brenda dickson - welcome to my home

"...and with dieting it's like life: as long as I don't bleed or cry I'll do it!"
Ha ha ha!

boycott i+q

For what it's worth, I recommend not going to (Queer and Alternative) Q+A's lowly successor, I+Q (Independent and Queer), also held at A Bar Called Barry every Thursday night.
It bears absolutely no resemblance to Q+A: the music is shit and the clientele are even more southside.
But it gets worse:
I saw the aftermath of a young lesbian punk having her head split open whilst forcefully being evicted from the venue by reckless bouncers for the seeming slight of bearing her breasts, just two nights ago. Hardly deserving of the pain and a face full of blood.
Seems like if you're having too much fun at the venue and not consuming enough alcohol to anaesthetise yourself from the pain of being assaulted by top forty dance music (so 'independent') and soulless homogeneity then you're going to get the royal treatment.
That and if you're a working class and/or punk lesbian.
So there are increasingly fewer venues for queer women to feel free to express their sexuality, what with The Peel being able to discriminate against women and I+Q treating lesbian punks like they do.
It's time to make a new night in a new venue that really is queer and really is an alternative to this shit.
Says I...
I got respect for all kinds of queers and a laptop with plenty of good tunes. Anyone got a venue for me?
now playing: severed heads - dead eyes opened (original)

farcebook and another more important fuck up

So last night I went out to St Kilda with a friend and my boyf and we had delicious crispy duck tortellini in walnut sauce with a hint of chili. It's really tasty but never enough (to misquote a line from Hellraiser).
After dinner we went to the Marquis of Lorne in Fitzroy and caught up with a friend who this week was granted a Permanent Residency. Nice one! That's no mean feat here in Australia as the Government doesn't like brown people very much. Or black. White with a tan is pushing it too, so don't get any ideas.
Anyway, we found ourselves in the small basement of this four storey pub and it was dark, dank and stinky with an eightball table (or pool table, depending on where you're from) in the cramped conditions. "Smells damp," I said, this time correctly quoting the aforementioned horror movie masterpiece.
But apart from some good conversation, everyone was interrupted for a moment by someone shouting that they had one hundred and thirty-seven friends on facebook. For those of you who don't know, all two of you, facebook is a self-proclaimed 'social utility that connects you with the people around you.'
I have a few problems with farcebook and also this claim because I'm a pompous git. And because of my pomposity I'm going to expound those problems right now.
Why do I need to be connected with people around me virtually if they're already around me? That doesn't make sense. I joined up because a friend of mine was returning to her home in New York and I thought it would be a fun, quick and easy way to keep in touch with her. Speaking of which, I should drop her a line right now. brb
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Where was I?
Why is it that people convert what should be a networking thing into a popularity contest? My boyfriend went through my list of friends and requested to be friends with friends of mine he's only met once. Farce! At the latest count he has over eighty 'friends'. Well done.
Hang on, just thought of another friend I haven't poked (not like that) recently. brb
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Long overdue, that was.
I just sent a couple of friends a drink on a new application that you can add to your page that lets you shout your friends virtual drinks. Long island ice tea. Of course. So fun. I was given a milk.
But seriously, why would you want to have over a hundred friends? Anyone who has over a hundred friends can't be a very good or attentive friend, surely. How could you fit in the time to be a friend to that many people? Virtually or otherwise? Group emails? Group farcebook vampire and ninja bites? How friendly is that?
Someone I know boasted to have over two hundred farcebook friends. I challenged her and said, "But how many of them are real friends IRL?"
"IRL?" She queried.
"In real life."
"Oh. All of them."
I'm dubious.
Next, a friend of mine has set up a fakebook: he's set up a facebook profile et al for a friend of his and is sending out messages, writing on walls and generally participating in the online 'community' that is farcebook as her proxy, unbeknownst to her. Identity fraud! Of the friendliest sort. How real is that?
Now I have to go and update my cat's farcebook (called catbook) profile.
Slave to the system! brb
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Finally, the paranoid in me is a little bit suss about who's getting this information and how and why. Is it possible for boneheads or the state to be able to find out who knows who? Of course. I suppose a more pertinent question is, what can they do with this information? Well in these days of the Anti-Terrorism Act, when a man with a Middle Eastern name can be arrested for simply knowing his terrorist cousin, anything is possible.
Goodbye civil liberties... brb?
now playing: the clash - i fought the law

more graff

more generative 'art' and mistaken identities

...but not generic!
Follow this link for similar unfolding art coolness.
I was directed to the above website by boingboing.com - 'a directory of wonderful things' for this little gem.
The idea of generative pastiches of famous artists' oeuvres is quite a good one, even if the execution is a little bit naf. I suppose that's the point to a lot of art these days: the concept. It's nice when a concept and aesthetics coincide in that happy place called quality.
I'm with Deleuze and Guattari when they say that the point of art is to evoke feelings ('affects' - although affects are more than just feelings) in people that then foster changed and changing perceptions/understandings. And so on...
Geez, you can tell I have very little to say right now.
I'm listening to what may be Richard D James' (aka Aphex Twin and AFX) latest offering.
There's some mystery surrounding it, however. The Rephlex published ep I bought is by The Tuss and it's called Rushup Edge (Rephlex is a label that was part-established by Richard James back in 1991, btw).
The scant ep info also states that it was produced by Karen Tregaskin, which is weird because Brian Tregaskin is credited as being The Tuss and has a myspace page of his own. All of the playable tracks on The Tuss' and Brian Tregaskin's myspace pages only sound like AFX's latest Analord releases except worse and not enough to sound like they really are written by Richard James himself. Which is also strange because Rushup Edge sounds a lot like more those aforementioned recent AFX releases - only better.
But it gets weirder because a recent article from The Guardian that speculates on the identity of Brian/Karen Tregaskin, states that one of the synths used in the ep is a Yamaha GX-1, which is a massive, extremely expensive, old and rare synth of which only seven were made back in 1973. And Richard James owns one. Although on his myspace questions and answers page, Brian Tregaskin refutes that he uses a GX-1.
He also claims that the track titles of the 'leaked' Rushup Edge ep that were downloadable from SLSK before the ep's official release (and how does that happen? I'm suspicious...) are false. Certainly, my copy of the ep doesn't contain any track titles. Further, the Rephlex homepage states that the release is an album and not an ep. But my copy only contains six tracks and runs a total of 32mins48secs. What's going on?
By the sound of the music, its pretty obvious that Rushup Edge is a Richard James written album, so all of this must be some kind of marketing ploy or game that Richard James is playing with his adoring.
If it turns out that The Tuss really isn't Aphex Twin, I'd have said that Richard James has a usurper on his hands if it weren't for the fact that, despite the blandness of the Analord releases, he's been a brilliant composer and producer for the last twenty plus years. But that's testament to the quality of The Tuss. It's pretty good! I like tunes in music. Tunes are good. Not enough tunes these days...
now playing: the tuss - shiz ko e

foggy atmospheres, foggy head

I really love fog.
Launceston is quite a foggy city as it's located in a valley and the landscape seems to capture the low lying cloud and not let go until midday during autumn.
So, it was great to experience a couple of nights and mornings in Melbourne where the same conditions seemed to prevail for a little while.
There's something about the insulating, masking, nature of fog that really excites me. Perceptions are reeled in, light takes on a completely different quality and everything takes on a slightly spooky edge that's simply delicious. I wish we had more fog in Melbourne.
Whereas these photos aren't the best, they indicate the extent of recent foginess round these parts that is quite aesthetically pleasing, even on the bike ride to work.

There are a couple of photos included with some eerie mist effects and an orb, too.
Also, as you can see, there is a not-so time lapse series of photos of Melbourne Central tower at different stages of foggy dishabille. C'est tres jolie, n'est-ce pas?
Next postis going to include some pictures of recent street art on the way to work along the Upfield bikepath. It's a constantly evolving landscape that reminds me pretty much every day how fortunate I am to live in a city where so many people take the risk of improving the mental environment with their own visions and creativity in direct defiance to the mind numbing banality of advertising.
The streets are their canvas.
I've written this entry whilst a little bit sloshed on tasty red wine.
That's my excuse, what's yours?
just viewed - the bunker (a WWII thriller/slasher about guilty nazi consciences)

cradle of sadness

My mate, Jock, sent me some photos from a Bangkok Metal festival, including the one on the left and in so doing he reminded me of a series of photos from a website called ruthless reviews.
There have now been two Top 10 lists published on that website of the all time worst black metal band pics and the last picture in this post is number nine in the latest compilation. Number nine. It gets worse. Much worse. It's frighteningly funny.
As Jock put it, these guys look like angry pandas. That's how hardcore they are. Angry pandas with faux mediaeval props. How evil can you be?
Look at this guy. He thinks he's a swash-buckling black metal freak. In fact, he looks like a cross between Siouxsie Sioux, Kylie Minogue and Genghis Khan.
Seriously, what manner of childhood horrors must a person experience to later decide that wearing too much white and black makeup and putting nails through their leatherette clothing, knee high boots and wrist guards whilst sporting fake ceremonial swords and striking dramatic poses, pouting and/or wailing over the top of whiddly-whiddly wow-wow guitar music is a wise career move?
Although, come to think of it, these guys no doubt earn more money than I do.
But at least I still have my dignity intact.
I, after all, volunteered to model as a dick for a fag rag. How special am I?
now playing: the the - lonely planet

flood the police

Not being the biggest fan of things cop, I found this clip, hyped by b3ta, to be quite amusing.
Surprisingly, it looks as though the police knew what they were doing here and were prepared to be arrested by water, but that's not what interests me.
Regardless of whether or not the onlookers were accurate in their assessment of the cops as being incontrovertibly moronic, it's the universal contempt and scorn they heap on them that really made me smile.
now playing: mara carlyle - pianni (i'm in a minimal, satie-esque piano mood)

how the mighty fall

I was having a little self care/flash back session tonight as I lay on my couch and cranked the volume up to Leo Anibaldi's Void.
Void was one of those albums back in the 90's ("back in the 90's"?) that really captured my attention every time I played it, taking me on a trip. I had that mild synaesthesia people get when listening to wonderfully evocative music. In other words, I really felt the music. The emotion and the movement of the music moved me physically. It kind of invaded my consciousness and blocked out everything else. I was completely there with the music. Inside it. I love that.
Anyway, so I was listening to Void and reflecting on the fact that I have no idea who this Anibaldi guy is, so I resolved to wikipedia and google him. What I discovered disappointed me. He plays breaks and house in Rome. Breaks and house in Rome! Who fucking cares!?
Compare the stark and chilling blue noise that has eerie pan pipes and low frequency oscillating bass lines set to the rhythmic rumbling of train carriages sweeping past your ears, the sparse jangling gamelan of evocation and the insistent pulsing and tense techno from somewhere random with epos 52 to the shit sounding shit on his myspace page.
Terrible.
Oh well.
The picture above is of a comedian called Marty Feldman, who apparently died in a hotel room in Mexico City of a heart attack caused by poisoned shellfish. He worked with Monty Python on occasion. The picture is taken from his role as Igor in Mel Brook's classic Young Frankenstein. No doubt an utter masterpiece compared to Young Einstein. I was going to use Marty as my profile photo but I thought it's not nice to make fun of the dead so I decided against it.
Yes, I agree; this is kind of a nothing post.
To improve it's quality I'll add this last bit: Beat Butcha (whose myspace page is linked to this page above and to the right) makes good techno-y stuff and has recently added a new tune to his page. Check it out. It's mighty fine.
now playing: fennesz and sakamoto - abyss

blade runner - final cut

I want to see this film real bad.
Real Bad.
But I can't find out when it's being released. The info seems vague.
now playing: dr dooom - leave me alone

a smoke and a pancake

Well, it's July 1st 2007 and therefore, it is now illegal to smoke in Victorian public venues (ie. bars, clubs, pubs, etc).
I'm thoroughly ambivalent about this.
We live in a nanny state that does its best to tell us what's good for us and uses law in an attempt to enforce consequent ways of doing (and thinking). This is bad. Very bad. Government is bad. So no surprises there.
But I must say that I am looking forward to going to pubs and being able to breathe, as well as not reek of filthy cigarette smoke, when I get home. That will be wonderful.
But then, am I going to have to sit outside in the Winter cold with my friends who do smoke whenever I go out with them?
As a reformed smoker (I quit on October 16th 2004, after about eight years of chain smoking and have never looked back), I understand the priority, the demand for indulgence, that smoking makes. So, I wouldn't want to insist addicted friends refrain from smoking when we're out. I remember, I would tolerate the worst kind of conditions to satisfy my smoking needs: rain, hail, sleet, gale force winds. I can foresee sitting outside in the freezing cold for hours, talking to smoking friends, when we could be sitting inside in smoke-free warmth. In fact, that already happens and I'd rather it didn't
Guess I'll have to make some demands.
a) If I were still a smoker, in all probability I would be blogging right now about how fucked the state is and how we live in tyrannical times and how awful it is that my smoking rights are being curtailed.
b) The best I can do as a non-smoker is to complain about how we live in tyrannical times and how the state is just as much a health hazard as cigarette smoke.
Conclusion: we should ban both.
now playing: shellac - boycott