A giraffe that wears shopping trolley wheel rollerskates and talks too much in china shops

like totes bailin...

2011-05-15T16:37:00.000+10:00

http://vbtinsandtacos.tumblr.com

^^^been introduced to like omg what all the kids these dayz are doin so probablamente won't be postin moocho on this old mate from here on in... its been great, i've ranted lots of nonsensical babble and stuff i'll probably look back on one day and wish i'd never been born, but hey lets face it speaking shit is more fun than being silent so suck my nuts cunts. yeah, that's a good way to end this juvenile retardshitfest. suck em. <3

dos dinosaurios still managing to make shit sick...

2011-04-20T02:23:00.000+10:00

These dudes are starting to make me less terrified of middle age.
I hope I'm at the Masics/Moore electric wheelchair tour come 2030.

fuck off, we're full (of shit)...

2011-04-11T14:56:00.003+10:00

Q. Try Hard Hippy:
yo what are your thoughts on them god damn immigents? in particular, the asylum seeker variety?

A. Angry Giraffe:
The fact that there are grown men rotting in over-crowded jails all over our 'fair and free' wide brown land for years on end, solely for the heinous 'crime' of 'arriving illegally', for having the natural human desire to try to find some semblance of shelter, sustenance and safety for themselves and their children makes me want to burn down parliament house.

The fact that there are women and children locked in jails all over fuck-we're-good-blokes-and-everybody-else-are-evil-bastards-especially-the-brown-people Australia because they tried to leave behind a life living in constant fear of death, and violence while going to get bread and milk from the corner store that is either low on everything or doesn't exist at all... makes me want to stab all of my xenophobic retard mates in cold blood then shoot myself in the face with a shotgun.

But y'know I'm an angry overly idealistic loud-mouth hypocrite hippie punk who can barely tie his own shoelaces so I'm probably wrong about everything and we should just keep doing everything exactly the way we are because there's a chance that if we change anything, it might make stuff start getting worse than it already is in the future.

Maybe we should just all do whatever the fuck we want all of the time except be gay or use bad language or have sex before marriage, regularly ask Jesus to forgive us for all the other evil shit we do, and everything will be all sweet.

If you send a question to kickflip_911@hotmail.com, I promise I won't insult your mother with my answer unless she deserves it.

chido...

2011-04-10T21:43:00.001+10:00

Mi favorito de streetartutopia.com's 106 of the most beloved Street Art Photos of 2010. Check deez kents steez, its rad.

getting my horrifying procrastination on...

2011-04-06T19:01:00.000+10:00

Q. Why am I sitting in the library reading the incomprehensible mindless drivel on the blog of a leering holier-than-thou redhead shit vomiting moron mechanism instead of doing my mis-en-scene analysis essay on the last scene from the film about chopper read called chopper, the one where he is sitting in his cell watching the screening of the interview he did for the commercial television network current affairs show, the one with the journalist who he wrote about in his book also the book which I was meant to have finished reading ages ago for my australian writing and cultural change class because the essay was due last friday but I haven't even finished reading the book let alone started writing the essay either because he thought she was sexy and had guts and determination unlike everyone else in the television as opposed to torture industry in his opinion because she was willing to fly to tassie to watch him shoot stubbies out of the fat outstretched fists of bikies in order to get a good scoop for her commerical television network current affairs show and then in the interview on the little tv in the cell he jokes with her about chopping off her toes or something then says she has nice toes and clearly as the stuff on the tv screen is all brightly lit while the lighting in the cell is all dark and moody and there is sun shining in to the cell both from the window behind the tv and from the doorway behind the prison guards with whom he jokes about how much money the tv interview is going to make him in book sales and a copy of his book is placed behind the tv somehow this is all amounts to extremely masterful meaningful film-making and i'm supposed to be able to wax lyrical for two thousand words about how profound all of the above is without once questioning why arguing endlessly about cinematic techniques and styles and the manner in which they generate meanings is a legitimate intellectual pursuit worthy of my precious time and therefore under the old adages spouted by alcoholic uncles are always right so fucking do what your told act of 1954 money for my cinema studies class?

A. Because I drank too much coffee before coming to the library so I can now only concentrate on short spasms of awesomely entertaining idiotic internet drivel with all the videos and links and sounds and pictures to go with the words web pages such as Dry Red, or this, instead of the dryer-than-dry ice self-indulgent academic wankery the establishment makes me read endlessly in order to obtain a piece of paper which will amount to either a ticket to employment in the field of photocopying and data entry or a ticket to years upon years of reading ever-increasing amounts of dry self-indulgent academic wankery on pieces of paper made from the trees we so desperately need to store our rapidly diminishing levels of carbon in our atmosphere so that one day I may be deemed qualified to begin attempting to force new generations of drug-addled and disaffected young minds who unlike their educators are still more interested in socialising and sex and enjoying life and trying avoid falling into the ever-increasingly materialistic middle-class lifestyles of their quasi-non-conformist educators than making buckets of money to feed said educators said increasing need for material consumption into reading unreasonably large bundles of exactly the same crusty soul crushing academia while at the same time encouraging them to think freely and creatively about ways to trying to liberate society from outdated structures of debilitating conformity.

Who needs speed when you get unlimited free coffee and breakfast from a dodgy mate who works in swanky camberwell cafe's?

Ever fallen in love?

2011-03-31T01:21:00.001+11:00

Shy pommy schoolboy and a pretty punk pommy schoolgirl bond over the latest Buzzcocks 7" inna record store, she's tellen 'im to come to'er joint to lissen to'et yeh, then back a'er joint they share a brew, anna fag, she tells 'im: "gob on me", they spit beer on eechuvva, then they lose their shit an shag like swee'arts listenin' to the 'cocks.

nAWWW fuckin' luvely 'at is iznit?

TIIIMBERRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-03-30T01:13:00.003+11:00

If a bear shits dreamily in the woods and the fucking pope is nowhere near the scene of the rather serene crime to hear anything about it, then what's the point of it being posted on some weirdo's music blog where no-one will ever fucking well smell that shit? There is no point at all, one would argue correctly. This explains why it must be posted on this motherfucker right here, this mighty bastion of mainstream indie-alternative trend-setting, this new cool cunt fuckwit bible, this extremely-well-known-except-only-in-the-coolest-kids-on-the-interwebz-circles music and other cool stuff interweblog, this super successful superstar elitist style sensation that like ptch4k or whatever like totes wishes it could be, but knows it never will be because like chuh as if, this space that is soon to be smothered in heaps of hyper lucrative hispter fashion label advertising, extorting money out of its fucking fabulously fashionable fanbase, whose super sublimely sensational taste in absolutely everything and soul squashing preoccupation with social status leads them buy a whole bunch of ridiculous shit they don't need in the slightest but desperately need to own for the sake of the consumer-item cultural capital that it brings to their personal brand, thus making the 'uber-cool' capitalist pigdog AmeriApparel style 'socially conscious' corporations (and consequently the best blog ever itself) ultra rich and therefore even cooler, this be all and end all of music and modern cultural criticism, this blog that this blog reccomends ultra-highly, that this blog suggests that if you don't like it you're probably a loser or weird or something, and gives its new album 10.3 out of 9.... Conversations With Unicorns.

unified suck farts....

2011-03-17T22:36:00.000+11:00

the distant, the mournful,
sound of a ships horn,
suggesting nothing more,
than the sad exhale,
of a distant god,
watching the pathetic struggles of humans.

(blowing their noses, for example, or...
performing unified suck farts.)

meat shake...

2011-03-09T18:51:00.001+11:00

Shakin' it, good.
Swinging from rafters, good.
Eating microphones, good.
Not going to see thee oh sees in Melbourne last month, bad.
Not being in Monterrey to see thee oh sees this weekend, bad.
Thee oh sees: good, Miles... bad.

this just in... america loves jesus.

2011-03-08T20:40:00.000+11:00

A gallup poll in 1999 asked a bunch of stupid seppo's whether they would vote for an 'otherwise' well-qualified...

Woman (95% yes)
Roman Catholic (94%)
Jew (92%)
Black (92%)
Mormon (79%)
Homosexual (79%)
...
Atheist (49%)

So... 5% surveyed admit they would never ever vote for a bitch, yet only 6% swear they would never vote for a pope-blower. Another 8% are willing to state they would never vote for a kike or a nigger, while only 79% would be willing to trust a fag; the exact same number that don't mind the notion of a derranged door-to-door jesus freak running their nation.

A MAJORITY of those surveyed would never vote for an atheist.

Que pedo.

"When one person sufferes from a delusion it is called insanity.
When many people suffer from a delusion it is called religion."
- Robert M. Pirsig ~ Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

"Majority rule, don't work in mental institutions." - NoFX

"Jesus Cunt, Supercunt. Religion is fucked in the head." - Miles

somos mas los buenos que los malos...

2010-11-10T11:33:00.000+11:00

Its not us VS them.
The enemy is within.
I could unfuck myself.
You could unfuck yourself.
Together we could unfuck the world.
Pero no.
¿Que pedo?
¿Por que?

from a funny memo from a funny memo...

2010-11-04T20:12:00.001+11:00

millas,

probablemente ya lo hayas escuchado.

me agrada

XD

I kinda like pretty, overly-opinionated hippy girls who clearly have no idea what they are talking about.
In fact I'm pretty sure I am one.
I just wish people didn't believe in dragons.
Stuff that we can see is amazing.
We can make magic with our minds, and this is good.
Lots of lies are good.
Beautiful lies aren't evil, but no-one should claim they are true.
Believing lies is what got us in this whole fucked-up mess in the first place.

pretty videos from home and stupid songs in very stupid spanish from right here, right now.....

2010-10-25T10:05:00.001+11:00

Q.
what do you do when a lovely girl with a lovely fringe who plays lovely lonely guitar in your brain and sometimes sings lovely songs you both like in a lovely lilting light voice sends you a video you already know of two similarly lovely girls sitting in a forrest playing lovely guitar and singing a lovely lonely song you already love in lovely lilting light voices?

A.
1. sit around in foreign land trying to write songs about foreign girls in a foreign language that you don't understand using a foreign textbook that you don't understand and a computer that doesn't understand anything at all in an attempt to try to forget about your own old life and about your own old language and about the existence of the pacific ocean.
2. fail miserably at all of the above.
3. drink many beers.

ella tiene una lista de palabras nuevas
los muchachos bailan con las muchachas
yo hablo mucho veces con mi maestra
yo trato de practicar tambien
nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella

mujeres dibujan mapas en mi mente
ella pregunta la hora
yo preparo informacion para la futura
yo necesito un buen cuaderno
nosotros conversamos siempre en espanol
nosotros tomamos limonada en cada reunion

nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella
nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella

tu siempre comunicas
enthusiasmo en espanol
un muchacho ayuda a otros muchachos
hoy yo tocaro la gitarra
nosotros usamos la forma correcto
nosotros contestamos la pregunta

nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella
nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella

ella habla sobre los productos
ella informa sobre la poesia moderna
yo contesto un sobre la arrogancia
yo espero leer una novela persona
nosotros hablamos poco en la biblioteca
nosotros hablamos rapido en la selva

nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella
nosotros deseamos cantar cada dia
nosotros cantamos un cancion para ella
nosotros cantamos siempre un cancion para ella

music for skating down hills at night while wearing big fuck-off shiny silver noise-cancelling headphones vol. 68...

2010-10-22T08:35:00.002+11:00

Cloneominids by FigueAlaska
AKA trippy electronic shit by the man with the best beard-tache in all of Mexico.

wusshhh

blast from last summer...

2010-10-19T18:44:00.000+11:00

last year i loved a song

it just came on mtv mexicana

it reminded me of last summer

it made me buy beer and darts

its 3 in the morning

on a monday in monterrey

in mexico

so far away from where i was

so much has happened since

yet it still feels like last summer

the next one will be weird

mi respuesta de un correo electronico estupido para mi universidad en Australlia....

2010-10-07T07:30:00.000+11:00

Hi Yuki!
Hi everyone at Swinburne Abroad!

I'm fine.
I have heard gunshots several times since I arrive, last week they were very loud and right outside my house, and yesterday I could hear them en la tarde when I was smoking cigarettes and practising my spanish with cute mexican girls at uni.

Sorry, but I won't be going to meetings or communicating international offices or anyone else other than my young mexicano amigos y familia in regards to safety. They are the ones whose advice I trust, as nearly all other advice I get is hysterical and unhelpful. If it was up to many personas, especially internacional estudientes (mainly girls :P), I would spend my entire exchange locked in the toilet of my apartment.

It is very frustrating listening to international students gossiping at university about whether or not the situation is getting "better" or "worse" in an empty-headed, extremely reactionary fashion every time there is a shooting. The drug war, the apparently corrupt government and media and police, in conjunction with the apparently extreme and unquantifiable power and influence of the drugs cartels in this part of the world... well the catch-22 situation makes it completely impossible for anyone (international offices, students, and mexicana personas included) to have even the vaguest clue as to whether the situation is "getting worse" or getting better".

The gossiping personas I speak of are reading the (apparently) extremely corrupt and sensantionalist (y influential) mainstream newspapers and television every day.... if one was to believe their representation of the situation one would think that walking around Monterrey was like walking around the set of Resident Evil 4.

I have yet to see any bloodied corpses or zombies, and it is fairly unlikely that I will.

It works better for me not to think about the situation and just get on with having the most amazing time I've ever had in my life... I could get eaten by a shark swimming at the beach or be hit by a truck skating or bitten by a spider out the bush in Australia anytime... and I plan to travel all over the world to all sorts of foreign and dangerous locations in the future. Therefore I am using this experience as a means of learning how to deal with fear in a sensible manner.

Although it breaks my heart to hear stories of violence, kidnappings y shootings etc from friends, and my hear goes out to the lovely people of mexico who have to deal with the fear and violence every day of their lives... I have the philosophy that I'm more likely NOT to experience such things than I am. More people don't get shot than people who do. So I try not to let it worry me. Succumbing to fear makes it very difficult to remain happy and positive, and acting fearful in dangerous situations always makes them more dangerous. Everday bad guys can see and smell who is looking and smelling scared in the streets and are much more likely to target people whom they can tell are already terrified. Walking around the streets behind garbage bins every time a car backfires or constantly looking your shoulder is a very bad idea. If the bad guys are proper, nasty, narco-sharks with AK47s looking for a foreigner to rob or kidnap, then there is nothing I can do about it either way, so there is not point thinking or worrying about it.

I see Collingwood won the grand final replay. Tell me this is all a horrible joke made up by the Australian media especially designed to make a homesick traveller very very depressed. HAHA.

The thought of the MCG covered in Black and White streamers makes me want to vomit, but at least it has gone a long way toward allaying my feelings of homesickness. If England beat Australia in the cricket this summer, which is looking like a possibility going on both side's current form according to an australiano amigo..... I am going to be one very unhappy camper upon returning to the city of poor sporting results.

This weekend I am going to the futbal with a mexicano amigo who supports the Monterrey Tigres... I support the Richmond Tigers in the AFL. I have been watching the Primera Division de Mexico on the television and videos on youtube of the muy muy loco fans drinking beers and chanting and sometimes getting in very crazy riots. Mi amigo assures me it will be alot of fun and he knows how to ensure we avoid any dangerous situations. OLE TIGRES!!!!

On sunday I am climbing the mountains once again with amigos from Mexico and a Norwiegan Viking amigo. I'll send you some photos!

Paz y Amor,
y
¡VIVA LA MEXICO!

¡Saludos!
Millas.

READ THIS BLOG!!!!!!!!!

2010-10-05T20:02:00.001+11:00

Sublimado Corrosivo: Nunca me han gustado los blogs: "Nunca me han gustado los blogs y siguen sin gustarme. De hecho hasta me siento extraño escribiendo en esta madre. Me siento como uno entre m..."

sueño numero doce...

2010-10-03T10:23:00.000+11:00

after I finally begged,
she tried to leave,
then sheepishly returned,
ding dong on my doorbell,
despite the bell-end
I ignored the pig-head.
you so stupid, stupid.

in the dreamtime I dreamt of her,
of her and her friend,
inside and out,
don’t believe the lies...
on the seventh day,
god created a shower.

I awoke avoiding reality,
wishing on whims,
wanting to touch,
very very much,
although also wildly worried,
a feeling for a friend,
es only the dreamtime amigo,
friends aren’t that friendly in the daytime.

Remember the past.
Don’t do anything stupid, stupid.
You so stupid, stupid.
Stop choosing such stupid choices, stupid.
Start being smart, stupid.

num num num num num...

2010-09-26T08:20:00.004+10:00

after a night of drinking on rooftops
staring at the city lights dancing
the only thing as good as waking up
in bed with lots of lovely latina ladies
is the goodness to be had upon getting up
listenin' to spanish singing and dancing
makin' sweet banana pancakes
with even sweeter back rubs.

remember the dead...

2010-09-24T04:36:00.001+10:00

sitting and staring sadly...

2010-09-21T07:47:00.002+10:00

No tenia disposición mas que dos experiencias: la del sujeto mirado y la del sujeto mirarte. - Roland Barthes, La Camara Lucida ~ 1980.

An image begins its movement the instant we look at it.
They transform from the stoned certainty of the sensory chase, into a flowing pool of fluid meaning the instant they are captured and frozen. No matter the form a mediated memory takes, a video, a picture, a painting, a photo, there will always be movements brimming with the life of the viewer, and therefore will do a different dance for each person who picks its up. Never believe what you see. Particularly in an ever-moving memory object. For while you are looking at it and leering, like a ravenous and arrogant jackal on a desperate quest for meaning and blood, you are only staring in a mirror of memory, and it is looking back at you and laughly silently. We know this, we've talked about this, but words can't describe the magical physical manifestations of sentimentality.

Barthes wrote Camera Lucia as a eulogy for his mother.

Sentimentality changed he though about thinking about looking at pictures.

Codes of culture and language and philosophy are limited in terms of truly understanding anything.

They often have no relevance love and pain and the past.
Love and pain and the past are all just words.

first dream for fucking ages...

2010-09-15T23:49:00.001+10:00

people always say,
if you stop smoking bud,
you’ll be dreaming once more,
at night,
and in general.

i never trust what people say,
its a strength of mine,
but also a big problem,
sometimes,
people’s intentions are innocent.

people also say,
if you write down your dreams,
right away upon waking,

the memories,
return with a vengeance.

from what I can tell,
both are based in truth,
as far as I can tell,
from the information,
I have at my disposal,

I just woke up,
I dreamt that I got home,
drank beer in parks,
ate watermelon in parks,
and sat on the steps of parliament house.

you wanted to paint it purple,
I wanted to burn it down,
we couldn’t agree,
but it didn’t matter,
we were the best and brightest
of our pathetic democracy.

then I went to exchange again,
in Iraq,
Heavy Metal In Baghdad,
which was fucking good,
not very ‘cool’,
but very fucking good.

good>cool.

I didn’t want to leave,
the centre of the serious action,
because I had to head to the coast,
because I wanted to go surfing.

there I lived,
on a cliff,
the weather was hot,
the nights were nice,
the surf was massive,
the food was foreign,
the locals were crazy,
some of them were very friendly,
I made Iraqi friends-for-life.
‘bra boys’ are massive pussies.
I thought Iraq was land-locked?

a tale of two cities #3...

2010-09-15T06:38:00.001+10:00

your coke is cooked by satan in the pits of hell

This is what the front of the 'news' pieces of paper look like in Monterrey, every single day.
This is not what Monterrey looks like every single day.
Not from what I have actually seen.

This is what the first article on the Melburnian internet news screen reads like today.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/mexican-cocaine-baron-muscles-in-20100914-15axd.html

ONE of the world's most powerful organised crime syndicates, Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, has infiltrated Australia, importing up to half of the cocaine used on the nation's east coast over the past two years.

Don't worry, they are lovely family cartel who swim in pools of flowers and play hand claps with your kids.
If it was the zetas you would have reason to be concerned, but Sinaloa chaps are happy and clappy.
¡Ask anyone wey!

It has also highlighted how the surging numbers of Australian cocaine users is helping enrich a network responsible for the deaths of thousands of Mexicans and the destabilisation of the Mexican state.

Think about the world outside your neighbourhood and outside the inside of your nose.
In relation to legs, I'm an amputee who lives in a glass house full of head fucking rocks.

The Sinaloa cartel is controlled by billionaire drug lord Joaquin ''El Chapo'' Guzman. Its clashes with rival drug syndicates fuel unprecedented bloodshed and corruption in Mexico.

But it is alright, when the government start openly doing deals with the cartels again, everything will be alright.
The media will tell the truth, democracy will be more open and accountable to the people, and everyone will work to help eradicate inequality and the slow death of the poverty stricken rural population of Mexico.
¡Ask anyone wey!

More than 28,000 people have died in Mexico since 2006, when President Felipe Calderon ordered 50,000 soldiers to join police in a ''drug war'' that some senior Mexican officials now believe has been lost.

So we need to regroup, buy more guns, buy more tanks, authorise the use of chemical weapons in the city streets, kill every single last one of the bastards, win the war, and everything will be awesome. Like in America. Like in America after they won WWII, because they are strong and brave and smart and the best.
¡Its true dude!

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently said Mexico's drug cartels were beginning to resemble an insurgency. ''It's looking more and more like Colombia looked 20 years ago, when the narco-traffickers controlled certain parts of the country,'' she said.

We should carpet bomb those parts of the country, strafe the farms and villages with helicopter gunships.
It worked for America in Vietnam.
!Trust us!

Cocaine use has surged across Australia over the past two years.

Still want to suck Charlies dick?
I know I do, it tastes fucking amazing.
Ugh. Yuck.
Everyone is a fucking faggot.
No one on earth has a brain, everyone on earth has a bullet.

mi encanta esta foto de las piernas...

2010-09-14T22:25:00.002+10:00

a trio of lovely latin ladies

drew me some bits and pieces

part of a picture each

una foto de las piernas y penes

i love pictures.

i love legs.

burnin down tha house...

2010-09-13T17:06:00.002+10:00

a set of sort of
star-crossed lovers
a forbidden fruit lies
on the other side of time

the distance is not great
enough to close the gate
on stands on sleeper left
the other sleeper right

they face each other and wish
                               and wait
they don’t touch each other
though they both
with they would

how and why and when
could it should it would it
work
she sticks her head
                 straight in the sandpit
get the fuck out of my treehouse

he wants to burn it down
the honest and hard-working
                    hardwood house
her father has-been
                      building.

Band Name Idea #348 - Mexican 'Death-Dentist' Fucked-up Facewound.

2010-09-12T14:59:00.004+10:00

the two best things about a mexican dentist

is that they are lovely and old and caring and cute
and that they give you an equally cute and lovely little yellow mouse

to take your tooth home in
whether you like it or not

similar to dentists everywhere

i assume
(me no estiendo español ~ neither does this keyboard)

they recommend that you brush your teeth

kids

good ole joe strummer didn't believe in brushing his teeth

and he was a fucking cool dude

until that happened to all of them

and he bought new ones for the TV cameras

and for his fucking girlfriend

what a fucking sell-out man.

naat.

kids,

you should try to be more like good ole joe

and less like the good but deliberately stupid young one

don't let him have trained for the london marathon while smoking cigarettes in vain

learn the lessons of his youth

sing songs of freedom with johnny cash

defend the ghettos

know your rights

wrong 'em boyo

stand up straight

participate

in the Ramshackle Day Parade

live in Garageland

play in Garage bands

rock the fuckin' casbah

tell em your name

cheat.

throw the two thoughts of rock

those of lover's and of revolution

don't get lost in the supermarket

or work for the fucking clampdown

but do it all of this without

the massive hole in your head

don't reject all of your career opportunities

only the ones that you think are wrong

don't get so bored with the U.S.A

there are plenty of good people there

to try to to make right

what others have done wrong

in the words of good ole joe

i'm still a man of 'the left'

but i no longer hate america

how could i?

many of my best friends are american

its not their fucking fault

stop saying fuck the world

start saying fucking fix it.

poor old, wise ole joe

shouldn't have done so many fucking drugs

pretty please,

brush your teeth and stay in school

you arrogant little cunts.

thank you kindly.

ps.

the worst thing about a mexican dentist?

nothing.

for fuck's sake

and for good ole joe's

don't be so fucking xenophobic

he would want to punch your fucking face in too

but wouldn't actually do it.

end-game...

2010-08-30T16:21:00.001+10:00

The war that was never fought,
brought with it a heightened sense of ultimate death,
the whole thing was a lie,
unnecessary in its entirety,
a folly of powerful men,
of which everyone was aware of the absurdity,
because the apparatus of state,
those in power,
those in culture,
those in the theatre of war,
explained the absurdity explicitly,
loudly and so that all could hear,
in order to legitimise their own position.

Why then now,
on the brink,
a far less avoidable ultimate death,
do the people not understand the absurdity?

It is for the following reason,
that those in power refuse to inform,
the people of their impeding death,
at least to an adequate degree.

This is a war for truth,
that the people must wage.
Those in power refuse to do so,
in the former instance,
this was all good and well,
as opposed to the present instance,
where this is all evil and ill.

Those in power,
need to re-read the cave,
and take the closing conversations,
as their only option in office.

Those that have left Plato’s cave,
in relation to the end of the world,
which in the world of information,
is all those with an ear or an eye,
must refuse to be blinded,
by the darkness of the day-to-day.

The light is burning less bright,
day by day by day,
those who wish there to be a future,
future light, future dark, future grey,
must burrow deep into the dark,
and hold up the torch of Armageddon.

go you good thing...

2010-08-27T08:24:00.001+10:00

a letter home on election day...

2010-08-21T10:06:00.002+10:00

It is now officially election day, and I don`t have anyone to talk politics with.
Serves me right for doing away with Facebook.

No young people here will speak a word of politics, the word is dirt, as everyone is completely disillusioned with the complete corruption of the system. I`ve been reading about Mexican history and politics constantly since I got here. As far as I can tell, drug cartels and American business interests completely run this country. It is very, very, bad. The government and the federal army are arguably worse than the drug gangs, they hold shootouts in the streets with the cartels at the expense of the blood of the civillian population. Civillians are injured all the time, and it seems that the public gun-battles are only conducted in order for the government to convey a bullshit sense of action on corruption and crime. Acting tough on the drug cartels on the streets and on the front page of the newspapers and at the TV news gains them re-election through fear and bent ballot boxes and perpetuates the system of institutional corruption. So everyone closes their eyes and slaps their hands over their ears and squeals like a pig whenever you try to talk about voting or government or politics of any kind that even remotely resembles our traditional western style of liberal democracy.

I read that the polls are splitting it 50-50 after preferences.

What the fuck is wrong with our country?

...maybe I dont miss it so much. Average people here in Mexico have no faith in institutional politics. I wondder why? I can`t bothered writing about the ins and outs of this campaign like I normally would, nothing they are aruging over is worth giving the time of day. Mexicans don`t read the paper, they don`t vote, they don`t care about governMENTAL politics, they judge ALL people on whether or not the are nice, polite, kind, honest, and respectful, they simply don`t care about, let alone support, either side of the bullshit political spectrum. They only seem to care about each other, the people, not other people`s politics, because politics is a fairy-tale for them. All I can say is that if your `average Jose` trusted politics enough to vote, it would NEVER be for Abbott. Poor people here (the massive majority), care about human kindness and sharing food and drinks and music and dancing and laughter, not whether or not a few thousand people should be allowed to land on their coast in leaky boats.

'At least' in Australia we get to vote `comfortable` in the `knowledge` that government corruption and dodgy dealing is only suspected, and not accepted as normal and unchangeable.

The only thing better about systems of liberal democracy seems to me to be the real liberties we enjoy in regards to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. The papers still print the same old shit and blind `the masses` from the truth, but at least we don`t often see people jailed for having alternative or `irrational` or `dangerous` views on politics.

The internet is the only tool we have with the potential to be utilised for truly free democracy and free-speech. It is being brutalised, like all other communication technologies before it, by the commercial imperative for popularity, into another weapon to be utilised for brainwashing people and distracting them from the things that really matter. But so long that it isn`t legislated out of the ability to be open-slather, it will always be a potential opening for truly democratic practices. NO NET CENSORSHIP.

Sorry family, but bugger the ALP... the alternative is undoubtedly worse... I want her to win... but I also know that her winning will not be that much better in the scheme of things.

So Abbott might bomb Indonesia if they refuse to take our asylum seekers, or legalise gay-bashing, or make it mandatory for women to leave school at the age of 14 to take Christian child-rearing and cooking classes.. but what difference will voting for Gillard make in terms of saving the planet from utter destruction?

Gillard isn`t as outwardly and openly "evil" as he, but voting for her won`t help bring about the sort of change in enironmental and economic policy that is necessary to avoid evil anarcistic social disorder and inevitable annihilation. I don`t think it is irrational to argue that unless there is international, RADICAL, policy reform in the immediate future, there won`t be any sort of planet to stage idiotic elections campaigns in the nearer-than-everyone-seems-to-think future.

I love the people and plants and platypi of Australia more than anything else in the world... we have an amazing and interesting national identity, character, and culture. It is one which I hold dear to my heart and one of which that I am proud, but I`d wipe my arse with the flag, and spit on the steps of parliament house without hesitation. Or maybe cut the Union Jack out of it, wipe my arse with that, replace it with the boxing Kangaroo (or a picture of a footy or a wave or a parma&pot or Warnie bowling a perfect leg-break), drape the new flag around my neck and wash the windows of parliament house with the shit-stained stupid little square of red, white and blue cloth. Jules was talking about the republic again the other day. Exciting.

I remember my very intelligent, wise, and wordly marine biologist navy-seal Grandpa saying something about it being muy importante, very important, (mierde, shit, I`m starting to think in Spanish already... it took me several seconds to figure out the English way to say that) to avoid `a one-way ticket to anarchy`...

I respect his opinions greatly and I know what he meant, but to the statement by itself and out of context I call BS. Anarchy can certainly be evil and undesirable, but the word is stigmatised. Noam Chomsky describes himself as an Anarchist, and the man is the most referenced academic alive today, he has the brain capacity of the entire Australian public combined and multiplied by five. Anarchy in terms of decreasing centralised governmental control of the decision making process and realising a more open, honest, direct form of democracy is an extremely attractive ideal, and an ideal which I believe should be inform all potential practial measures for reforming pathetic political systems the world over.

Continuing with the traditional left v right, liberal v conservative, pendulum game of politics that we have been playing for the past couple of hundred years is exactly the correct change for the aforementioned ticket. In the worst sense of the word anarchy. Our system of representaional democracy, while noble in its Jeffersonian intention and invention, has brought us to where we are today, and therefore must be done away with, or at least reformed beyond any real regonition. We desperately need to completely alter the foundations of our staid, pre-modern political system, the constant back and forth over nothing, and achieving only as much as the narcissistic two-party polticial system will allow, as soon as possible. If we don`t, over-population, environmental degredation, and shortages of food, water and resources will lead to a breakdown of all traditional instituions anyway, and a evil, cyclonic system of utterly evil anarchy will emerge.

Of course this is just a theory, but I think it is a reasonable one. A probable outcome, if you will. Reneage militant organisations the world over recruiting the starving and dying masses to wage war over resources and land. Dramatic? Yes. Far-fetched? I honestly don`t believe it is, and many others agree. `Respected` (i.e. much-read, i.e. not necessarily right by any means) political philosopher Robert D. Kaplan, made the argument of the aforementioned war-lords-and-ladies consequences of political stagnation in `The Coming Anarchy`, an article published in Atlantic Monthly in 1994. He argues this will become the norm everywhere, instead of just in smelly, weird countries in Africa, where he argues such economic and population-related anarchy is already becoming evident. That was in 1994. Anything can happen, no ones knows for sure what will happen, but on `current evidence` (aka what I`ve read, i.e. very little), I see no reason to doubt his assertion that future `anarchy` is largely inevitable. We should all try to make "The Coming Anarchy" as fair, free just, and truly democratic for all the people of the planet as possible.

Humankind's tendency toward a kind of slipshod, gooey, utopian and ultimately dangerous optimism may be its final downfall. Envirmonmental and political reality is a terrifying dystopia, and it must be seen as cowardly and evil to shy away from planet`s severe problems under a warm blanket of optimism. Life isn`t a terrifying dystopia, you can always like and love and have pleasureable and positive experiences while the world collapses, and so everyone should. I`m having a postively pleasurable experience right now, writing this, then Ox-tongue tacos and beer for lunch!!! However, pretending that reality is not as ill as we all truly know that it is, or hiding away from thinking about how we can prevent the planet from plummeting into further, irreparable illness, as the scientific evidence suggests that it will, is not a true, honest, honourable, or respectable way of conducting ourselves as human beings.

Therefore, I have these reasons NOT to vote for the same old ALP, when what we need is RADICAL policy change, right now.

1. Inhumane, evil asylum policy ponderings.

Some say it is necessary to return to government when Abbott is in opposition.
I say succumbing to populist front-page outrage over the non-issue of immigration is pandering to the liberals attacks on the issue, and serves to make the problem worse.
This is the worst kind of political expediancy; it legitamises idiotic Australian xenophobia in the national conscious. It is okay to hate refugees. Bullshit Jules.

2. Pressing forwards with plans for mandatory and anonymous censorship of the internet.

No one should ever vote for big brother. Secret government blacklists are for commies, not Aussies.
All of the technical experts agree that it will slow Australian internet speeds, and we are already way behind of the rest of the `developed world` on this front.
This will be bad for productivity, bad for the economy, and even worse in terms of open and transparent governance. So no secret censorship, Julia Stalin.

3. Literally no policy on climate change; except ``wait for community consensus on the issue``.

This is the clincher. The worst. She says she believes in it. Abbott has variously claimed that the planet might be alright, that the world has warmed in the last few years, that we could do it with clean coal or nuclear or something else we will surely invent soon; he should be taken out the back paddock and shot for stupidity. He is quite clearly an irrational idiot, she is claims not to be. Therefore, on climate change, she is worse than he is.

Anyone in a position of power, who is sane enough to believe the weight of evidence... seen by a massive majority of the world`s scientific community to mean that we need to stop the world warming, right now, or else... and does nothing about it... is evil. End of story.

Yes, Rudd and Labour lost face over backflipping on the ETS scheme, yes the Libs will try to play the scare card that the economy will collapse if we do anything at all to try to save the planet from exploding. This doesn`t change the fact that she is in power and she is telling the Australian public from the highest office that the best thing for our country and the best thing for the planet... is to wait until everyone agrees on what to do to. Some people will actually listen, and take this message on board, even if it isn`t the message she would rather be sending. Its called being honest. An honest politician. A foxymoron.

She won`t tell the most important truths to the people. She is therefore a complete muppet, a politician without principle, a power-hungry, two-faced, blood-thirsty, back-stabbing bitch who cares more about herself and her pathetic political party than "the Australian people", the people of the planet, or the planet itself. If I saw her in the street I`d ask her why her policy is to take years off the life expectancy of the all young people on the planet and ensure that there is no planet for my potential children to play on.

4. She is a woman.
5. She has red-hair.
6. She is childless and unmarried, and therefore out of touch with working families and real Australian women. She probably doesn`t even know how to cook or clean.
7. She is lovely and personable and is willing to be interviewed by equally lovely red-headed Australian rock-stars, and I wish she was my Aunty. THIS IS NO REASON TO VOTE FOR HER. PERSONALITY COUNTS FOR DIRT. POLICY OVER PERSONALITY.

MySpace Presents... Prime Minister Julia Gillard

MySpace Australia | MySpace Video

I have to admit, that in true-to-form, Miles Mouth-off fashion, I am claiming to care and doing the opposite. I didn`t get to vote. I didn`t even think of it until about 5 days ago. I checked out AEC website; naturally, I was already way too late to register for a postal vote, and didn`t have enough pesos to take the 14-hour bus trip to Mexico City to pre-vote at the Australian Embassy. So The Greens won`t get my vote in the lower house and The Australian Sex Party won`t get my protest-vote in the Senate. They are the only Australian party running on a platform of gay rights, sexual liberation, destroying conservative stigma, and destroying Stephen Conroy`s idiotic and evil plans for secretive censorship of the internet. Vote Sexy In The Senate. Leave secretive government blacklists to the `god-damned-gook-commies`.

Dad, please don`t vote for Labour and the same old shit. Vote for The Greens in both houses. You`re dead right. Bob Brown looks good. Bob Brown always looks good. He always speaks, thinks, acts, and tries to legislate for social progress and saving the planet and our Australian environment. He is a good man, a smart man, a logical man, and a courageous man; the best bloody poofter you`ll ever come accross. A vote for The Greens is a vote for progress; they are the only party who want serious reform in the fields of environment, education and healthcare, including dental and mental healthcare. Throwing more funding around before elections doesn`t mean better results; The Greens are thinking long-term, and Labour need to learn this.

Kindness and compassion for the poor, sick, and starving are not useless qualities to have in political leaders. Realistic, serious democratic debate and progressive thinking informed by an earnest spirit of compassion for people and the planet is the only way to fix things.

When Pete Garrett loses faith in the love-will-tear-us-apart Labour party factional fighting machine and returns to his `mental` environmentalist roots, together he and Bob might actually make some significant changes in Australian politics. If they can`t change it all, at least they`ll keep the bastards alot more honest about what they are letting big-business to our beautfiul old-growth bush, our oceans, our rivers, and our indigenous people. No more burning beds, blue-sky mines, U.S. forces, or letting the "fucking frogs drop their fucking radioactive fucking experimental warheads into the fucking pacific, our fucking pacific, the dirty bastards". Pete Garrett for President of the Australian republic, 2020. Bob Brown for PM. Mick Dodson or someone else who actually owns this country for minister for Indigenous Affairs, or both President and PM if they want to be. Vote for what you know is right instead of trying to ensure something doesn`t go wrong, nearly everything is wrong already. Maybe it doesn`t seem so in lovely little Australia, but out here the rest of the world is hurting badly, and we need to pull our weight in trying to solve the whole planet`s problems, not just our own. Vote for the Greens.

That is my bit of pent-up political propaganda anyway. Sorry for the epic ranting, but I needed to get that off my chest. Hehehe. I`ll post that as an entry on my blog now, but I guess I`ll send still send it to you guys too, even though you were just asking how I was. Haha.

Death to Tony Abbott,
I pray he doesn`t win by one vote,
Sorry Family,
Sorry Australia,
Sorry Planet Earth,
Peace, Love, and a promise to try harder to help from now on,
Miles.

PS. This is probably for Dad`s ears only, because it has lots of naughty words, and I don`t know if your internet will load a music video, but this song "Drunk on election night" is awesome. It is by Paul Kelly`s nephew, Dan Kelly. One of Barney`s mates plays guitar in his band, the Alpha Males. If you can`t watch it, look up the lyrics... he wrote it about 2004 election night, when we re-elected Howard with an increased majority a year after we invaded another sovereign nation without the backing of the UN, a year after we started carpet bombing Arab babies, a year after we started an unjust and unnecessary war. The yanks voted in Bush with an increased, popular (>+50%) majority a month later. Neil Young chose it for his compilation album called "Living with war songs of the times". I`m going camping in the desert with my fingers crossed until Sunday, I hope I`m not wandering around Monterrey singing this to myself in the weeks and months to come. If Abbott wins, and Collingwood win the premiership, sorry, but I`m staying here. Or moving to America.

real footy/`football`/futbol...

2010-08-20T10:48:00.002+10:00

Australian Football League
aka
AFL
aka
Australian Rules Football
aka
Actual Real Footy...
....
I`m feeling decidedly sick-to-the-stomach looking at the ladder after the weekend.

The following facts suck particular dick:

The Tiges getting belted by the blues. It`s always shit getting belted... but this meant I officially, mathematically, there she goes lost a pineapple. I bet that the Tiges would finish higher on the ladder than the Dees. Ah well. Next year fellas.
...
Collingwood are smashing it. This is truly disgusting. If the dirt merchants win a "10th anniversary flag", I`m not coming home from Mexico. No way, no how. Go Cats, go Saints, go Doggies, go Freo for fucks sake... anyone but the Colliwobbles... 1990 didn`t count... you can`t win a flag on that "first saturday in October"... surely they`ll choke... and hopefully die. Please choke. Particularly Dale Thomas. You Fairy.
...
On the Essendon-stealing-Richmond-champions-for-coaches-then-treating-them-like-shit- front (I notice that Ashley Prescott is an assistant these days...next in line??)... Ya gotta feel super sorry for Matty Knights. The only thing the poor bloke has done wrong with his baby bombers is a mistake more reminiscent of a new coach at Richmond. Achieving too much success with a young list too soon. No one expected Essendon to perform as well as they did over the last two years, the man has done an amazing job, and now it looks like the bullshit raised expectations that come with early success may be his downfall.

The last couple of losses have been horrible, and I`d be disappointed at the prospect of missing the finals and taking a step backwards if I were a Don aswell. However, young sides will always have patchy form, and it is the blokes on the park that are to blame for copping absolute beltings, not the man in the box. The media circus that puts pressure on any coaches at the drop of the hat is one of the least realistic, most highly idiotic aspects of our sport. Editors and journos get personally stuck in to guys who don`t deserve is a poorly veiled attempt to sell more papers. The poorest thing is that it works. Everyone should buy the paper with the least attention grabbing back page. I think he is the right man for the job, a hardnut and a good bloke, and he has clearly shown that he has enough technical and strategic nouse to draw results from this list that other coaches would have struggled to match.

The worst part is the shadow of Hird. The man is god at Windy Hill, and his word is gospel. The second he says he wants in Knighters is out. Hirdy flagged the possibility during the week, but The Herald Sun AKA The Almighty Bastion of Reputable Journalism reported yesterday that he reckons it won`t happen "for at least three years....and probably never". So stick with the white Knight until HIrdy throws in his hat, or the Bombers plummet to the bottom, which seems rather unlikely. As the man points out, he has a contract. Let him try to fulfill it, he is doing alright so far. Big picture, people.
...
The only positive thing I can find about AFL at the moment (and it is pretty bloody good), is that Jacky Rievolt is still on top of the Coleman table. Shit yeah. If he can keep his nose in front of big bad Bazz (who would have thought at the start of the year that it would be J. Rievolt v B. Hall slugging it out for the Coleman...) for the last couple of rounds, it will be a gigantic achievement for a budding young superstar. If he gets up, my only worry is that his head will explode when they hang the medal around his neck. I don`t think it will, he probably thought he had it in the bag from round 1... I reckon he will take it in his egomaniacal stride, and he will only get better and better as he gets more and more arrogant. GO YOU GOOD THING.

2010 RIEVOLT COLEMAN.
2011 RIEVOLT B2B COLEMAN, DELEDIO BROWNLOW, MARTIN NORM SMITH, TIGES FLAG.
THIS WILL HAPPEN.
...

Football
aka
Wogball
aka
Soccer
aka
The World Game...
...
I love the world game with a passion. It is a sincere regret of mine that I didn`t take an interest in it earlier. The beautiful game... not a beautiful as real footy, or cricket for that matter, but definitely my third favourite sport. Heheh.
...
I was stoked to find that the Mexicano CableTV in my pimped out new pad has FOXsports and ESPN, as it means I`ll finally be able to get put some serious time into watching the EPL and European competitions. It just sucks that I get to watch all the Liverpool games in the first season we haven`t qualified for the champions league in forever...
...
Its been a distinclty so-so start to the season for the mighty Liverpool FC. I missed most of the Arsenal game.. We were leading through Ngog`s tasty-looking opener... Gerrard and Johnston both had near misses...we were cruising into injury time and a good first-up home win against quality opposition... right up until.... uh-oh..

91st minute.
Idiota.
1-1.
Draw.
Joe Cole sent off in his first appearance..argh.

I caught the the highlights of the crappy-arse UEFA-cup-who-gives-a-fuck qualifier this arvo... Hodgson made wholesale changes in accordance with the crappiness of the competition... Babel scored a decent goal to finish off a shitty first half where we didn`t create many chances... Reina pulled a blinding save ¿video? for Sunday`s blunder against the Gunners in a second half where we played better with Torres up front...Joe Cole missed a penatly (NOT a good start in the RED Joey, hehe), blah blah blah... we don`t belng in this crappy competition, so I couldn`t really care less. Good to see new-recruit and supposed future superstar Christian Poulsen get a game. From the little I saw on the highlights reel, he looks the real deal. Hodgson was happy with him: "suprising...satisfying...he played very well". One to watch.

For the Reds, it really has to be all about the league this year. Gotta get something serious happening in England. Cups are always glorious, and we`re bloody good at winning them, but sustained success at home has to come first.

Looking forward to actually watching the season for real for once.
LIV-ERP-OOL LIVERPOOL FC.... COME ON YOU REDS.

Futbol
aka
The Beautiful Game
aka
Mexican Madness...
...

Monterrey has two teams in the Premiera Division de Mexico.
Club de Futbal Monterrey (C.F. Monterrey) have won the last two national league titles, are expected to do so again this season. So they`re really good, and they play at the massive, awesome, 45,000 seat stadium located at my uni campus, just over the road from where I`m living. You can imagine how excited I was at the prospect of following a side that wins nearly every week, and is very likely to win the title this season....

That was until I discovered that Monterrey`s other side was known simply as TIGRES, wear yellow&blue and sometimes yellow&black uniforms, and have a giant tiger emblazoned on all club clobber. I had no option but to barrack for the Mexican Tiges. The Monterrey Tiges. Haha. Mad.

I pissed myself the second I read up a bit about the team. There was no going back, they were the tiges, so I back `em. But get this... Turns out Tigres are completely shithouse. They`ve started this season with a win, two draws, and a loss, but from what I can tell, they will be lucky to continue on even at that rate. They almost won over the weekend, but got equalised on in injury time aswell. Mierde. Shit.

Similiar to my real Richmond Tiges, they have one of the most passionate supporter bases of any club in Mexico (the highest average home game attendance of any side, 47,500)...

So passionate are they that on the 27th of March this year, as the club lost its 7th straight game, and slumped to the bottom of the table (their worst season on record), TIGRES fans literally started tearing each other apart... a war errupting between fans chanting for the coaches head, and fans who supported the clubs current administration...fists and rocks flying all over the place... hehe Loco Mexicanos..

The `best bit`? (I`d normally say "only in Mexico", but it doesn`t seem out of the realms of possibility at Punt Rd sometimes...) There were rumours everywhere in the media that a dissident faction of the clubs board had paid the supporter calling for the coaches blood to start the fight, in the hope that it would get him sacked. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Viva La Mexico, Ole Tigres.
Aussie Aussie Aussie, OI OI OI, Go the mighty Tiges.
England can suck it, Come on you Reds.
Three footy teams that never fucking win, trainspotting style.
Same shit, different sewer, if you will.
Bargh.

live on national radio...

2010-08-19T06:20:00.002+10:00

The National Live on the Radio!
From the most-awesome Minnesota public radio station The Current.
Twiiter em, or something.

That version of `You Were a Kindness` is almost too tasty. Flavour overload. The man has the best sense of beautiful sorrow `since` Nick Cave. I`ve heard people shit on The National because the dude is a "wannabe Nick Cave". Shithouse call. `Originality` is over-rated... he has a deep, beautiful, mournful voice... their songs are slow... so no-one should listen to them because it is all a rip off? Get farked. Go read Barthes if you wanna be a wanker about it. The original author is dead. Everything has been thought. All art is exhausted. etc.

The National make beautiful music.

Speaking of the lord of morbid and constant comparisons, listen out for bit where the host craps on about how she wishes King Nick had an evil variety TV show and that the National would play on it every week... pretty funny.

hawaii 5-woaaah...

2010-08-18T09:15:00.002+10:00

a bright mysterious light...

2010-08-17T12:47:00.000+10:00

Listen: Grinderman: "Super Heathen Child" (Featuring Robert Fripp)

2010-08-17T10:40:00.001+10:00

Listen: Grinderman: "Super Heathen Child" (Featuring Robert Fripp)

The old man can do no wrong.

a mash-city `cut-up` make-up `based on` an old punk rocker...

2010-08-12T05:14:00.002+10:00

a gut-busting, liver-breaking, lung-smashing, warts-n-all, pills-n-booze, petulant Punk icon... the most widely seen invisible presence in modern cinema history... disappearing under skins of digital rendering and emerging... hissing, growling, beating his chest... a stunning amalgamation of emotions... rock and roll masochism underscored by tragedy... the kind of one man powerhouse movie buffs spend endless hours wading through forgettable films to find... beneath the beer stains and cigarette burns lies tender, streak stained underwear... deep internal conflicts with a sensitive soul, linger at the eye of the hurricane... such force of nature... sense the quiet soul at the core of the chaos and tumult...etched like knife wounds into the psyche...that awkward hobble (his character has polio)... those bleary wild eyes... that bull-headed fickle spirit...the sex...the music... the panache...the rock and roll provides the druggy dressing...slivers of the past provide hints of the source of his troublent, turbulent adult life...a vague emotional dependence on his first wife...caring but cautious is she...an often less than ideal father to his son...it ain’t always beer and skittles...a clear and concise message...the person hovering alone in the corner at a party... fidgeting with your phone, waiting for home time...not he...the pensioner upstairs yells out to keep the noise down...snorting and sweating across the finishing line...ooze style and colour...cool, bold, visionary...nail the rhythms...the reason for being...celebrating the spirit...spilling into idolatry...bad craziness, savage beauty...startling pathos.

poor widdle wuddy...

2010-07-27T07:52:00.001+10:00

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2964788.htm

An article from ABC's opinion page The Drum on how the front page of the paper tells us what to think about and what to think about what we are meant to be thinking about.

Rudd's demise had a large amount to do with the extreme, unecessary, and unprecedented media pressure on his mining policy, and subsequently on his leadership. That good-old-fashioned national broadsheet bastion of conservatism and agression... The Austrlian... was the main culprit, apparently.

The evidence stacks up pretty well in favour of The Australian beating up the mining tax storm in a teacup. It also shows fairly convincingly how THE OZ helped to turn the issue into a battle for the Labour leadership instead of a piece of policy.

The Australian ran 12 front page leads on the mining row in 13 days. Such a run of Page 1 leads on just one issue is rare. By comparison, The Age and the SMH each ran just one front page lead on the issue during this time. The Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph ran no front page leads on the mining tax row in June.

You'd have to go back to Whitlam's sacking or the Vietnam War to come close to such a run of Page 1 leads on one issue. Even then, it's doubtful there was such a run. Was Rudd's tax on mining profits as big a story as the Vietnam War or Whitlam's sacking? Of course it doesn't come close.

Poor Widdle Wuddy...

on ode to bougainville...

2010-07-24T04:29:00.001+10:00

Morwell,
you are one beautifully disgusting cunt.
the glass of your broken phoneboxes,
lays all over post office st,
a street named after the church.

the lady at the bakery has a gleaming stud,
right in her tattoo sun,
she grins and gives me coffee,
i tell her im getting one,
i’m going to get a tiger,
with ruby red eyes,
like my uncles medal,
he won for eating pies.

the finest thing you’ll ever see
is a price of ten bucks flat,
for a six pack of VB tins,
nowhere else has that.

tinnies all the time,
mon-wed-fri-keen,
whenever you want,
whenever you don’t,
my favourite fluoro green,
like slime,
slime that makes us happy,
slime that makes us sad,
slime that makes us fight all night,
slime that makes us bad.

in Morwell,
shit is never good,
but really not that bad,
she is what she is,
I like what she's like,
but she's oh so visibly sad.

so I say, I love you Morwell,
love you just enough,
for here is where the shit is real,
you’re honest and you’re rough.

my $2 worth...

2010-07-22T02:28:00.006+10:00

Hey Hey Who Gives a Fuck? This shit is straight-up political advertising for stupid people. Direct political expediency. Play the straight bat to popularist outrage.. Pop it straight up to mid-off so he can get it back to the bowlers twice as fast. Repeat. A red cyclone of anger over issues that don't affect anyone unless they want them to. Worse than Howard. If he wins, the front-page-of-the-sun readers and the commercial radio shockjocks of the world will run the nation. There will be parliamentary debate about Kyle Sandilans and about what Kylie is wearing to the Logies. The irony of watching Tony squirm as he was seated next to a gay icon, a glam rock make-up wearing rockstar, and a gay man.. [That was a good speech, Lloyd. If I was 25 and liked cock, we could be something.]...

Yeek. Stay away from the children['s toys] Tony.
I used to love Plucka Duck, but never...you sick... yeah.. ugh.. anyway..

If you had approached any man at any point in the last ten years who had, at any stage of his life, been anywhere even remotely near the vicinity of a newspaper... or even his faculties... and told him that in 2010 Tony Abbott would be hugging Plucka Duck on a remade Hey Hey... as leader of the Liberal Party... with an apparent opportunity to win the election... he would found you creative and amusing. I love Hey Hey as much as the next card-carrying Castle dweller... but neither I, nor Darryl Kerrigan, will ever love Tony Abbott.

So here we have it...election eve[ish] 2010...

At least this is an improvement [entertainment-wise] on 2007's boring-off... all anyone cared about was getting rid of Howard and whether or not he would lose his seat... we did... he did... and Rudd turned out to be less 'same old same old' than his electioneering at the time suggested he would be... so much so that towards the end of his first his term...he developed an actual ego [not just a smarmy smirk]...lost his mind... and tried to actually change a small something about the way the nation works...got his head cut off for his trouble... so damned pestilent...a series of events which has paved the way for...

DUN DUN DUN....

Gillard vs Abbott 2010.

The Maintain-the-rage-ing Idiot Lefty Unionist Unmarried Childless 'Barren' Ranga Radical Atheist vs The Crazy Christian Child-eating Ovary-kicking Raging Right-to-Life Anti-IVF Anti-Queer NeoConservative Mad Monk...

At least shit is interesting nowadays... or should be anyway...

Since Jules triumphantly headbutted her way through the highest glass ceiling in the nation, she has done nothing but deaden and dumb down Labour's existing policies in a disgusting case of political expediency. Power Corrupts... even you Jules, you pig. Rudd was slipping in the polls, so the caucus cut off his head and with it the head from his most progressive policies. Take back what's ours from the hands of big business and no offshore asylum seeker processing... Many have argued that Gillard's maneuvering since taking control has amounted to wise and necessary political posturing that will ensure Labour is returned...

I think I might disagree.. to a certain extent.

While I agree that the mining industry's advertising campaign was killing Rudd, and that Gillard did the right thing by offering the olive branch to the multinationals...{if i hear one more commentator call international mining conglomerate corporations "miners"... grrr..}... I think Labour could have and probably should have given alot less back to the big-wigs in the re-negotiation over the extent of the tax... With opposition like Abbott, I think Labour were too hasty to go back on a decent looking piece of policy to pump up{(possibly temporarily)}flagging polls. Especially when it came out a week later that the concessions given back to the mining industry were $3bn a year more than Labour estimated they would be when they announced the 'new deal'.

The new policy is a highly bastardised little cousin of one of Rudd's more notable 'ideaz'... further evidence towards the case that nothing ever gets done, and probably never is going to get done, around here.

Abbott starves his dog. Severely and without remorse. He loves the word 'brand' in relation to the reputation of a political party. Getting the brand out there. Improving the brand. Like all advertising and brand management... deceitful, untrustworthy, say what they want us to say... avoid this shit at all costs. Go on, fool the stupid for your own benefit fuckwit. Brand Abbott, the blind rabbit.

Policy over personality, people.

Labour saved this depraved economy with the stimulus spending that the coalition voted against. Under the conservatives, no one would have been able to rush out and buy new white goods to return consumer spending and confidence to the Harvey Norman economy... unemployment would have been through the roof. Labour bought the budget back to surplus faster than they said they would. They Libs said they would get no where near doing so in an even longer time frame. Morons hang their votes on the empty claim that the Libs have the 'economic credentials' to run the country.

Labour doesn't have enough 'left' left in her to do any serious 'damage' to the economy through changes to I.R. Laws or 'capitulating' to the unions.

The Worker's Party mentality is dead. Despite their new leader's former life of lofty egalitarian rhetoric, there is no serious push from within the party towards increased left or union influence.

Both parties have no real policy on climate change.
Both party's believe that the best policy here is to argue with the other. Full stop.

The Liberal Party is a fucked unit. They are either purely outdated or purely objectionable in all areas of policy. They have no policy except no. They are against seriously trying to change anything, ever. A vote for Abbot is a vote for irrational Neoconservatism. George Bush with bigger ears. Try to keep things how they were, despite how they are now, and how they will be in the future. Fuck the future. No gays, no abortion, no IVF, no boat people, no services. Cut, cut, cut public spending. He is running an election campagin based on a platform that basically amounts to "don't vote for Labour..... because they're gay."

Fuck off Abbott.

Economic 'conservatism' is arguably defensible by rational argument.
Social conservatism is defensible only by arguments I have absoutely no time for.

And Labour entertain the idea of an internet filter.

A vote for Labour is a vote for not enough change,

Hey Cunts,
Vote Green,please.
or...

If you're a negative creep who hate hippies, plants, animals, and future generations..

At least vote for something you really know and care about..
Don't vote for Abbott because he is not a woman and not a hippy.
He is a retard.
He is a shit bloke.

Vote for The Australian Fishing and Lifestyle Party.
or try to resurrect the Lower Excise Fuel and Beer Party.
Just don't vote Abbott. He wants to eat your children and rape your wife.

Or if you're most interested in loving than fighting or politics,
If you like sex..
Vote for The Australian Sex Party
Vote Sexy in the Senate!
Fuck the idea of censoring the internet!
We love fucking!
Fuck yeah!
Fuck!
Don't vote Abbott!

tea and niceties...

2010-07-22T01:26:00.001+10:00

[Alright laptop… by my head…
where’s wally
goat-yeah.
and getting essential
and existential
with bob cuts
mixing blood
AKA
why
I
mightn’t
marry
or whatever]
by me and the outmyHeadbutpleasdontfuckCases]

7yuc zhd2**paranoid android.[ the robot by the ‘better’ person]

please could you stop the noise im tryin a get some REST?

from all the unbornchikkenVoicesinn my head? [book, brook, book]
huh whats’s that??

when i am king you will be first against the wall
with your opinions which are of no consequence at all [too'cool'..me. not good me]
huh what’s that??

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaambition makes you look very ugly [to me..it’s all mine …you’re not an ugly person]

kicking squeeling Gucci little piggy [I can’t help myself]

“you don’t remember “why don’t you remember my name [i now know it’s not true]? off with his head. off with his head man. why wont he reme mber my name [why won’t he forget…it’s not worth it]?”
“ “ I guess he does_[spot on]”

raindownraindown come on raind down on me
froma great height. from a gra/eeaa haaaeeeeeiii. haaaeeeeeiiii
rain down rain down come on rain down on me
froma great height. from a great aaaaaaaeeeeee
raindownrain down come on raindown onme.
froma great heightfrom a great

“ “that’s it sir youre leaving”[you’re making a scene]the crackle of pig skin
The dust & the screaming the yuppies networking
the panic the vomit
the panic the vomit
god loves his children god loves his children, yeah!

dxoigmn**subeterranean homesick alien/.
[but I’d be alright. I’m just up-tight]

pack and get dressed
before your father hears us [fuck that]
before all hell breaks loose [fuck that. loose. No.]

you can laugh [i..just can't help you]
a spineless laugh [full of soulful ignorance]
we hope your rules and wisdom choke you [humanely]

now we are [not] one
in everlasting peace

[I/] we hope that you [never] choke
[I/] we hope that you [never] choke
[I/] we hope that you [never] choke
[I/] we hope that you [never] choke
sddksuhvs**exit music(for a film)

spread a little lovin'[different direction]..again... just don’t ask for it back.

I7yci7cyi**let down.

one day. I am goingtogrow wings.
hysterical and useless [17ycicyi**let down. hysterical and useless]

you’ve been gone long… you’re coming back… never coming back…

[cup of tea in the morning light…everything’s alright…now..she.. makes my man healthier ‘wealthier’ [can’t help myself]and wiser]

karma police**??id6890

karma police arrest this man he talks in maths he buzzesLikeAfridge hes like a detuned radio.

karma police arrest this girl he rhitler hairdo is making me feel ill [I preferred the old one. my fault not theh airs]
&we
have
crashed
her
party.

tHis is what you get. tHis is what you get. tHis is what you get when you mess [with with everthing/s]

your heart’s [really is] a [fucking] mess [, mate.]

(phew for a minute there I thought I lost myself

fitter happier [than me.yeah] more productive
comfortable
not drinking too much [too much../too young]
regular exercise at the gym (3 days a week)[too many. people should pay me to lift their heaviness]
getting on better with your associate employee contemporaries [who..will/you..will..love/I..will/love..you/love..them/not..them?]
at ease [not true. wherefore?
more.]
eating well (no more microwaves dinner and saturated fats) [sounds..delicious and decadent. i’m never right.]
a patient better driver [when hell boils over]
a safer car (baby smiling in the back seat)
sleeping well (no bad dreams) [I/hope..for her]
no paranoia [doubt the same. doubt the different.]
careful to all animals (never washing spiders down the plughole)
keep in contact with old friends (enjoy a drink now and then) [me me
me me.
whiskey
alluring
ever and ever,
nonono.]
[stop using your right arm to type,
slow down.]
will frequently check credit at (moral) bank (hole in wall)
favours for favours
fond but not in love
charity standing orders
on Sundays ring road supermarket
(no killing moths or putting boiling water on the ants)
car wash (also on Sundays)
no longer afraid of the dark. [afraid of very little.
pretend to be brave.
shit myself when you/I...try.]
or midday shadows [or gameshows.another million tortured.
coming from your cunting colour television.
can’t help..myself]
nothing so ridiculously teenage and desperate
nothing so childish
at a better pace [a much...muchbetter pace.
full stop!
end of non-existant argument.]
slower and more calculated
no chance of escape [‘escape’.
his word, not mine.
should ‘escape’,
if you can stand it.]
now self-employed [maybe then.]
concerned (but powerless) [close to the bone.
you cutting cunt.]
an empowered and informed member of society (pragmatism not idealism) [cut/close to a paranoid,
now.]
will not cry in public [or show affection.
just not the way. notfair.]
less chance of illness
tyres that grip in the wet (shot of baby strapped in the back) [shot dead
in a dumpster]
a good memory
still cries at a good film
still kisses with saliva [no way not.not evernot.]
no longer empty and frantic
like a cat
tied to a stick
that s driven into
frozen winter shit (the ability to laugh at weakness) [really really gets
my little goat.
Bleat, bleat,
bleat your heart out//
little goat.
no-one will listen
it’s the way it was
way before you
won't go away.]
calm []
fitter, healthier and more productive
a pig
in a cage
on antibiotics
[I know I’m wrong]
[I can’t help it, I can’t help myself, I can’t help it.]
[I will.]
[regardless]
[but this is why, this is why….this is why.]

the man in the pigpen knows the way winds blow
feelin’ down...?I’ll come around.I’ll pick you up.take you out.coming back.Never

gg yhf**climbing up the walls

I am the pick in the ice
do not cry out or hit the alarm
we are friends till we die y

its always better wwwhen the light

is off [deleting it]
its always better on the outside

eitherway you turn I’ll be there [when you want]
open up your skull I’ll be there [if you need]
climbing up the [your] walls [not literally. sorry.
sorry. okay.]

I’ll take a quiet life. a handshake some carbon monoxide [no, no , no}. No alarms and no surprises. No alarms and no surprises please.

**the tourist.523654357374437443743333764375697569700

it barks at no-one else but me like its seen a ghost. I guess its seen the sparks a-flowin [blowin’ in your sisters collection.
we like harmonica.
you don’t.
fucking pub trivia.
mate.], no one else would know.
sometimes I get over charged that’s when you see some sparks. They ask where the hell im going?? At 1000 feet per second.
hey man slowdown. Idiot slow down. [idiot slowdown./now.]

you just [kinda] wasted my precious time.
don’t think twice, it’s alright. [100%]

don’t think about today.til tomorrow.
everybody must [stop] get[ting so] stoned..[or else]

myxomatosis poem

2010-07-21T12:43:00.000+10:00

crud was a smarmy cuntbag,
his smirk was full of shit,
but if this “ranga bitch” gets voted out,
we’ll be stuck with rabbit.
and on the fan he’ll shit.

horsey girls are babes...

2010-05-14T15:11:00.002+10:00

the babin'est babes.
super wild whorses.

Author could watch that forty times.
Blogger seems to think audience need to watch it five times.
Fuck you blogger.

like giving a drunk another drink?

2010-05-11T19:35:00.002+10:00

I don't for a second pretend to understand even the basic concepts of the insanely complex and confusing sphere of international economics. I know farking nar-thing. Does this mean I can't comment on economic policy? Does a lack of knowlege on any topic justify political apathy? Fuck that. Too many people refuse to have an opinion on economic policy because they 'don't know how the economy works'. Newsflash fuckface: neither do economists. Something so complex, so infinitely arguable, so intensely up-in-the-air, is never 'known' by anyone. There will nearly always be a massive amount of people, knowing massive amounts more, about any given anything, than you do. If the issue is the economy, more so than most areas, know that no-one knows best. There is no authority on the subject. Anyone claiming to know for certain the consequence of any piece of economic policy is lying. This is why letting somebody else do the thinking is dangerous. Especially in decisions of dollars and the potential levels of suffering and death associated with every such desicion. Open-minded, inquisitive criticism is necessary for all forms of education. Make your point, listen to the response, change your mind, repeat.

Criticising obvious flaws in things, ignoring 'the way of the world' rationalisations for blatantly unethical or illogical decisions, these things must be a matter of utmost importance; even for the idiot. Especially for the idiot. I'm an idiot, but I care. One of my main (covert) missions in life is to convince other idiots to care. Most people are idiots. Most people aren't willing to admit it. This is the problem with most people, as I see it. Convincing your average 'garden-variety' uncaring-idiot and, even more so, your average 'quasi-intellectual-arsehole-variety' of uncaring-idiot, to care about humanity is a tricky task. Convincing these people that they are an idiot is even trickier. The first problem to be faced by anyone attempting to undertake this 'immeasurable measure' is the struggle with self-consciousness.

The old adage that you shouldn't discuss politics, sex, or religion at the dinner table echoes around today's streets in silence. These echoes, carrying a modern meaning, have an entirely different resonance. 'Among the young', probably thanks to the popularity of South Park, or something, no topic is considered off-limits, nothing is taboo, anything is acceptable 'at the dinner table'. The problem comes if and when we actually form an opinion; as we celebrate an 'open slather on everything' style of comedy, it is entirely unfashionable to be serious about anything except yourself. It's fine to talk about religion, science, sex, or even south park at the dinner table; just don't spout an earnest political opinion about any of the above or you'll be cut down and laughed out of the room.

Fuck the idea that you can't criticise if you don't know better; exposing the illogical and criticising the stupid will lead to more people at least attempting to think. We won't solve shit, if we don't all think. There are plenty of awful processes and practices out there. Plenty of putrid pieces policy and procedure that are in place for no logical reason. The 2010 federal budget included an extra $1.4bn for blowing up Afghani's but only an extra $650mil for converting to clean energy technology. Shit like that makes me angry. Angry enough to tell someone about it who doesn't know or care. Angry enough to irritate friends and alienate others with uninformed, self-righteous ranting about what is right and what is not.

The reason I wax so lyrical and rant so rambling on the topic of saying what you think, economy-wise or otherwise: the big bail-out package being offered to the Greek banks by the EU. This article criticises the current trend towards the Keynesian mode of economics; a model that professes constantly propping up failing, chaotically volatile financial markets with massive, publicly funded bail-out packages. Remember folks, 'publicly funded' means that the money being given to the banks is taxpayer's money, worker's money, 'the people's' money. The argument runs that this process basically equates to global governments printing the money in order to fund a fairy-tale quest for unsustainable endless economic growth. Banks really bad, government bad, people not so bad. Bad government giving not so bad people's money to really bad banks: really, really, bad. Check it out:
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/05/11/euro-bailout-like-giving-a-drunk-another-drink/
Sure seems stupid.
Time will tell.

reasons to go to splendour ep#1

2010-05-11T02:09:00.002+10:00

Foals - Red Socks Pugie // A Take Away Show from La Blogotheque on Vimeo.

a recipe for a commercially viable music festival...

2010-05-10T23:47:00.000+10:00

a humorous cartoon...

2010-05-09T20:14:00.001+10:00

Click to enlarge, the bloggy thingy will cut it in 'arf.

Pisser.

travellin' light...

2010-05-09T18:11:00.001+10:00

So I figured it was about time I chucked my two cents in on this whole UK indie "nu-folk" 'movement' everyone is losing their shit over.

My (go-to) two cents: it's fucking sick.

Laura Marling is the most ridiculously talented teenager on the planet.
Look at her do lovely things with this lovely lad.
Not like that.
Minds and gutters people.

That fresh faced lovely lad's name is Johnny Flynn.
He can play guitar and sing and play violin too.

He plays onstage sometimes with these guys.
The Mumford and Someones. Meh.

The juices flow.
Did I mention Laura Marling somewhere before?
Yeah well apparently she makes lovelies with Marcus Mumford.
Fuck those would be some disgustingly beautiful and talented offspring.
The mind boggles.
All of the above mentioned maestro's have been know to play in a band called Noah and the Whale. Their stuff really ramps up the saccharin side of this whole folky bit, it's "twee as fuck" in comparison to the Mumford and Marlings. I still dig it. I'm a bit gay.

Nawww. Cigarettes and wine are indeed awesome.
This lady Emmy the Awesome also is awesome and also plays with Noah and The Whale.

Last but certainly not least on the English front, Laura Darling teamed up with dreamy indie-pop darlings The Mystery Jets a while back to make this lovely little ditty.

Right. Enough with the lovely English kids getting all romantic and feeling good.
That's not the way the world works and we all know it.
If your life is really so peachy then good for you, but get fucked.
Shit gets real in the UK folk circles when you head north for some good old fashioned Glaswegian gloom.
FatCat Records is the home of all that is holy, Scottish, unholy, drunken, and sad.
Case #1: Favourite-band-ever-alright Frightened Rabbit.
Seeing this song performed live; three of my life's greatest memories, musical or otherwise.

Still noodling with folk, although ramping up the rock element a little, also from Scotland, also on FatCat, we have The Twilight Sad.

That one gets me.
Like, y'know really gets me.
It understands me and loves me for who I am.
Or something.
To finish of our little journey back to the empire, the band with the silly name.
We Were Promised Jetpacks.
Great name, great band.

That concludes our tour of Britian.
Its been a ride, thanks for the memories, see you next year.
I can't believe how fresh and non-drug-addled I feel.
If you would like to read more about these lovely lads and ladies, their proficiency at swapping instruments and bodily fluids, and other lovely things, have a look here.

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/folk-music-in-the-city-1547431.html

Sodomy and Gash

2010-05-07T05:25:00.000+10:00

There was an old man of Corfu,
Who fed upon cunt-juice and spew.
When he couldn’t get this,
He fed upon piss —
And a bloody good substitute, too.

- Norman Douglas 1868-1952.

Some Limericks, available through Atlas Press.

Robert Doyle, Bored Mayor of the Council of Cockheads, OBE.

2010-05-02T03:59:00.005+10:00

King of the Culture-Haters:

http://www.theage.com.au/national/badly-talented-buskers-on-doyles-hit-list-20081201-6o31.html

He says:

Burn the ‘badly talented’ begging buskers on the streets of Melbourne.

Their fleas and unemployment and unsightly poverty have no place.

Buskers bring the ‘bogans’; not the burbs, or the beers, or the buses.

Sorry the songs of the streets aren’t fit for your refined tastes, Bobby.

Silence the sidewalks, everyone stare straight ahead and stomp in solitude.

Commandant of the Fun-Police:

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/exford-hotel-ruling-fury-over-allnight-bottle-shop-20100310-pxu3.html

He wants to:

Blow up the Exford, the best bar in town.

Best because it’s always open, over the bar and over the counter,

but especially under the table.

Long-neck lover’s let us rejoice, for his wish knocked back has been.

We’ve golden ale and coopers pale, our home is ‘boganality’.

Proprietor of Perversion.

His solution for street violence:

“I think it would pay to put all male patrons who enter public institutions of alcoholism through a short video-seminar extolling the virtues of homosexual rape as a very worthy, very achievable alternative to drunken street violence. Next time you feel aggressive under the influence of the demon drink in a public place, simply spike another patron’s drink, and drag them back to the comfort of your own home. By then proceeding to repeatedly rape your fellow degenerate in the most depraved manner you can possibly imagine, you will ensure that your excess testosterone-and-booze-bred rage is released, just as if you had punched the fellow in the face out the front of the pub. The benefits of this new mode of operation for our society come in a triple-threat package...

Firstly, we can continue to fill the public coffers with alcohol-fuelled taxes, without having to worry about the holier-than-thou’s getting all up in our grill about moral decay on the streets of the city. Secondly, the effects of our less dangerous, stress-free testosterone rage release program will flow on to the workplace, thus ensuring: increased productivity; decreased levels of employee dissent; and lesser likelihoods of industrial action. Thirdly, studies have shown that injuries arising from rape (especially the easier, Rohypnol kind of rape), tend to be more closely associated with mental health problems, rather than any real, physical types of injuries. Working in conjunction with our “kill the crazies” policy, this will ease the strain on the overcrowded public hospital system; thus creating the possibility for state governments to save millions upon millions of tax-payers’ hard-earned galleons via decreased health spending. This process of natural selection will also guarantee ever-increasing levels of general public safety and sanity, law and order, as well as lower levels of silliness and irrationality.” - Robert Doyle

No-one gathered in protest.

less. unless less is more, then more, no less...

2010-04-18T03:54:00.004+10:00

Be it the humble hills of South Gippsland, a saw mill on the East coast of the Apple Isle, or the mean streets of Lundern, En-Ger-Lund, Aaron Cupples makes musical magic wherever he goes. His on-stage rock 'n roll resume includes the impressive notch of being lead gitbox-bloke for The Alpha Males, the former band of Austtralia's favourite nephew, that true-blue troubador, and all-round nice guy, Dan Kelly. While I knew that Aaron was an axe-man of note through his work with the Alpha Males, I only recently found that the man is a production wizard to boot...

On a recent road-mission heading up the East coast of Tassie, I put on the only CD in the glove box, The Drones' 2006 LP Gala Mill. I learn from cool-older-cousin Barney that the band recorded the album in an old saw mill not far from where we were, and that his old mate Aaron co-produced the album with frontman Gareth Liddiard. Radical. It's a great album, check out the song 'Words From The Executioner To Alexander Pearce'; a most epic interpretation of a good old gut-wrenching tale from colonial times. The Cannibal Convict. Intense. Awesome.

The point of all this you ask? I'm getting there, you rude cunt. Here it is: I've just been put onto Aaron's new project CIVIL CIVIC, thanks to his cousin, who happens to be my old high-school media teacher. Hey Clay. So yeah, with partner-in-crime-and-crazy-noises Brad Green completing the pair, the two are currently based in London, booking gigs and getting ready to conquer the world. Stylistically speaking, they're about as far as you can get from The Alpha Males' breezy indie-pop or Drones' doom-laden rawkenrawl. But.. they're fucking awesome.

Production genius..something..like I was saying...eclectic...genre-delineating...see..drums..it all makes sense..What?

Anyway, stick this in your indie-electronica crack pipe and smoke it:

Hell yeah. Sounds like... if you took the shimmering electric/electronic vibes of the very-rad Ratatat, then wore the sheen off a little with a lot more distortion? Someone else brought up Steve Albini's apparently-seminal 80s punk/noise/beats project Big Black. Seminal eh? Never heard of 'em. Next on the listening list, perhaps... that there wiki-scription reads as tasty as taco's. Ahem. Whoever or whatever they sound like, they sound fucking sick. UK music press heavyweight NME thinks so too, and with CIVIL CIVIC obviously having completed 'indie-brand management strategy' and 'using the viral marketing machine to your advantage' classes somewhere along the way - [erm, don't forget to order your limited-to-100-copies-and-only-on-retro-reel-to-reel-cassette copy of their debut 4-track EP. In the colour of the customer's choice, for fuck's sake. Hehe.] - there's basically no chance they won't be making headlines in no times. For a cassette, or a free MP3 download of the single version of 'Life Unless', head over to their blog here.

go over the sea...

2010-03-05T07:04:00.006+11:00

no new pin number
no no no
no phone number
coming apart
dick smith, talk to the fuckwits

gamble ‘em
go... go.. go.
bandanna lad
carn ya little piece'a
hiss
thirty

that beer and fish
on the dock
it's fishy business
the shop floats
fresh as fresh
i am not
distillery
delirious
55% malt
fuck-me-dead-delicious

gorgeous girl, with a walking stick
stomp the hill
lean a tree
drink ‘em, eat ‘em
eat ‘em, drink ‘em

drugs with children, free and easy
smiling stupid
my dad
climbed the tower
on top mt. wellington,
no ropes or nothin'
i’ve lived in spain and england
this joint is the pits
fooled by the sea
could've fooled me
stay in school
inside jokes

toothless helmut codeine rat
ouch in his eyes
of course
rat don't either
nothin' for nobody

on the way
a bus
a plane
spew on the sandsteps
stoned like the same old

same old
rain delay
read the world away

underwhelming
overhearing
unconvincing
airport security
cig in hand
phone the other
drugs
he’ll sort it out
be careful
he’s always careful
he's sorry

kindred spirit in the air
doof doof doof
picture of a skateboard
pockets full of shit
we'll get along great
drop through the cloud
a familiar film
turbo turbulence
new friends dead
no dropping safe
bank over the bay
arteries of light
slice the suburbscape

down but alive
an hour long wait
hit this city
the trains are off
a wallet feels woeful
a weird warm
the sky spits
walk down tram tracks
smell the steam
wander down wrong st
smell the smackusations

think about feminism
stare at your sex-objects
mate
hitching on main st
flag 'em all
not the yellow
soaked to the bone
need a pick-me-up
all ways but one

lift?
a man in a nice car
alert and alarmed
i used to run nightclubs
i’m too old
i'm gay for pay
i drive girls to jobs
i’ll drive you home
not too bad
free of charge
just keep it together

nothing like you...

2010-03-05T06:00:00.003+11:00

I arrive home from Tassie to the new Frightened Rabbit album.
There is a Victorian god.
Rapidshare that shit. Or even buy it.
Frightened Rabbit deserve your money more than you do.
I'm staying in bed for a week with headphones and a cup of tea.
The second single, "Nothing Like You":

Sounding slicker than the bare-bones boner of Midnight Organ Fight..
The lilting melodies and the voice for the emotional ages remain.
See you in a week.
=)

The Substratum Dream of a Flagpole Skater...

2009-12-08T23:56:00.004+11:00

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...

2009-12-05T18:16:00.001+11:00

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...

2009-12-05T17:40:00.002+11:00

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...

2009-11-12T02:25:00.003+11:00

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...

2009-11-09T04:42:00.001+11:00

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...

2009-10-22T23:31:00.001+11:00

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...

2009-10-20T04:39:00.002+11:00

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...

2009-10-19T03:11:00.003+11:00

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...

2009-10-08T06:06:00.002+11:00

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...

2009-10-07T01:54:00.001+11:00

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...

2009-10-05T00:10:00.006+11:00

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...

2009-09-28T01:12:00.004+10:00

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...

2009-09-27T01:47:00.003+10:00

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...

2009-09-25T06:58:00.002+10:00

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

sordid sunset...

2009-09-24T18:45:00.004+10:00

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...

2009-09-23T23:11:00.003+10:00

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....

2009-09-23T16:58:00.001+10:00

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

the french know how to do it...

2009-09-21T18:12:00.003+10:00

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...

2009-09-21T07:47:00.001+10:00

woah...

drain the blood...

2009-09-21T03:47:00.001+10:00

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...

2009-09-21T03:28:00.001+10:00

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...

2009-09-20T05:33:00.002+10:00

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...

2009-09-20T03:31:00.009+10:00

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...

2009-09-17T19:03:00.002+10:00

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....

2009-09-17T18:31:00.001+10:00

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...

2009-09-17T16:06:00.001+10:00

a dream...

2009-09-17T04:27:00.010+10:00

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...

2009-09-16T06:19:00.003+10:00

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...

2009-09-16T02:07:00.002+10:00

splitting the atom...

2009-09-15T05:58:00.008+10:00

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....

2009-09-15T03:44:00.001+10:00

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.

limp wristed ferals and bone-headed thugs...

2009-09-14T16:00:00.004+10:00

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/police-tactics-under-fire-at-hazelwood-20090913-fm7b.html

This sort of story pisses me off for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, I'm against the use of brown coal technologies and all for rapid investment in clean, renewable energy sources. This is the simplest, fastest, most ethical way to combat climate change. The only thing stopping mass investment in renewables is societies worship of the almighty dollar over the health of our environment. The biggest mistake of all is the idea that putting off decisive action on climate change for the sake of the economy will lead to future economic stability. That is like prescribing smoking as a treatment for obesity. The money will all melt when the planet explodes people, of that you can be sure. I'm also all for protesting and demonstrating and using any means possible to draw attention to the dire situation.
BUT...
Yes, it is a very big but.
The hair-brained half-arsed lackadaisical patchouli stinking morons fucked it up. Again.
Firstly, if you are fair-dinkum and believe in your cause, you have to be willing to take risks to raise awareness. Breaking into Australia's highest polluting coal-fired power station and hand the operators a fake decomission notice, signed, The Australian People? Perfect. Media storm, high-profile court cases, public outrage and empathy, consider your awareness raised, motherfuckers.
BUT...
This particular batch of flea-ridden bonged-out eco-warriors are so incapable of any form of energy, let alone bravery, that they felt the need to inform Victoria Police of the exact date, time, and location of their carefully planned and orchestrated guerilla "break-in". I mean come on kiddies, HARDEN THE FUCK UP. This is Australia, you're not going to get chopped down by AK-47's for jumping over a fence. Yes, the bonehead country coppers might give you a little slap and tickle, but grow some balls and deal with it. Its not right, but it is all that is to be expected.
SO...
Instead of jumping your the little fence and getting yourself into a position to cause some serious mischeif that would cause people to sit up and take notice, you phone in your presence to the pigs. Then you stand around your little farm fence which is now surrounded by a "...huge police presence, with officers on trail bikes, horses and in helicopters", waving your little plastic signs and yelling, until every so often when one of the dumb young male mung-beans gets desperate enough to big-note himself in front of the female flea-bag populace that he heroically throws himself at the fence. Only to be beaten down by the army of cops in choppers. Well done hero, point proved. It comes as no suprise to me that the only police officer injured in this little dalliance was a female.
THAT SAID...
I'm totally against any excessive use of force by police in any situation. Fuck Tha' Police.

FREE MP3 DOWNLOADS:

Anti-Flag - Fuck Police Brutality

Frenzal Rhomb - I Went Out With A Hippy And Know I Love Everyone But Her

(Available for 7 Days)

the moon is up, the stars are out...

2009-09-14T15:57:00.001+10:00

Dirty Projectors perfoming Cannibal Resource on Letterman:

God I love this song...
It would have to be in my Top 10 of 2009 so far...
Their album Bitte Orca has partially consumed my life atm...

New news...

2009-09-14T14:28:00.001+10:00

Fairfax launched its new "opinion" site today over at National Times.
The website looks as though it will have fantastic content and has the potential to be a powerful forum for political debate.
Blogs by Tom Arup (environment), Michael Epis (politics, sport, culture), Karl Quinn (culture and the arts), and John Birmingham (social commentary, bucket bongs, egomania, the drudgery of marriage, QLD) promise to provide fun and vibrant forums for discussions with a nicely varying degree of seriousnesss. Add to this a roster of high quality, publicly respected journalists such as Michelle Grattan and Kenneth Davidson, the site looks a powerful online news and opinion publication.
Still, the question needs to be asked... Why it is neceassary to start a splinter-site to deal with real political issues and argument?
Should this not be one of the primary functions of The Age's main website?
It seems to me that by sequestering serious political debate and discourse from the main news site, Fairfax is opening the way for the focus of their online figurehead to be dragged in the direction of empty, sensationalist news and masses-pleasing fluff sections such as travel, beauty, entertainment, and the cars guide.
I am feeling that National Times should be the coverpage for Fairfax, and the Age online's current cover should be a secondary site, located at www.theage.com/tabloidmagazine..

Creation amongst carnage...

2009-09-14T13:53:00.001+10:00

Angry tongue heaps,
epitomise the carnage of mines,
word flows freely,
like a gutter,
dalmations litter my dirty dream,
“your” stop passes me by, no more stab?
I’m cured.
I’m cured...
I’m cured?

a bizarre barn...

2009-09-13T23:54:00.001+10:00

video for the new Fever Ray single "Seven"

eerie, jarring, bizarre, disturbing, brilliant..

via pitchfork

from Fever Ray's haunting self-titled debut

one of my favourite albums of 2009 so far...

Kill the rich, indeed...

2009-09-13T21:19:00.006+10:00

If only that was his real campaign poster. HAHA.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/thousands-rally-against-obama-government-20090913-flws.html

I know I'm on the same "what the fuck is wrong with americans?" tangent as the other day but...
I'm finding it infuriating that both the Obama administration and Rudd government have had to spend half of the week fending off accusations of having "socialist" or "left-centric" political ideologies.

Obama attempts to reform America's ailing health system and gets depicted by the christian right as the second coming of Che Guevara. "He is a traitor. He's either a Marxist or a Communist and we're not. He's totally un-American," Ms Calzone said." These rednecks obviously don't have even the slightest semblance of understanding of the policy being debated. They know only that Obama is trying to steal their hard-inherited fortunes and dole it out to disgusting poor people like one of those damn commies their uncle's love to talk about shooting.

Wayne Swann talks bank regulation in question time, so Joe Hockey jumps on his iPhone mid-sitting to conspire with the twitterverse about the left-leaning nature of the majority of finance ministers at the G20 summit. Rudd is forced to spend the majority of the next day in the house waxing some hard-style empty political rhetoric about his government's fresh and factionless core and denouncing Howard era "neo-liberalism" in an attempt to stamp out any potential ideological fear campaign from the opposition.

For fuck's sake. Debate the issues; your ideologies are all fucked regardless.

Apparently Rudd may be considering re-introducing the bill to means test the private healthcare rebate to parliament in December in an attempt to force a double-dissolution election.... It seems that "socialist" health care reforms are going to be front and centre of both American and Australian politics for some time to come...

wild weather...

2009-09-13T18:59:00.003+10:00

wild weather washes away the worst of the weekend warfare
my cigarettes burn weird and cruel and wet
oddly forgotten film stars sport fresh costume faces
in the face of the most solemn man this station has ever seen

pray for rain...

2009-09-11T04:49:00.005+10:00

You can stream the new Massive Attack track Pray for Rain...
here.
via Stereogum
The track comes from their Splitting The Atom EP, out 5th of October. A full LP of new material is expected to drop in mid-late February 2010.
Pray For Rain features the distinctive vocals of TV On The Radio's Tunde Adebimpe simultaneously star-gazing and naval-gazing laying over a haunting trip-hop backdrop. Deliciously slinky and smooth.
A perfect song for prowling the streets at night.

new thom yorke solo tracks...

2009-09-11T04:14:00.004+10:00

A live accoustic performance from 2005 of "FeelingPulledApartbyHorses", one of the two new tracks being released on September 21st under the frontman's solo moniker at the Radiohead's W.A.S.T.E. store:

Pretty stunning, I feel. This song looks like it has the potential to be an amazing single.

Apparently, the song has been kicking around since 2001. The track will feature Radiohead guitarist Johnny Greenwood, but is being released on a new Thom Yorke double-a side vinyl release. The flipside will be a song titled "The Hollow Earth", which was started when he was recording his amazing 2006 solo album Eraser, but apparently required "time to develop". According to Thom, the lines between band projects and more solo-oriented work are blurring more and more, with ideas originating with the intention of band devlopement ending up in the solo creative sphere with any combination of band members and outside musicians involved, and vice versa. The band have also indicated that they won't be working on a traditional LP anytime in the immediate future, preferring to work on single tracks or possibly some EP-style projects. One idea thrown out by Yorke was the notion of an EP of his vocals accompanied by orchestral arrangements composed and arranged by Johhny and himself. OOOOOH. Is it likely that any of these new productions and products and projects and performances will be anyhing less than amazing? Not really, no.

load me up on lithium...

2009-09-10T20:57:00.003+10:00

Pitchfork tells me that this MTV Video Music Awards performance was 18 years ago today:

Oh Yeah...
Krist's cry for attention/sarky shoutout to Axl Rose at the end is fairly humorous.
R.I.P KC

wising up to the ways of white america

2009-09-08T12:30:00.003+10:00

http://www.theage.com.au/world/obama-honeymoon-over-as-loyal-supporters-lose-heart-20090907-feby.html

This was a horrible article to read to begin my day. Obama's approval rating with white Americans is dropping like um's and ah's from George Bush's donkey-with-down syndrome mouth. Fast and furious. The percentage of the population that he managed to persuade to vote for a black man even though they didn't really want to has pretty much turned the page and realise the folly of their ways. They knew in their hearts that Bush was a bad-man (not BATMAN) and America needed real "change". Obama screamed that word loud enough and long enough that eventually they caved in and voted for something different even though they had no idea what the change would entail. They just knew they wanted something else. Now that he is trying to cure America's sick and sadistic health care system and reform the unfair elitist education system, the conservatives all scream "socialist" and every cookie-cutter-white-bread Miss and Mr. Americana jump of the bandwagon kicking and screaming and clutching their dollars. I wish he was a real socialist and I wish the American people would let him act like one so that the world could be at the very least a slightly less fucked up place. I wrote this after he was elected:

The gears of war,
on the evening news,
seem to be grinding down,
through a few of their teeth.
Still no hope of a decent world,
but are we seeing glimmers,
of a slightly better style?
The problem will be on the flipside.
Be it one, two, or three,
what will follow is what frightens me.
Will the successor represent,
the pendulum-axe of the reactionary people?
Will every positive action,
have its future cousin reaction of evil?
I hope for the first time,
what goes up,
will keep rising.
Believing in breaking the laws of physics,
isn't my style,
but for some reason,
I can't help but hold hope.
Holding out hope for the future,
is different to religion right?

Fail. I was wrong. The world is fucked.
Unfuck the world!

Apathy is easy,
resistance is futile,
change is impossible,
hope is useless,
while money is power,
and hegemony dominates.
FUCK.

set them now...

2009-09-07T19:06:00.004+10:00

as i watch from way too close
on stage
appearing raggedly ecstatic
but close your eyes
feel every dense aural aura
the desolation and doom denounce the light
as they set their sights on shred
and kill your senses
with a sonic wall the weight of lead

Don't fall. Please don't fall.

2009-09-07T18:40:00.004+10:00

With one leg I enclose an unknown beauty,
in the corner of the boom,
with the other I lash a violent shot,
into the already rotten ribs,
of the disgustingly derelict hound,
that plagues my mind,
with second floor balcony doubt,
and the fear of falling.

going on a bender...

2009-09-07T06:01:00.002+10:00

Heading towards the fun,
in the warm northern sun,
sliding through the sugar cane,
the warming beer and drunken cheer,
dilute the sullen sunset,
with wave after wave,
of serene shades of pink and red.
Drive north forwards fast to renew,
pleasant yet half-arsed old acquaintances,
while the real tea storm brews down south.
We hide not from the full front of the storm,
but rather bide our time in the tranquillity of the north,
to allow the psychotic psychotropic subtropical trip-fest time,
to develop the debauchery to its fullest potential,
before we unleash the gods of war,
along the hell-bent heath,
of the lands of southern north coast exposure.
Time to kill in these parts is time to waste,
but not time to want everything.
The search for the unknown is much braver,
than the search for the already known and unwanted.

My Name is Brody, I Come From Melbourne...

2008-11-09T00:28:00.003+11:00

I've been revisiting some old favourites lately..

The Distillers- Self Titled (2000)

Brody Dalle's animalistic, visceral, charging vocals reign supreme on the L.A. band's debut, released on the peerless Epitaph label in the-year-too-thousand. Burning through 14 tracks in under forty minutes, the band prsent a battering wall of solid, four-to-the-floor, high-paced, modern punk. Frantic three-chord-progression guitar and speedy, rolling basslines plaster the classic 90's Californian punk sound all over the record. But the ingredient that makes this album, and its equally impressive follow-up, 2003's "Sing Sing Death House", force you to stop and take notice, is former-Melburnian Dalle's ball-tearingly raw vocal delivery. Wailing out powerful tales of [surprise, surprise] disaffection, troubled adolescence, anger, pain, and urban decay, Brody relentlessly spits lyrics in the listener's direction with such harsh passion it is impossible [for me at least] not to believe this album. Opening track Oh Serena, sets the tone for the rest of the record, with Dalle at her menacing best on the delivery of the chorus. The release goes from strength to strength, with the snarling, talky verses and urgent chorus of LA Girl, the sheer brutality and break-neck pace of killer 1:15 cut Girl Fixer, and the searing screams of Black Heart "Fuck!" just a few of the many highlights. The hidden track, tucked away at the end of the last cut, is well worth searching out. A demo-recording of the track Young Girls, we get Brody in solo mode, accompanied only by her own slow, jangling guitar, and her heart wrenching, yearning vocal performance is just something else "we were young girls/in a small world/I'm on your doorstop man/ringin' your bell again/ringin' your bell again" (The track was eventually re-recorded with the full band and included on their second album). A classic album to file in your "teenage angst" file; punk the way it should be done, kids.

The Distillers - Girlfixer