soon, Kerry and his cohorts are advocating nuclear power as a key factor in combatting emissions.

"nuclear power needs to be a core component of electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction targets" - John Kerry

Two words...
FUCK. THAT.
This announcement immediatly brought to mind a Quarterly Essay I read a couple of years ago before attention-span crippling internet addiction began to destroy my capability to read anything on paper longer than ten pages. A severely abridged version of the 25,000+ word essay can be found here. The QE, titled "Climate Change and the Nuclear Option", was written by one of Australia's leading commentators on science and the environment, the current professor of science, technology and society at Griffith University and all round really-smart guy Ian Lowe. The dude has a PhD in Physics alright kids? As well as a compelling range of others, these are the main reasons Lowe denounces nuclear power as a solution for climate change:
1. There is still no proven way of safely storing nuclear waste created by the nuclear power process.
2. Nuclear power stations are still imperfect in design and susceptible to catastrophic nuclear meltdowns.
3. Nucear power stations are a prime target for terrorists, the consequences of an attack would be immense.
4. It is still common practise for countries to either use or sell excess uranium for the purpose of making nuclear weapons.
5. The economic and carbon emission costs of effectively building nuclear power facilities to replace coal and gas generated electricity would have severely negative ramifictions for both the economy and the environment.
6. Renewable enrergy sources such a solar, wind, and geo-thermal enrgies are more econimically feasible, safe, and environmentally friendly.

These are admittedly brief and simplified surmations of the problems outlined by Lowe, the essay goes into the nitty gritty details of each...  but yeah you get the drift...

Uranium is dodgy shit.
Hiroshima.
Chernobyl.
Leave it in the ground.
Spend money on safe renewable energies.
Covering a large section of the Australian desert in solar panels would generate enough energy to power a large percentage of the world's energy grid. The only thinng holding society back from progressing away from environmentally dangerous and harmful energy sources is the cost, and nuclear energy is, according to Lowe, at least equally, but more likely even more expensive, than renewable energy sources.

Nuclear power as a solution to climate change, he argues convincingly, is like ADVOCATING SMOKING AS A CURE FOR OBESITY. Yeah, it might work for a little while, but even during that little while it will be incredibly expensive and polluting. After that little while, there there is such a broad range of life-threatening health risks involved that you're almost certainly fucked. And although I suck down a hundred of the cancer-canes a minute, I know it is eventually going to kill me and I don't suggest the whole world should smoke. Nor would I suggest to a fat person that they become addicted to ciggies in an effort to lose weight. The US senate should take the same stance on Nuclear Energy as a solution for global warming.

Wow. That rant didn't turn out so quick. Oh well.

**********

dip the toe in the ocean...

a couple of months ago scotland's finest indie-emo-folk-pop magicians frightened rabbit gave us the first airing of an as-yet unreleased track via an Off The Beaten Tracks session...
awesome..
the lads have now given the track the full studio treatment and confirmed it as their new single...
as far as i can tell, the band are still locked away working on the new LP..
the only details i can find at this stage about the album are as follows:
1. it is to be called The Winter Of Mixed Drinks {textbook FR}
2. it is will be out "early-mid 2010" {too far away}
3. lead singer and songwriter scott hutchison reckons alot of the new songs are about "pushing yourself out to the edge of things and being alone, feeling lost and not knowing where you are" {fuck. yeah.} and also that the songs are turning out "a little less obviously personal and brutal" than those from the last two albums"...
interesting things!!!
watch this space...

**********

the shiny new video for Swim Until You Can't See Land, via Stereogum:

who wants to play with torches?

a pornographic haseesh daydream in heaven...

finishing on the road again, the latest chapter of my youngest dazzling days draws to a close.
the profound effect of my pleadingly normative imagination will remain forever entrenched in my eternal daydream.
visions of unknown valleys with mysterious golden rivers flowing with thick, hot, viciously delicious waters.
jealous dreams of wild rocky mountains mansions; abandoned; old; and ripe raw for the picking will forever erupt in my minds eye at the closing of my own true blues.
the search for something in a societal association simultaneously bursting at the seems with life and drowning in the doldrums of death will be my search forever and ever.
amen.
the expanses of the Americas! will be a canvas for painting and pinpointing in moments of madness; moments of overcrowded chaos and confusion...
but also in moments of serene solitude; perching and pondering upon secret mountain and tree tops and beaches and bedheads.
viewing plausibility and possibilities in stark contrasting lights will always be the name of the game.
now we know the knowledge derived from painting big pictures of nothing.

the middle east...

i'm absolutely in love with this band at the moment..
falsetto-driven pastoral folky finger-picking deliciousness..
both the male and female vocals are beyond beautiful...
delicate, heartfelt, pretty, pretty, pretty...
look how pretty...
video from Parasites and Sycophants...

SO FUCKING PRETTY. ARGH.
 
can't wait...
A. to see these guys at the corner on sunday night...
B. to see them again at meredith...
C. to hear this live:
The Middle East - The Darkest Side - DOWNLOAD!!!!
and probably
D. to cry my eyes out like a baby girl...

ive got a sad song in my sweet heart...

girls, ciggs, sunsets, hair, makin' out, bleary-eyed inebriation..
every so often
life is like a music video
if only we could live like this
if only we could live like that
pushing pause and pressing play

the bay on a bleary friday...

The sparkling lights, the serene ships, dance peacefully, in the intense iridescent orange sunset, hanging over a beautiful bay. The glassy surface water, is a melting pot of hyper-colour; oranges, purples, blues, and the reddest reds, run rampant across the top, watching the highly lucid liquid, as a cyclist sways to a stop, taking in the startling sight. The old queer four-rod fisherman, wheels his reel quickly, oblivious to the beauty on the event horizon. I’ve gone through the end of the tunnel, into the light and I’m delighted, the technicolour dreamshow, the light is here.

***********

ban the bomb...

I know I never write about anything but Obama...

but...

On Friday, the UN adopted a resolution that aims to rid the world of nuclear arms within our lifetime:

"a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought...no matter how great the obstacles may seem, we must never stop our efforts to reduce the weapons of war...we must never stop until we see the day when nuclear arms have been banished from the face of the earth. That is our task. That can be our destiny." - President Obama addressing the UN Security Council - 25th Sep. 2009.

WOW.

I'm still worried that Obama is jerking his shitty American-made car so suddenly towards the left-hand lane that the oncoming right-wing traffic that still careers along the status-quo side of the road is going to obliterate his administration in a nasty head-on propaganda incident... But rhetoric like that is just too inspiring to get negative about. The resolution was passed unanimoussly by the UN Security Council.

Total nuclear disarmament is a notion that would have been beyond the wildest realms of possibility during the cold war, or even during the years of the Bush administration. We can only hope and pray that world leaders have the sense to diplomatically negotiate practical strategies for stockpile reduction and disarmament. When hell freezes over with a nuclear winter you say? You're probably right, but talk like this is a serious step in the direction of hope.

THEY SAY:
BAN THE BOMBS,
NO MORE NUKES,
MAKE LOVE NOT WAR.
YOU SAY:
HEY WAR-WHORES,
FUCK YOUR GUNS,
YOU CUNTS SHOOT BLANKS.
I SAY:
BONGS ARE BETTER THAN BULLETS,
DROP BEATS NOT BOMBS,
MAKE CURRIED SAUSAGES, NOT WAR.

black moth super rainbow - tooth decay...

all self-respecting music videos should feature animated spiralling psychedlic rainbows, skulls, and saber-tooth tigers...

sordid sunset...

i sat sipping slowly on the foreshore,
staring at the brutally beautiful,
oblivious to the beauty,
the sky she was iridescent orange,
as the ocean sprayed her with explosive sea-mist,
yet i found myself fiddling,
fiddling with my useless human possession,
eyes burn holes in feet,
an empty bottle of beer,
unable to think forward,
unable to think of anything,
but myself,
my stuff,
and who the bottle of beer belonged to,
i gave up and wandered home holding my grudge.

horribly exciting/worrying words...

obama on letterman last night...

check out the rest of the interview, it is all over youtube...

As you may have already noticed, the mention of obama kinda gives me a boner. I don't truly believe that he is going to change the world anywhere near the amount that it needs to change in order for to the human race to feel okay about the way we conduct ourselves. The system will still be the system. I just feel that he may steer the system in a slightly more humane direction.

It's amazing to see an American leader who, at least at face value, seems to care about the plight and suffering of the "lower" echelons of American society. Hearing an American president denounce Washington's obesession with maintaining the status quo; stating that "the status quo is unacceptable", and that "I will not accept the status quo as a solution", is pretty exciting stuff.

Much of the rhetoric Obama espoused on Letterman was ideologically driven; there was alot of talk of "the left", "the centre-left", the "centre-right", and so on. The above quotes signalling his intent to create "change" came as a defence of his "socialist" healthcare reforms. He certainly doesn't seem to be afraid of aligning himself with the liberal, humanist ideologies of "the left".

While all this talk of steering the ship to the left may seem to be a reason for the liberally minded population to celebrate, I'm not sure that it is the sanest political philosophy.

As Bush demonstrated, the American electorate is massively susceptible to a good old fashioned political scare campaign, and as I have written before, the conservatives are already beggining to paint Obama as a communist who is going to steal from the rich and eat their babies.

In addition to the healthcare reforms, the administration is changing the way it deals with national defence policy. Where previously America has generally adopted the ideology of force-and-threats-over-diplomacy, Obama is attempting to push a far more negotiations-based approach for America's influence in the sphere of international diplomatic relations.

The administration last week took a drastic diplomatic measure of scrapping plans for a missle defence system that was planned for construction in eastern Europe, pretty much on Russia's doorstep. The Russian's were massively agrravated by the plans, which were supposedly designed to protect the western world from missile attack from rogue states such as Iran and North Korea.

In another more rationally-minded parallel dimension, this might be seen as an effort to reduce the perception of America as an overly-aggressive nation of war-mongers in the international consciousness.

But on this planet..

Withdrawing plans to build so-called "national defence" sytems, especially after being pressured by Russia to do so, seems to me to be giving the conservatives perfect ammunition to carpet bomb the American public with "Obama is a weakling and a communist" propaganda.

Schwarzenegger-Palin 2012?

********

Bonus Bush:

********

UPDATE 24/09/09:
I woke up this morning to find this article; apparently Obama is deadly serious about eliminating the threat of nuclear war: 

"Obama has this week demanded that the Pentagon conduct a radical review of the US nuclear weapons doctrine with the explicit aim of slashing its nuclear arsenal. The President rejected the first draft of the Pentagon's Nuclear Posture Review on the grounds that it was too timid in advancing his aim of eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons."

Again, Obama is expressing some amazing ambitions, but is he professing too much peace-and-love too soon to an American people who surely still uphold a passion for guns, xenophobia, and holy-wars? The world hasn't changed that drastically with the election of a black president has it? Obama  seems to hang his hat on the fact that he was elected in the first place as sign that the times they are a-changin'. As his plummeting approval rate amongst the wealthy white population seems to indicate, it won't take very much for the American public to swing back very hard in the direction of a conservative political doctrine if they fear for their money and national security... 

post-post-amazing....

if i had a mad 80s zoot suit...

the french know how to do it...

One of the most high-profile political court cases in, well, the history of the world begins in France today. A list of plaintiffs that includes President Nicholas Sarkozy and the current head of the IMF, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, are pursuing defamation charges against ex-Frech-PM Dominique de Villepin. The base of the case closely remembles the moronic "utegate" scandal; only with far more intense claims of deceipt and corruption, and instead of a rural QLD car dealership at the centre of the story, we have one of the worlds most powerful aerospace engineering companies...

European continental politics make Autralia's scandals seem so quaint and backwards. The best we can do is awkward Kevin from Nambour being set-up, via a bitchy lunch-break fake email, falsely accused with giving a leg up to an old mate's struggling middle-of-nowhere used-car dealership. Who cares? The French have Dominique, born in Morrocco and raised in the French Riveira, accused of framing, amongst others, the future President of France and the future leader of the international organisation that oversees the global financial system. No middle-management email shenanigans in the Paris criminal court either; this character is alleged to be the author of a legal contract that was leaked to the press and later found to be completely fabricated, that includes the names and signatures of Sarkozy and Strauss-Khan, implicating them in a scandal involving massive bribery and corruption in the sale of French naval frigates to Taiwan. They don't fuck around on the Champs-Elysees do they? De Villepin will certainly be aware of that as he takes to the very same court stand in the historic criminal court where Marie Antoinette was sentenced to death by guillotine during the French Revolution 200-odd years ago.

Bonus coverage of the French teaching us how to be suave and sophisticated:

     

wordswordswordswords...

woah...

drain the blood...

afflicting the comfortable,
comforting the afflicted,
affairs of a benevolent policy,
attract more attention and cynicism,
than affairs of big business,
dig there,
where people help profit,
not here,
where people help people,
money=blood,
people=pain,
drain the blood,
ease the pain.

the boys with Kaleidoscope eyes...

what happens when a legendary dutch trance producer teams up with the transcendentally brilliant icelandic voice of the frontman one of the most amazing bands you will ever listen to?
this...


the song is the title track of the forthcoming album, which will also involve collaborations with kele from bloc party, tegan and sara from... well, tegan and sara, emily haines from metric, and calvin harris, amongst others...

if this first cut is anything to go by, it promises to be nothing short of amazing.  

weird=welcome...

bizarre dreamscapes surge,

up and down,

either side of no man’s road.

i’m made sea sick,

by the urgency of the sock tie’s,

need for normality.

best friends berate the bizarre,

deride the different,

asking the question why?

while I ask, why not?

don’t snigger and scorn,

delightful deranged dribbling,

and ducks,

I am eternally intrigued by.

its a wide open road,

don’t tread slowly,

the narrowest path of normalcy,

this most insane course of action,
can't feed a drag racing brain.

the thought of touching tongues,

with one who doesn’t toe the white line,

gives them fever,

similar thoughts give me a different fever,

the fever that Ella Fitzgerald sings to me.

furrowed brows and surly frowns,

follow our fun,

our fucked up antics,

down the too straight streets,

no one but us understands,

the stupid secrets which we speak,

no one can find what we seek.

the need for now grows week by week.

i don't trust you...

the flaming lips. "convinced of the hex" live on the colbert report...

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Flaming Lips - Convinced of the Hex
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Protests

watch Colbert mistrust Coyne for attempting to "expand his mind", then question the "downer" lyrics of "do you realize??" here...
funny shit.

in more fearless-freaks-funny-shit news, they want all their fans in portland to rock up to the side of a mountain on wednesday morning for the filming of their new video...
as long as they are willing to get their gear off:

"I'm having one of my giant space bubbles covered in fake fox fur. It's going to look like some giant fur egg, and the people on bicycles are gonna sort of be born and erupt out of this fur, vaginalistic thing."

nice.
 
you can now stream the entire new album at colbert nation...

it's sounding delicious.

slightly exciting news...

the world over, indie rock nerds are collectively wetting their pants...
as pitch4k reported today, the 90's jangly guitar-pop heroes are booked to play a benefit gig in central park in september 2010. although that is forever away and there is no other news as yet, the internet rumblings have been rumbling louder and louder for months and this looks like the strongest indication yet that there might be a new album and tour plans in the works. this news is a welcome consolation; i'm missing out on seeing malkmus with his jicks at prince bandroom next wednesday because my leg is broken and my budget lends itself to fish fingers instead of $45 gig tickets...

cameroon mooney for sucks sake....

one for the footy heads...
one of the funniest youtubes i've ever seen...
hitler losing his shit over the all-australian squad...
from the Crikey Sports blog...

something i'd thought i'd say...
SPOT ON  MEIN FUHRER. HEIL HITLER!

its hangin' well thanks...

a dream...

bandaged baby on the big slide.

change his nappy, tickle his toes, watch him die.
the stench of the sinister hides amongst the bloody gums.

was it you? fuck you. what was it?

fire bomb the bed, plastic filled with petrol.

why?
feel the spinal scream, fan the flames

are we at war?

yes.
who with?
do you care?
not at all.

fearfully we tumble together down the steep crumbling clay track.
outrun the flames.
you must survive.

unseen wizards spread the seeds of terror in a child's country town.

obama get raw with his wall street niggaz...

Obama's speech to a congregation of politicians and wall street sharks on the first anniversary of the collapse of thee Lehman Brothers and the beginning of the stock market crash:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/09/15/obama-lays-into-wall-st/

"there are some in the financial industry who are misreading this moment.  Instead of learning the lessons of Lehman and the crisis from which we’re still recovering, they’re choosing to ignore those lessons.  I’m convinced they do so not just at their own peril, but at our nation’s.  So I want everybody here to hear my words:  We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess that was at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses.  Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences"

Ohhhh sheeet. Oh yes he did. You go girlfriend. Tell those greedy-arse blood thirsty American Psychos what's what and if they step out of line pull out yo piece and pop a cap in their over-bloated piggy banks. Then retire back to the back yard of the White Cribb for a BBQ and to shoot hoops at your bad-ass street-ball setup that you knocked up in place of Georgie Dubya's white trash bowling alley. You da man. Pity you still either believe or pretend to believe in the free market and global capitalism. Oh well, pobody's nerfect I suppose.

bonus drinken em' at the nicks game pic:

tear down the lies...

splitting the atom...

following up on my post from the other day...
i've got my hands on the new Massive Attack EP, Splitting the Atom
it is sounding amazing...

the title track resonates eerily...

"Pray for Rain", as i've already described, is delightfully slinky and soulful...

the last two tracks that appear on the EP are supposedly remixed versions of tracks set to appear on the band's long-awaited fifth studio album, slated to drop in February.

"psyche" features the spaced-out vocals of Martina Topley-Bird and the track's dark, bloopy production remind me warmly of one of my other favourite electronic releases of this year, Karin Dreijer Andersson's Fever Ray.

but the track that currently has me going slightly loopy is the final track from the EP, "Bulletproof Love (Christoff Berg Remix)". the vocals here are supplied by Elbow frontman Guy Garvey, although the downtrodden production renders his distinctive voice almost unrecognisable. it will be interesting to see how the "original" track sounds on the album, because this remix is going to be hard to match. swirling synths and echoe-chamber effects evoking clanging steel and urban industrialisation laid over a pulsating, muddy beat.

This slots perfectly into my "walking around at night music" file.
Somewhere very near the top of the pile.

DDownloaDD:
MassiveAttack - Bulletproof Love (Christoff Berg Remix)

matters of blood and guts and sweat....

on the city station,
waiting for her tawdry trip,
middle suburbia,
why wont you?
dream while you're waiting,
another foreigner in a foreign land,
our lonliness compares not with theirs,
for they know something else.

many things should be better,
the echoes of urban isolation through dislocation,
ring rowdy in the ears,
those escaping what they have always known,
from babble to bar-room brawls,
the inner city stickers of information,

tell me how to live my life,
whether i want them to or what.

the barbaric blonde,
allures my seduction in just one click,
as the 370degree muzzle,
shifts my apple into overdrive,
before the echoes of others' pages paddles,
through the wall canals of my carriage.

the dancing rock beats of my bud ears,
remind me of the depraved dancefloors,
of my final few years,
filling me with yearning,
for simpler times,
of my mental emotional make-up.

moving part of the way,
down the confuddled path,
matters of  blood and guts and sweat,
paint the walls a more confusing colour of purple,
there is no way of knowing how.

attempting to know the knowledge,
just the tiniest titch,
fries the mind,
a tiny answer to a tiny question,
spawns a million more.

yearning for the dark,
only skin deep,
everytime a'yearning,
for know nothing naive darkness,
the phone dials a source of study light,
the need for knowledge of another,
superceeding and effectively eliminating,
the nature of the romantic luddite.

inside my somewhat childish mind,
it keeps drawing back to flimsy foppish fun,
searching for something that matters,
grand schemes for the skull's soul.