pete davidson turbo fonzarelli

Whatever they're doing at Netflix when it comes to releasing these standup specials, they're doing it with intent. This is not the worst of the three I've looked at recently (the other two being Chappelle and Gervais) and I'm surprised that I keep thinking 'it's not even funny' because, like, neither are the other two. 

Davidson mentions he thinks Chappelle is the best but he doesn't go into any of the easy 'controversial' stuff Chappelle does, for which I suppose we should be grateful, though he does go into some 'weird places' - generically weird as per the above. This is pushing boundaries which were established long ago as boundaries-it's-possible-to-push. The above is a story about a child with cancer who Davidson told some secrets to then was anxious because the child didn't die.* The child dies, so I've got to say, it's obviously an untrue story; if he was really celebrating the death of someone's child he'd be open to all kinds of lawsuits. By the way, I don't want the story to be true, I just didn't want the whole scenario dreamed up in the first place.

Davidson is one of the 2020s' most successful comedians worldwide; I've seen him do good things; I'm impressed that, as someone who claims (for the purposes of this show, anyway) to do drugs every day that he can remember almost an hour of a monologue without ums or ahs. But this is really a poor piece of work. I haven't even got onto the extensive tale of the stalker (long story short: a woman who's ugly and mentally disturbed stalks him but - what if he's into it?).**  

I was going to say more but as I so often say in these situations, I'm probably not the demographic, and like any cranky old man, I'd have to say, in this instance I'm glad not to be.*** 

What I really need is a new Sarah Silverman special. That last one was amazing. 

* Apparently the notion that the child might somehow pass Davidson's 'secrets' on to someone else before s/he died is not entertainable - because obviously it's spoil the 'bit'. 

** This bullshit ends with three things PD flags as 'legal disclaimers', one of which is obviously a stupid joke, the other two of which I don't get, and in fact, I don't get any of it but I don't think those legal disclaimers were really necessary because the story is so inconsistent. 

*** Although the 'demographic' is probably not the point. I'm just not such a simpleton I'd be into this kind of thing. 

newmarket or kensington or whatever it's called

Perry and I are getting desperate for new places to visit. On Sunday we went to Kensington, a little pocket behind the supermarket, just to go somewhere we've never been before. As it happens we were even quite sparing with that so we could go back again sometime and unlock a few more mysteries. 

What do you think of these houses (below) in Marshall Street. It's ok to have no thoughts about them.

Perry loves to look over a wall. Nothing there. 

The streets that really intrigued us were Crown st and Newmarket st. This is Crown st. We saved Newmarket street for another time. 

Someone's either building a house in the style of 2004, or they stopped building it in 2004 the end. 

This was cool... Newmarket way (off Newmarket st). So L. A. 

And that's all. 

songs

 

I may even have posted this stupid picture before, it has no special value, I just hate seeing posts without an image. 

In fact the only thing I really wanted to blog today (aside from: the state government is ridiculously pulling down vintage housing commission buildings to erect new monstrosities and expects patting on the back for it, and also, that there is officially an el niŋo (ok, for some weird reason blogger doesn't have an n with a tilde on it, at least not in this font, I cbf finding how to do it)* coming and that s-u-x sux) is that I've been thinking about my post from I think five years ago (jesus, so much amazing stuff has happened since then) when I said I had written a song. 

I had, and Alanna and I even played it live, once, the only time I've ever played guitar in public. We wangled a brief spot before an Alastair Galbraith show at the Labor in Vain. It went OK, in a world of no-one had expectations and everyone knew it would be over soon so it was fine. 

But the weird thing now is how things like songwriting just course around my head with a back-and-forth of how much I think about doing it, but also, how much I cannot even remotely imagine anyone would be interested in anything I did in that vein, and 'anyone' even includes myself, and indeed I'm fairly sure no-one at all would find any pleasure in listening to any such thing. 

This is the very definition of self-thwarting thinking, and me writing this down is a way of breaking out of it (I am in roughly the same boat with my second graphic novel, though I have moved forward a little with that).  Really, I should play music not with the intention of presenting it to anyone specifically, but because it's really good for me mentally, by which I mainly mean brain, but possibly also attitude. 

*update a few minutes later: I just read an article about it and now I know there is no tilde on it anyway

update a day later: then I saw another article on the same general topic in the Guardian and they use a tilde

perplexed by blogger

I was just wandering through my old gmail address (I had been suggested a random strange address by gmail when I signed up and my real name wasn't available, I used it for 3-4 years and then decided I could actually do better using my full name as my gmail address, don't know whether I regret that or not but now I have a number of things attached to that gmail address, such as this blog, and occasionally check it) and I found a notification from blogger that, a la the problem I noted in my previous post, a post of mine had been removed a few months ago (I think) as unsuitable and not conforming to blogger's standards.

I tracked down the post and examined it. It was a short, very ill-formed musing on the old revival cinemas such as the Ritz, the Valhalla, the Longford etc which I used to go to in the 70s. Blogger might have wanted to remove it for being stunningly pedestrian but I don't think that's covered in their community standards. I actually would not give a loose root if that post was deleted forever as it had no particular value and was probably written just as a prelude to possibly going forth and visiting a new Valhalla-themed event that was being publicised at the time. The raunchiest and most controversial element was the mentioning of the name of film advertised in the poster illustrated above. I would love to know what the bloggerbot objected to in that post - I've asked for it to be reviewed after I changed the s-word to an s-asterisk-x word, we'll see what happens, but then again as I check that email address about once a year, maybe we won't. 

must be the change

Everyone but me seems to be cold today. The heating is on at work (that is not the explanation) I went out and when I came back it was extremely hot in there, I felt like it was summer, even though I had the window open etc, which I have to do (there is no option to change it). I was walking near the colleges and two girls were talking to a boy and one of them said I have to go inside, I'm freezing and she had this preposterous low cut top on, though surprisingly she wasn't hugging her cleavage to indicate coldness, but her waist which was more properly clothed (unusually in youngsters but there you are). She may have been freezing but let's face it she just wanted to get away from a boring boy. But I thought that's girls these days, they'll tell silly obvious lies like I have to go in I'm freezing because it's obviously a lie so whatever, then they'll yell out too much information about gynecology. I don't know if you've noticed that.

well, actually...

I think he has been made aware that he is, in fact a dog not my mother's youngest baby, so that's probably a good thing, in the sense that disillusionment is probably when all's said and done at the end of the day, a good thing. No amount of rehabilitation/ surgery/ skilled lying by those around will make him less of a dog and more of a person.

I do note an interesting degree of factionalism. As I mentioned, yesterday it was Kenzie and Charlie on patrol. Last night it was Kenzie and Millie guarding the house (from us) when we came home. This morning it was also Kenzie and Millie at the back door, with Charlie in her crows' nest position at Mia's alpine yert (stop me if I am being ridiculously obtuse with this detail). I am not sure whether these divides are real or whether it's just Kenzie does what he does, Millie doesn't care what he does, and Charlie does, so when she gets pissed off she pisses off; or whether perhaps Kenzie is up to some politicking.

Whatever, as you can see, it fascinates me like so many things with no possible solution.

kath n kim country

Mark Peel's piece in today's Sunday Age was right on the money in terms of the ways in which 'outer suburban' areas are so often typified as conservative, racist, homophobic, cultural wasteland, blah blah - Howard's heartland and so on. Mark Peel is talking about Berwick, which is more often seen as aspirational McMansion territory than where we live, but still the bottom line of his argument holds true - and I never thought I'd raise my voice in anger against the latte quoffing elites - but I wish I had a dollar for every time I heard some stupid cliche about the area in which we live, which I am now (3 years in) ready to say are all demonstrably untrue. Most recently I noted a livability table (OK, in itself a crock) which had our area down as registering 0 on crime rate, which is what it is best known for (that and Turkishness, but there was no category for that on this list).

The fear of anywhere 5 km from the GPO that comes up so often in so many different forums is so stupid it's one of those things that would be funny if it wasn't so prevalent/ 'known'. The really funny thing is that 30 years ago it was the inner city that was perceived as the evil wasteland.

I realise I am mixing up my objections but I am really just registering an inchoate yowl of general irritation. Because there's nothing to be done until everyone changes their mind and then they will deny ever having had the former opinion anyway.

By the way, I do have a dollar for every stupid cliche, as mentioned above. It's the quarter of a million dollars we saved by buying a house in an area generally perceived as irredeemable.