wash, rinse, delete

...or perhaps wince, delete I don't know. 

I have just gone back in time ten years deleting 5000+ emails most of them junk from my first, largely now ignored, gmail account. As I have explained here before, I set up this blog using that email account and as far as I understand it that is not transferable - i.e. I will have to keep that email account forever, if I want to keep this blog going. But that doesn't explain the current weird problem which is that after an update a month or so ago my computer has decided that that old email address is what I want when I select gmail. It isn't. But it always comes up as the default, until I log out and select the tab that takes you to other possible gmail addresses - including the newer one, incidentally labelled 'default'. 

So I keep landing on my old address and seeing thousands of random junk emails so this evening, as a palate cleanser between marking first year students' work, I decided I'd delete some. This turned into a bit of a campaign and I got rid of many. There were quite a lot of emails from old friends in there who hadn't realised they were writing to an old address, and possibly wondered why I had ignored them, but they are all people I still know/consider friends, so it can't have been that much of a disaster. Although that said I didn't read them all, just skimmed. There were messages and/or relics from people who have since died (by 'relics' I mean there was a time, seemingly now passed, when every time a fb friend launched a campaign or petition or something, you'd get a gmail notification of it; so one person in particular whose funeral I was remembering only last week, was heavy on the campaigns in or around 2014 or so. That's just one example there were a few. And a lot of people as well who I don't talk to anymore and am pleased that's the case... 

Apropos of nothing except it's Sunday night, I'm kind of mentally bereft after marking student work, it feels like voices in my head, here are a few more old drawing bits and bobs from various times:

barry gibb's unreleased 1970 album is 9/10ths bad

I don't know how I got to it but apparently Barry Gibb made an album straight after the Bee Gees broke up for realz in 1970ish, which may or may not have been called The Kid's No Good. What you see above is not its cover, but someone's imagined idea of what the cover might have been if it had come out. Well, anyway, it should of been called The Album's No Good, get it?! It's so weird how Barry is always pushed as the real solid centre of the Bee Gees but (notwithstanding he was probably worn out completely by the prior five years) this album definitely suggests that he was not much at all without his brothers. Then, anyway. They weren't much without him either although I think Robin's Reign is probably a pretty great album all in all, certainly massively better than this pile of shit (yeah, it's available on youtube by the way, or a version of it is at any rate). That said I think some of the value of Robin's Reign is similarly he didn't have his brothers around insisting he polish stuff, but in that case it kind of worked. Barry's Kid's No Good has songs like 'The Victim' for which the first ten seconds are incredibly good, could be a Stereolab instrumental or something, but why does he have to sing it like he is a tetchy idiot? Ugh, don't do it. (OK I admit it's pretty good really but I don't want to flimsify my bad-tempered argument).* OMG Maurice's album from the same time, The Loner, is also on youtube. And OMG it's ten times better than Barry's fuckin' album!!! O M G! 

But still the Bee Gees' obsession with/default to country music, which was clearly for some reason something they really wanted to do, was and remains kind of sick, well, because their take on country music was usually pretty shit. Yeah, I know, 'Lonely Days', 'Islands in the Stream', I mean sure, but most of the time it was horrible.  

In other news, I went to see if I could find anything called 'Killed By Death' that I had done. I have to concede I might be wrong about this. I found these little square pages of comic strip that in my memory had included something called 'Killed by Death' and I was totally wrong about that. I suppose it doesn't matter. I did find some other things I did about thirty years ago, which I probably never did anything with, excerpts:

I don't know why I found that funny, or why I still do. 

This is a curiosity that I might have done any time in the last twenty years, it won't mean much to you but it's a character from the graphic novel I'm working on now, only I've just drawn him with some harem pants and shoes on and added this rather extraordinary name, which isn't his name, next to him. I'm such an enigma to myself. 

*Update 19/4 I've actually decided that 'Victim' is basically the best song Barry Gibb ever wrote. I'm not sure whether this means that the overall average quality of the album goes up, or the extraordinary contrast between 'Victim' and all the other tosh creates a universal vortex that sucks the entire thing into a black hole. 

woolworths balaclava, texas milk bar, killed by death

For no special reason I decided today that I really wanted to get some Eskal dill pickles. Laura alerted me to a Jewish food in Australia site with Melbourne details and I could see a delightful day exploring these places but dithered until 1ish and instead jfgi'd the brand (which Woolworths everywhere used to stock but no longer do) to discover that Woolworths Balaclava had them and that seemed good enough for me. What I didn't entirely appreciate, or what perhaps wasn't explained on the Woolworths website, is that they only had them in 3kg cans. Well look having spent an hour getting there, it seemed silly not to get some. They're very good pickles, probably my favourite type. 

Out in Carlisle street (the 'street where I was born', or at least, my first address, although more at the St Kilda end than the Balaclava part) I saw this sign and I wondered about it. I have yet to find any information about the Texas Milk Bar but I want to put it on the list of things to find out more about. I think this is 294 Carlisle St but the internet is giving me conflicting information so possibly I just have no idea what I am talking about. The building itself is I guess nondescript and past newspaper mentions of 294 Carlisle St have been pretty mundane - a piano for sale, etc. 

This is the most interesting one. What I wouldn't give to go back in a time machine and look in an op shop from 1956!!! This mention is from the Australian Jewish News 5 September 1956:

After leaving Balaclava I went to Greville Records and bought a bit of stuff. This record, which I occasionally notice, intrigues me yet again, not because I'm dying to hear/own it but because I am pretty sure that heading - title - whatever you want to call it, is by me, from a comic strip I did probably thirty years ago, but which I can't necessarily completely remember. I took a photograph of it and put it here in case I come across something to compare it with. 

The 'Ds' look like mine. I think I did once draw a comic with that resoundingly stupid name, too, but I can't 100% say for sure. I'm not claiming to have drawn the image. Anyway, you can't say it's not interesting but it's probably only interesting to me. 

facebook one of the many banes of everyone's lives

I remember the first time I heard of fb (I may have mentioned it here). It was when I was part of the Sarsaparilla cblogllective (link to its briefly lived postscript, the actual blog has disappeared in the mists of time I think) and there hadn't been much activity and then someone said, 'we'll be back soon we're all just playing with facebook'. I didn't know what it was, but I found out soon enough, and had one of those slight awarenesses that leaping in was going to change my life, but I couldn't figure out how - the way people probably felt when they got a phone in 1905.

This morning on fb I noticed I had a friend in my Contacts down the right hand side who I had never heard of before. I clicked on them and realised I had last (and first?) had contact with them ten years ago, when we were trying to arrange something about a cross-faculty talk to students. This person, whoever they may be (someone in academe) has been my fb friend ever since, and I don't remember that exchange or anything else about them. 

Funnily, this observation had come just after I thought about how it would be great if there was an app that, for instance, every morning showed you two fb friends and said you had to jettison one of them. Presumably the two would be randomly generated, so sometimes you'd keep both of them but roll the dice again until you'd got rid of one. Every day. 

I have tended to de-friend friends who have died (even people I actually know), but otherwise I have very rarely snipped people out and of course you accumulate them for all kinds of stupid reasons. I think this is a great app idea, I have a lot of them actually, but I have no capacity to make them work. 

pintandwefall

I'm listening to the Pintandewefall album I got in the mail the other day, as per earlier post. This is exactly the kind of band I enjoy, in almost all ways (ok, so sometimes the videos go a teensy bit goth, that's all I'm bothered about, but I can change). When I first came across them (and I don't remember how I did, though they did release this album on Svart which is a label I've bought a few things from - except - it releases a lot of dodgy grindcore or whatever it's called, I don't even know what it's called, I'm sure it's totally superior in the genre but it's not a genre I like or understand, it also puts out a lot of terrific punk and prog reissues, I mean, it's a superior label) I somehow had the weird idea that they were a band of men with a somewhat pixieish 'girl' (woman) singer, and there was something about that vibe that bothered me, but all I can say about that strange impression is that I must just not have been paying attention at all, because they are actually a band of all women. I gather they all write songs and all sing (?) and they have absurd stage names (see above) and they all play in other bands as well and solo projects. I wonder if they also have day jobs. I can see this being the beginning of something big. I mean it could be. They just put out another album in February, I've already ordered it, I have a feeling I'm going to collect the set. 

All their albums have the word 'baby' in the title. I love the cover of this one which is called Wow! What Was That, Baby? 

This is the new album:

What can I say, I'm a finnophile. 

Don't worry, I won't play their records when you come over (much).

homicide, 'my brother must rest'

Just when I was thinking I was getting less interested in Homicide, this fabulous episode from October 1966 comes along and I get the bug again. This one has a lot of great guests, a lot of weird twists and quirks, and good locations too. Love it. Colin is trying to get sweet with his secretary (? office manager?) Leslie, to the degree that he goes to her house to listen to her records (when he compliments her on her taste in classical music, she doesn't straight up say well you don't have to pay copyright on those kinds of records, although let's be fair that's what everyone's thinking). (He doesn't compliment on her taste in art). Anyway, this is a fun / creepy element of the whole. Yes, Leslie is played by Elizabeth Harris. 

Helmi was freaked out by Colin's behaviour and I told her as far as I was concerned there was a lot more to this than meets the eye. In fact, the show kicks off with Colin's stepson Timothy being reckless on the balcony of their high-ish apartment building, and Colin apparently kind of hoping that if he did nothing Timothy would fall to his death. Colin!!!

I said to Helmi really I think Homicide is really hitting its stride here, it was already a massive TV hit. We went and looked at what it was up against when it first screened, I mean looking at this stuff I think the other stations are really getting out of its way. There was nothing like it. You can almost imagine IMT not wanting to go up against it on a Thursday night but just hoping that people will be glued enough to their TVs they'll switch over to another golden local program. And 7 and 2 both have cop shows after it, as well. This is the schedule for 11 October 1966, by the way, from the Age TV and Radio Guide for 6 October 1966, p. 10.

Leonard Teale is really getting on top of his role in the show too, making a lot of fun in ways that look improvised, a little geeky/awkward but I bet would have a lot of value to viewers in 1966. Not that either of these pictures really convey the fun of it. 

Elizabeth Harris doesn't get enough screen time. But there are a number of secret magic ingredients in this ep. One is the marvellous Patsy King as Joan Preston, suspected of killing her husband ten years previously in the UK. Timothy is her first husband's son, not hers (biologically) , and Colin is her second husband. I am pretty sure Timothy says nothing at all during his time on screen. 

Here are the police going to visit Joan to tell her that her first husband's body has been found. By the way - spoiler - I am not going to tell you the story in full, you should check it out, it's cool. 

The flats where Joan, Colin and Timothy live. 

So the other magic element of this is... yes... Hilda Scurr! Hilda is Sarah, Joan's first husband's sister, who has come from the UK to see justice done now his body has been found. 

I didn't want to have to tell you this but Timothy fell off the roof. This is one of the weirdest bits, where Colin - who's already informed the police that he's put grease on the ledge after Timothy fell from it, to make Joan feel better about his death (yeah, I know) - now tries ardently to get her to go up on the roof and look at the grease. She really doesn't want to go. 

The police have found out that Colin is actually someone else, I won't bore or excite you with the details. Colin is played by Rhoderick Walker, and he (Colin) is quite the bounder, a really great nasty piece of work. Here are the police driving in St Kilda, and coming to the block of flats again. 

So um Colin tries to push Joan off the roof and instead he gets kind of thrown off himself somehow, and he is not in great shape...

But he's not quite unalived enough that he can't be taken to hospital where the detectives can visit him and clear up all the details of what he did, killed Joan's first husband, then came to Australia and married her, etc. He also tried to get Leslie to love him but that clearly wasn't going to pan out.  

Looks like despite the near-death he still had time to eat some hospital jam but life (his) was too short to wipe his face afterwards. Anyway, presumably he dies. 

Joan is visited by Sarah who says she is sorry for everything. 

I don't want to detract from Patsy King, Hilda Scurr and Elizabeth Harris but Rhoderick Walker deserves a special mention for having such an extraordinary life someone should write a book about him. Or two books?! He was a British actor (1920-2010) who was a Broadway star in the 1940s, then drove - drove - across Eurasia 'to' Australia (I'm not sure how he did the Indian Ocean bit) in the late 1950s to visit his mother and sister in Perth (!!!) then ended up staying in Australia the rest of his life (till 2010) because he fell in love with Max Meldrum the actor. I mean, they were a couple. Although I'm fairly willing to bet that they were not, as IMDB would have it, married. Talk about rewriting history, ffs.

end of an ear

 

...and you know, just when you think your covid has basically left you, then you start to feel its influence on you again, so I shouldn't be exposing myself to frankly brutal things like this record, which is not a sweet record but a bit of a bludgeoning one. Robert Wyatt was sacked from Soft Machine I think because they didn't like his lyrics/vocals, which were of course almost always the best thing, and because they wanted to turn shit and he was getting in the way. But it seems he took it fairly hard and decided to make a record without lyrics, and a minimum of vocals. I don't get it. What I also don't get is I had very fond memories of this record but listening to it now it doesn't sound the way I remember it at all. 

The Pintandwefall album however is a different kettle of fish, a bit like the Monks and Heart and gosh, I don't know who else, I need to think about it. 

In between I listened to another record that came today, Manfred Krug's Greens which is a bit of a disappointment because so much of it is in English, but also has a lot to recommend it in terms of being funny and upbeat. He does covers of great songs like Gilbert O'Sullivan's 'Alone Again Naturally'. But I will stop writing these bland non-reviews of records now, I think Nancy's attitude to records is the healthiest.

I was thinking today how annoying it was that there aren't fanzines anymore. If I had an extra day in the week I'd make a little fanzine on a regular basis. But I don't.