do i have a complex?

Ever since my brother and sister discovered they could get a reaction out of me by swooshing jelly in their mouths, I have been aware of a certain middle-class squeamishness in my otherwise very earthy and centred personality when it comes to mouth noises and eating, or rather, failing to eat. I am not squeamish about vomit, particularly, though I can't say I'm a fan. I am not even that squeamish about spit, although I don't love that either. What freaks me out is (1) excessive slurpy eating noises and (2) food on the face, particularly when promoted as evidence of deliciousness. (1) came home to me yesterday when I was spending what looks like it's going to be a lo-o-o-o-o-ong time reading microfilm in the library; a woman who has also been there for the last two days really went to town on an apple (in the library, that is, if you please) and I wanted to scream and kill her. I could not imagine worse hell than sitting there having to listen to this apple being masticated and sucked down her horrible waste-disposal gullet. I guess this is a phobia. Even writing it down I can't really remember how bad it was, I just know it was. Of course spending a lot of time with microfilm does put you into a bit of a trance.

(2) comes up on tv a lot. The Dolmio grin, for instance, which is to say, this is a spaghetti sauce out of a jar that you will enjoy so much you will pour it in a trough and stick your head in. More recently there's been some milk flavouring that explores all the possibilities of how you might form shapes on your face with it. I want to die and be sick at the same time. Mia will attest, I have to leave the room when this ad comes on television. There's another one that's all about how frothy some stupid instant coffee is so you get it all over your face.

The true tragedy of my existence is that I can't really explain to you how repulsed I am by these things in the way that would best explain it - by coming up with some similarly disgusting hypotheticals which I know you would find disgusting and then saying 'that's how I feel about food-on-the-face advertising'. Because you would just think I was so foul for bringing up the comparison concepts. Damn it!

Been rereading Clinton Walker's book on Bon Scott. Probably my third time. I really like the book, though I was never that much of an AC/DC fan. I have a couple of their albums, and they're OK. I always liked the singles. This time around I noticed that Clinton seems to be hinting at a lot of things, he's being simultaneously diplomatic and veiled, I kind of admire it but I'll have to ask him sometime outright about these things. I'm not going to say what they are because (1) they might be common knowledge, in which case I'd seem dumb (2) they might not be true, in which case I'll seem dumb.

I've also been reading David Lodge, Peter Mathers, Renee Geyer and Germaine Greer. Yep, the big four.

banyule bloggers

This is one of the most consistently funny blogs - who am I kidding, it is by far the most hilarious blog I have seen in my short and sad life. It's not just hilarious either it's also very interesting in all kinds of ways but done with a very intelligent humour that I wish I had the nous for. http://banyulebloggers.blogspot.com/
It reminds me of a number of great things that have passed by me in my long and interesting existence. For instance some (by no means all) of the kids who used to write me letters when I was a DJ on RRR, and really a kid myself. A British comic called The Kilt - I've still got that somewhere, I wonder where it is? - which was all done with barbie dolls and a picture of a dog's head, on a stick, called 'Arsa'. That still makes me laugh, and I still don't understand it, it was all the private humour of two girls on the dole in some shitty town. That's a bit different but reminds me of the same kind of closed but fascinating universe. So, Banyule Bloggers is highly recommended. Phew, now I know what to write about in the next Big Issue.

i can't think of anything to write as a heading except 'this is about daddy cool who we saw last night'

I even took a photo. I know how terrible it is, you should have seen the ones I discarded. Mia took some good ones I think.
It just occurred to me that in the Daddy Cool DVD Ed Nimmervoll says how peculiar it was in the era of Johnny Farnham etc that here was Ross Wilson a hippie with a baby. Well, that occurred to me when I watched the DVD last week. But it occurred to me that Ross Wilson must have been the cool daddy in question. They played last night at the Hard Rock Cafe and Gary Young is such a great drummer. They were all really good actually. They must have done about six songs, just to lauch the DVD. Presumably they haven't really got back together, so maybe this will be the last thing they do ever. There were a lot of busty women in their fifties there with plunging necklines and a lot of old men with grey stubble on their heads. A guy had a Robert Pearce RRR t-shirt I used to have, from about 1985 or earlier I suppose. I only really appreciate Robert Pearce now. Also, Greg Macainsh was there - I thought, how strange, here is someone who queued up to buy the first Daddy Cool single the day it came out, in 1971 or whenever, and now he's watching them play. And of course I only know that because he's immensely famous himself. And Pat Wilson was there too. She is in the 1971 film on the DVD, doing a song with Rock Granite and the Profiles, and it and she are both amazing. I am rather keen on Pat Wilson it has to be said. She comes out pretty amazing in that Rock Granite clip.

cleaned the shower

Actually I shouldn't put that in the past tense as I still have to do the sliding door, which is rank and teeming with toxic scum. But I went over the shower with a hard bristle brush and plenty of Gumption and it felt pretty good to do it.

'Thats me kid' is on the bus stop outside the Jacana primary school, and represents to me the epitome of Jacana humour - understated, wry and no dicks drawn on (yet). Speaking of which I had a long discussion with Mia about the graffiti on the fences facing the park near the Rotary barbecue that says 'Meadow Heights Suck Dick'. I believe that the writer has written 'suck' not 'sucks' because s/he is trying to agree with a plural (Heights). Mia says that there is an implied [the people of] Meadow Heights' . Either way it's troublesome.

thats me kid

one of those things I love about australia

I saw this over the intersection from Greg's house when I was there last week. It's funny whether it's meant to be funny or not. That's one of the things I love about Australia. If you can't read the sign it says 'chair for sale'.

more scenes from the campus over the creek

It is slowly but surely being demolished, but this was a delightful place. The way you'd think a university campus ought to be - no students, no staff (well, the occasional grim-faced trudger who might have been staff, you never really knew). I can't remember what this area used to be - some other kind of teaching facility - but plainly it did once have a more vibrant existence, there is even a strange piece of smoked glass at the foot of a stairwell with 'cafeteria' written on it, although very obviously it's not a cafeteria, it's a stairwell. I suppose I should go up those stairs sometime. None of this will be here much longer. The covered walkway, for instance, now takes you to chicken wire surrounding an impressive building site.