perry is two

I hope you don't mind me busting in to these fortnight-old reminiscences (a couple of weeks of Flook are scheduled shortly anyway, they're seventy years old) to commemorate Perry's second birthday today, we have been out and about, we took the train to Spotswood, the ferry to Westgate Park and then walked back from there. Last week or recently anyway I read the adage 'a tired dog is a happy dog' in at least a couple of places and I figured I'd do what I could to make a happy dog today. Tomorrow too if possible. 

 

He is definitely growing up - less grizzling, more attentiveness, can stop himself from barking furiously when reminded it is a good idea, etc. Still work to be done but you could say the same about me really couldn't you. 

films I saw on the plane (two weeks ago)

Qatar air are a classic old school airline when it comes to bleeping out the ‘fucks’ and I think possibly even the ‘shits’ and maybe even the ‘bitches’(!!!) in the movies they offer to customers. This when they already have a standard warning at the front saying that some passengers might be offended by some of the content for instance the political content. Weird! (I know that's presently an overused word). 

At the moment I can only remember two of the films I watched last night, though I am pretty sure I watched four. I watched What Happens Next, which is a Meg Ryan and David Duchovny romantic vehicle all set in an airport and based on a play. It was patchy and overlong, but still the two leads – the only people who talk in the fim aside from the man who does the airport announcements and sometimes, comically (?) engages with what the main characters are saying – are good. Look the plot up on wikipedia if you want to know the final scene which, I shit you not, is a brave move but ultimately not one I would have gone with if I wanted the rest of my film to be taken seriously (Meg Ryan directs). 

Perhaps more excitingly from the POV of someone who loves Melbourne locations on the screen I watched Sleeping Dogs, a Russell Crowe vehicle ostensibly set in the USA with American actors (aside from RC, who plays an American in any case) but shot in Melbourne, and I was most surprised to see Moher, the building in North Melbourne I have long been interested in, playing the part of RC’s character’s house. 

I can't quite place the above* but there were lots of locations like this , incredibly obviously Melbourne if you know Melbourne (makes you realise that inner Melbourne does have an aesthetic that distinguishes it from other cities - or am I wrong? Maybe I'm the one thinking Americans are parochial because they can accept Melbourne as an American city somewhere, but I am the parochial one?) There were scenes at the University of Melbourne, too, mainly the colleges I think. 

Now I remember I also watched a film called E… damn I can’t remember what it was called, begins with E, where there’s some nice, DIY martial arts stuff in a fairly straightforward but satisfying revenge film. Escalation, I think. The film toed the line between being a boy’s film but also slightly feminised in that one of the main police characters (and one of the few goodies) was a woman. Maybe that’s not that weird anymore (I looked it up and the film’s not called Escalation, sorry. Can’t remember but I’m very, very, very, very tired). 

I now also recall that I also watched The Beekeeper. Hilarious. Extraordinary. Incellexcelent. The shooting up of the hives was a bit unnecessary. 

* 1 Sept 2024: Laura pointed out to me that this pub is actually right next door to Moher, in fact, you can see it in the picture above. That's how much I was paying attention (and how much she does). Actually, I think I was confused by its resemblance to a pub somewhere in Carlton I have been to a couple of times - name forgotten - and also by the fact that, in the movie, Russell Crowe doesn't leave the pub and walk ten steps to get home.  

you wouldn't read about it (two weeks ago)

 

I have been at the airport for 11 hours now, and I may be getting off the ground in an hour or a little more, on an entirely new route/airline, as Qantas couldn't guarantee that I would not be planted in Singapore for the foreseeable future rather than taken to where I wanted to be. I am going by Qatar air. I dunno. I will be fine I'm sure but at the moment, with very limited sleep and a kind of zombie misery that airport induce, it's not going great! I mean, first world problem don't worry I definitely know it is. Anyway, I have applied for compensation already for the flight cancellation and we'll see what happens out of that. Someone who can't play piano is playing piano somewhere nearby or perhaps it's the soundtrack to this waking dream. 

waiting at the airport (2 weeks ago)

 

I guess the airport is supposed to have certain qualities that keep you passive and, also probably, spending. My flight has just been announced as delayed by 1 hour. It doesn't matter to me too much if that's all that happens, as I had 3 hours in Singapore changeover. If it turns out that I miss my flight from Singapore I guess I'll be somewhat cheesed off, but also, I just have tons of work to do on this flight and also some crappy reading material to have crappy reads, so in the scheme of things, it's not like I'm late for a hot date. I have to be in Oulu in about four days. I could basically walk.

I even had enough time to do a stupid online survey about my airport experience. This caught my eye:

But that's all that caught my eye. A lot of it was about my trolley experience. 

Tell you what, dropping Perry off at the Pets Hotel this morning was a heart-rending experience. He was very good with the other dogs waiting in line though. I hope he does not have a ghastly couple of weeks. 

* Update: the flight to Singapore was postponed? Cancelled? Anyway, it's not taking off for six hours. It seems like Qantas were happy to fly me to Singapore with no plan for taking me any further. Very strange. I am on the phone to them now. 

finland trip (two weeks ago)

 

Perry is skittish obviously because he knows something's up. I am feeling a bit skittish too. But I am sure it will be fine, at least for me. I just get to go to my favourite country on Earth and swan around a bit looking at interesting things, and did I tell you the absurdity that, as it is a work trip and I am responsible for things like buying my own food, I get up to $300 tax deductible food a day?! It's an expensive country but crikey... that's madness. 

finland trip - two weeks ago

13 August, I'm getting ready to go to another conference, this one in Finland, in Oulu actually, a city I do really love, and the conference sounds like it'll be very interesting, so I am not entirely against the whole enterprise, though I do feel that it has turned out to be a bit inconvenient in many ways, work wise and money wise. But I will cope. 

There are a few beings who will have to manage without me for a while and some of them will understand, and some of them will just have to suck it up because I can't explain it to them. That bothers me quite a bit but I know ultimately it will be OK... ultimately. 

25 august 2019

Looking at my phone photos from five years ago is a bit confusing because obviously like anyone but particularly like hoarders (it's in the genes) I use my phone (as mentioned in previous post) as just a dump for every impression/ thing that happens/thing I do/ thing I see, but at the same time I can't be friggin' bothered to make a note about why this is important or what it means, I just assume that one day I will sit down and notate on it all, which to be fair.... well, what I'm doing now is the closest I will ever get to making any kind of extra commentary on this shit. 

So five years ago, I made a loaf of bread. Yes. The weird thing about this is that I had made a loaf of bread the day before, too. So I am not sure what this was about. This bread was born in the humblest of circumstances, the scungefest that was the kitchen in Albion. I mean my kitchen today is pretty awful but nowhere near as awful. 

I guess I walked Barry and Ferdie that day, although this is the only picture from that moment, so who really knows. 

It doesn't matter in the slightest but why did I go to the 12th Caulfield (St Johns) Memorial Scout Hall five years ago today? I definitely can't tell you. 

I vaguely recall seeing this book in a bookshop in Elsternwick I think. Maybe it was the first time I saw it IRL? Because I have a short chapter in it, so I would have been interested. Maybe I was just pleased to see it out in the wild. 

Fabulous op shops in Elsternwick, so that's probably where the above images are from. 

This was around the time that I was getting ready to go to Europe, and I visited my aunt Maggie a few times with my mother, apart from anything else, I was proposing that Maggie take on Chanticleer as her new cat. Not sure what this would mean for Pompey but maybe I would keep him, I don't know. Maggie was ill with cancer and as it transpired she died in September. 

Pompey (rear) and Chanticleer in the Albion hovel. If you don't know the story of have forgotten (sometime I forget) I rescued these two from the mean streets of Albion, they were street cats with no future or at least the future of being run over by cars. They were flea-bitten, wormy and undesexed. I am guessing that by this stage they were no longer the first two categories and maybe not the third either anymore. 

Nancy hated them (still does). Though fortunately for Nancy, she doesn't have to think about them too often. & vice-versa. 

Once again this is all trivia but the one thing that I am amazed by is how awful things were five years ago and how good they are now (for me, not for anyone else, just me). I put most of the credit for that with Laura, who is a daily tonic. No doubt by this stage she had already agreed to look after these three cats while I was overseas, and as it transpired - she ended up keeping the two boys, together. It's hard now to imagine ever separating them. 

gosh...

I have 45 000 photos on my phone, I am not kidding. Actually 46, 546 and 3,909 videos. I am not kidding. I reckon about half of them are of pets doing things or just sitting. 

So that many photos is just stupid, particularly when you consider I do often delete soon after, obviously nowhere near enough lol. But it does mean I can get a good fix on what I was doing on a particular day in the last... however long the photos go back, I don't know, about 2017 I think for some reason. 

So I just thought I'd take a quick look at what I was doing on 21 August 2019 and I guess I was kind of hanging out with Pompey and Chanticleer, who were just children then, at the Albion house which every time I see it in pictures now amazes me at how squalid it really was. That dump was falling apart, shittily. I guess what surprises me more than that fact is the fact that it was only five years ago and so much has changed in that time.  

My life is about 10 000 times better and everything's good. Back then I was such a maudlin cunt. Now I'm not so maudlin. Looks like these boys liked maudlin though. I guess I taught them all their maudlinness. 

crap in the street

 

Seen quite a lot of crap in the street lately. I don't know what's bringing it on but perhaps with the warmer weather people no longer feel the need to keep their crap bottled up and instead feel like sharing it with the community. That's North Melbourne, what a town. 

flats opposite arden gardens

Honestly don't know how much longer these flats will still be in existence - though clearly they are still occupied right now. That notice in the first picture above is not exactly doing the area a huge amount of favours, reputationally. I don't know how I feel about the aesthetics of these towers but there are a lot of really nice 80s-90s Housing Commision/Office of Housing buildings in this area, and the excellent shops with flats above in Melrose St. So I hope it is all allowed to stay longer. 
 

the true story of the fake zombies

 

I don't even know why I started listening to this. Basically it's an investigation of a situation in 1969 when some manager in, um, Bay City, somewhere? hit on the idea of creating a band of Americans to pretend to be the Zombies (who were from the UK and had just split up) and tour. 

The spirit of investigation is really appealing and the person who put this together - and did so over a long period of time, which is brought home when you realise how many of the people he spoke to have died since - knows his stuff (although he doesn't quite get ZZ Top, that's clear) and has put the work in. 

What really bothers me is that the people involved in this podcast series are really beholden to the This American Life approach to spoken word audio.

There are a lot of quiet spaces where I suppose you're meant to let things sink in.

Just digest that for a while.

The quiet spaces are so you can let things sink in.

I mean it.

I am guessing that the people behind this podcast had some issues with music, as well. They seem to have been enabled to use real original Zombies music. There are a few other vintage bits and pieces. But when it comes to ZZ Top, for instance, they don't even try to provide a soundalike (maybe they were warned). 

Why do they talk about ZZ Top?

Because two of the men, later to become famous as members of ZZ Top, played in the 'fake Zombies'. 

So, essentially, what you get with this series is a bunch of episodes that crawl through the material and really stretch it out with a lot of repetition and even quite a bit of - not quite outrage but a passive version of it. Seriously, the music industry is as much the realm of shifty pricks now as it was then, though obviously you couldn't pull a stunt like the fake Zombies now because, like, people have the internet. But on the other hand, you do have a man touring the USA talking about how much Hannibal Lecter was (or is?) wonderful. 

Anyway, I semi-recommend this podcast. I've only listened to three eps. I hope Frank Beard comes on board before the end. 

stony creek backwash this morning

No words, you don't need words for this, unless you want to (try to) read the signs.