then i realised...

...that in fact my blog is actually pretty dull. It's mainly just about episodes of Homicide! Which is... I mean... which is just an old tv show, about as old as me, and actually about as dull! So it's either that, or Pintandwefall records! Why didn't anyone tell me?!

But then, I'd tell you other things from my life but they're either about meetings with students - which are interesting, at least to me and I hope also to them, but naturally confidential. Things like that. Trying to negotiate university online systems. Which is not necessarily confidential but you want to hear about it just as much as I want to try to do it. 

Anyway I shouldn't even be writing this now. I have a ton of things I need to get done in the next few days, inc. a conference presentation for next Monday. 

Here are four pictures from my bus ride to work this morning (yes, I take the bus sometimes. I know it's ridiculous but I get-so-bored-by-walking-the-same-route). 

I love this building, it's 80s Housing Commission. 

I love this one too, for different reasons. It's on the opposite side of the road. 

This is inside the bus. There were few people on it. 

Close to where the rail station will be eventually I gather. 

homicide 'freakout'

This is an episode of Homicide about LSD and hippies, and it's much less interesting than you might imagine. I can certainly see how shows like this would make young people want to take hallucinogens. 

It's been a long time (in my viewing of these from the beginning) since an episode of Homicide began with John Feagan directly addressing the viewer. I seem to recall long ago wondering whether this was meant to be Inspector Connolly addressing us or the actor John Feagan but in this case he actually refers to 'this episode of Homicide'.

This is Cathy, having a freak out. She is about to run out into the street and get killed. And below is Suzanne Cameron (Julianna Allan) going through a heavy trip in which she imagines herself in relation to various men, firstly her drug dealer, then her father, then her fiancee Ian.  

This is some kind of club where something happens but it's hard to know what. The guy at the table goes into a back room where he is reported to be vomiting and singing at the same time. So, you know, LSD is really different from alcohol. 

The storyline here is a mess, the most interesting elements of it being the attempts to replicate what it feels like to take LSD only the emphasis is more on Suzanne's psychological state of mind than anything else, and it's entirely unclear whether she takes drugs because she comes from a broken home or whether taking drugs just amplifies problems that would otherwise be present, but less emphatic. On the whole, the most interesting thing about the whole episode is Mack's extreme disgust at drug takers and drugs generally. He needs to focus. 

would it be a waste of life?

20-y.o. Jacki Weaver in Season 4 Episode 30 of Homicide, in which she has a small but important role that's right she gets murdered, thankfully for my nerves offscreen, early in the piece. The man coming through the door is George Mallaby but that's not important right now.

I really feel like there is a case to be made for a full episode-by-episode guide to Homicide. It would have to be a few volumes. Possibly you could fit an episode to a page (A4) if you had some extra material like, for instance, actor biographies elsewhere in the book(s). (I would also put spoilers at the back, with a ref eg 'see spoilers page 119'). The main things I'd require in a Homicide guide would be as much detail as possible on where things were filmed, any of the businesses seen or mentioned in the shows; simple things like first date aired, etc; information on for instance elements of the show to watch out for which serve as commentary on current events (for instance, casual discussion of decimalisation or one line I noticed early in the series where someone cracks a joke about a bridge falling down). So, it would be a historically relevant guide to a tv show to help people use the show itself as a source for cultural (eg theatre, film etc) history and the history of Melbourne. 

I would also have a simple 'does this episode pass the Bechdel test?' box for each episode. 9.9 times out of 10 the answer would of course be no. 

It could be a branded series. I'm immediately thinking of a cross-bred play on 'OK Boomer' and Austen Tayshus' joke 'Boomer rang'. All I would need was a logo that made an Ericofon look like a boomerang and no-one would need to ask what the 'rang' bit has to do with anything. 

The question is whether at 57 I really want to spend a lot of time on this kind of thing. But I do plan to live at least another 40 years so why not. 

Update 27/6: I decided life was too short to pursue this idea. 

pere ubu terminal tower and ninni forever band uusi yhtye

 

So I was crowing a few weeks ago about how I didn't buy a copy of Modern Dance when it was offered to me by the universe but what I didn't mention was that, spare prick that I am, I did then go and buy a copy of Terminal Tower which is the 1985 compilation of most of their non-LP material up to that point. I bought this when it came out but somehow lost track of that copy. It's a pretty great album, not least because it covers the gamut of the first iteration's trajectory from rock outliers to anything goes experimentalists (and a stab at something like pop, the first of their real 'well, this could be an insane novelty hit record like Renee and Renato or something' records). 

I'm listening to it now and realise that only one of my speakers is working, so I'm getting an interesting remix of the overall and hearing things I never realised were there before, percussion/guitar overdub bits that were obviously always part of my experience of these recordings but they're now a lot more prominent and while I am not thrilled by the prospect of fixing the speaker shizzle I'm finding it an experience right now.

My other great listen during the week has been Ninni Forever Band, specifically their album Uusi Yhtye which has some absolute standout tracks on it (the big hits are 'Söin Auringon' and 'Tää Ääni'). Ninni is Ninni Luhtasaari who is also known as Dumb Pint in, yes, sorry, Pintandwefall but here the songs are in Finnish. I am very up for that. One of the songs is called 'Foliopallo' which means 'foil ball' which is hard to resist. I know you're not interested but whatever, I'm not being paid by the word here. 

'Uusi Yhtye' means 'new band' but they had been a band for ten years by the time this came out, so lol. I see their first album is available from a Finnish vendor who can also supply me with all the Bogart Co. records I could want. It's probably time for me to put the computer away for now.

beverley kirk as annette powell in homicide

I don't know much about Beverley Kirk (neither does IMDB, who uses for instance a picture of someone else to illustrate her meagre entry). She has a few minor newspaper mentions in the 1960s that indicates merely that she was an actress who seemed to get some decent theatre and radio drama roles in the 1960s and that was roughly it (nothing after 1968 that I can see). I think she was on Homicide a few times before this and a few times after. But I really feel like this role - of Annette the two-up gangster's moll in 'One-Eyed Luck' - was written for her. And she plays it to the hilt, thanks Beverley. 

Annette has a relationship with the big swinging dick in the two-up scene, Al, but Johnny has his eye on her, and tries to impress her by showing her the place he is going to have his two-up joint. It does impress her actually and she agrees to be a part of it. 

This is where Al crashes the scene and breaks it up. Yes. Al is played by Roger Climpson of all people. Of all people. 

This is the scene where Al tells Annette he is going to lie down, and that she will be compelled to join him. She doesn't though because Johnny crashes into the place and shoots Al many, many times. Spoiler sorry. You should have watched it in 1967. 

This is the scene where Mack hands Annette the letter Johnny wrote her from prison before he killed himself. 

And she admits to Mack that it's not that she doesn't have a family but that she has one in Stawell and she left because she didn't get on with her dad. Mack suggests she go back to Stawell and have another go. 

 Good ep. 

Competing opinion from the SMH 1 May 1967 p. 13:

Curiously there is no listing for this episode in The Age but presumably it was screened in Melbourne a little earlier in 1967. 

This was in the Sunday Sun-Herald 28 August 1966 p. 123. 

This was the last mention I could find of her in the newspapers, broadcast 19 March 1968. Either she changed her name or just gave up on acting altogether. (Age Green Guide, 16 May 1968 p. 8.)

end of the age

Ten years ago: It has just been announced that as of 2013 The Age will become a tabloid, and obviously the whole newspaper is running down into nothing. It is so weird when things that have existed for a century before me, and then through my own half-century, come crashing down. Not that I can think of too many other examples of this. Still. It's crap! Well, I'll be interested if I'm still around in 2022 to see if the term  'newspaper' still means anything at all.
I bitched about The Age constantly, of course, but that doesn't mean I didn't want it to still be around. I'm a subscriber, have been for ages. Though I have to say, Mia reads it daily and I don't.

niamh ten years ago

(17/6/2012) This evening we went to Graham and Tanya's for a small event re: the departure of Philippa to NY for a short time (about 5 weeks, I think). Present were Lina Matt and Sam (who crawls, is not verbal, gets very excited about trying to catch dogs), Tamsin, Alice and Olivia (Alice is about to go overseas), Philippa and Keiran, Graham, Tanya, me, Mia, Shannon, Nicola C., and Niamh. Niamh was incredibly verbal and was bouncing around everyone telling them nonsense facts primarily based on David Attenborough DVDs she had watched (she said, 'I've got all the David Attenborough DVDs in the black boxes') Shannon says she reads everything she can get her hands on, including books without pictures. She said emeralds had 25 million year old oxygen in them, which for all I know is true. Philippa asked her if she knew who Barack Obama was and she said, 'No, but I know who Picasso is'.

on homicide walls

I have been passively regarding a few episodes of Homicide from early '67 but I don't want to bore you with the details, they're frankly not the most incredibly impressive or scintillating episodes either in terms of storylines or locations (though the episode called 'Keeper of Lions' has a lot of interesting stuff from Royal Park and the Zoo). I am pretty intrigued, as I think I've mentioned earlier, by the interior decoration in Homicide. The image below is from the episode I just mentioned; it's the kitchen of a woman who we only see in one scene (I think the character is Nora Padgett, played by Margaret Cruickshank, the mother of Cruel Sea/Widdershins member James Cruickshank nee James Watson) and know pretty much nothing about. 

The three images below are from an episode of a few weeks before, 'A Long Shadow'. This is the lounge room of a no-hoper mother, I wonder if the photographs on the wall are film stars or just 'ooh, I like the look of him'. 

(Donald Barker as Pat Rainsford)

(June Berry played by Amber Mae Cecil). But what on earth is the picture on the left? A chaise longue or something?! Did June Berry think 'Ooh, I like the look of that.'

I love thinking how these scenes are surely all the same wall with a few different props in front, or possibly shot in a corridor or something... 

coburg trash and treasure

Wow, ct&t was at its lowest ever this morning. What happened to all the stuff that people were supposedly rinsing out of their lives during the pandemic? Has it all resettled in other crevices? There were about half as many stalls as usual when I was there this morning and what was on display was pretty uniformly horrible. The only thing that I found mildly interesting was this artefact, which was more strange than anything:

I'd just never seen it before. But as I stood around with it in my hand briefly thinking maybe this is an item of interest, looking at the vendor retrieve a Val Doonican album that a potential customer's trolley wheel had dragged away from its propping place to be under another potential customer's shoe, I thought, fuck this... even if it is rare or unusual I don't want it in my house. So I put it back. I looked it up on discogs and no, it's not even slightly rare or unusual, except in my experience. 

I did some other shopping then went to Savers Preston which was also a great disappointment. A couple of good shirts with stains that just looked insurmountable. A keyboard behind the 'jewellery' counter which I waited to have a look at but after counting to 100 (a common way to restore equilibrium while figuring out how long I should reasonably wait) nobody came to show it to me so screw that, too. 

Perhaps the poor showing (of vendors) at CT&T is down to the weather; the papers are talking about a 'cold tongue' from Antarctica, and it was raining lightly this morning at various times. I can never tell whether a long weekend means more people looking for mindless leisure such as is offered by CT&T, or less. But I suppose to be honest when it comes down to it I mainly enjoy looking at stuff and I was not unhappy that I didn't have a bunch of crap in my hands when I got back home. 

not remembering things

Who knows what I do and don't remember. I was sitting here and remembered that I had done an emergency fill on RRR on Monday for the show Local and/or General. I put a lot of work into that - I mean as much as one could between agreeing to do it at around 5pm and actually doing it at 8 - and made it work I think. Then by the next day I had completely forgotten about it, at least, had anyone reminded me I would have had no problem recalling it, I just put it out of my mind entirely and did not reflect on it. I remember that doing the program, my voice was quite husky and last night I think Laura mentioned this, and I agreed because I recalled having slight trouble with it, but I didn't go to the place, in my memory, where this happened. This morning in a meeting I was talking to a colleague who had recently had covid whose voice was a bit croaky and recounted my own recent issues with same, but couldn't remember when it had happened, but didn't strain myself too much over trying to recall the details. It is only now, sitting on the couch two days after the original voice-losing program, that I am putting it all together and also, recalling that I put a lot into that program, and then completely forgot about it almost immediately. Isn't that odd. 

I have an appointment tomorrow morning that I had completely forgotten for some days until I was reading a New Yorker article in which someone with the same name as the person I had the appointment with was mentioned, and with a start I suddenly had to try piecing together the details of when that appointment was. It's at 11:30 tomorrow. So I don't think I'll forget that but who really knows.

I have a long list of things to do this week. Of course not all of them are getting done but some are perilously close, and others are absolutely completed. That feels good, to strike stuff off the list. The most satisfying was giving both the cats flea treatment. Nancy absolutely despises it (whether it actually causes a physical sensation to have that apparently quite toxic fluid on her skin I am not sure. She might just hate the noise of it. I don't know) but Helmi, who up until now has been completely agnostic about it, has suddenly also come to fear and hate being treated for fleas and worms. 

This is what I played on Monday night. 'A' stands for 'Australian' and 'L' for local. 

Blue Divers - Kitchen Light On (A)

Lucy Roleff and Lehmann B. Smith - Offering/ Not for Long (A/L)

Mess Esque - Sweet Spot (A/L)

Julia Jacklin - Lydia Wears as Cross (A/L)

Punko - Painted by the Moon (A)

Blueprints - Spring Prep (A/L)

Eggy - FIll in the Blanks (A/L)

Diana Ross feat. Tame Impala - Turn up the Sunshine (A)

Ron Peno and the Superstitions - Just a Little (A/L)

The Sports - Reckless (A/L)

Doroth - Take it Easier (A/L)

Shrapnel - Son of Choice / Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory (A)

Modal Melodies - Disco Hotel (A/L)

Frollen Music LIbrary - Heart of a Crab (A/L)

Ancient Air - Always Begun Again (A/L)

Tenements - Kitchen Sink (A/L)

The Stroppies - Caveats (A/L)

Summer Flake - You're a Star (A/L)

Eggy - Magic 8 Ball (A/L)

Some things I saw today:

barry and charlie, a decade ago

4 June 2012, it was a cold rainy morning and I went out to see Charlie and Barry. Barry often can't take a night of Charlie, so he sleeps in the beanbag up on the studio deck. I wanted to take them for a walk, as Mia and I would both be out all day. So I went up to see him and Charlie followed. He was fast asleep. Charlie found him fascinating, and sniffed him comprehensively, including his eyes. It was very weird seeing him stare straight into her nose, mm away from his open eye, while she breathed it in. 

I imagine Charlie is unlikely to be with us in ten years, but Barry hopefully still will be. He is a golden boy. 

sickness

Dannii Minogue once told me that the Young Talent Team were such professionals they always got colds at the end of the ratings season. Teaching ended last week; I got a cold this week. At least it isn't the flu though my core self should appreciate that just because teaching is over that doesn't mean that I get to stop working. Anyway, I am on a go-slow and I get to reflect on how lucky I am in general terms with the little things like cats who crave my company and a nice view (above) and a wonderful girlfriend who will bring me excellent soup. I can't really complain. This house is a complete mess, which is obviously my fault, I am on a list for a cleaner from the ASRC to perhaps manage the overall problem in the long term, I mean I'm not just going to keep letting detritus pile up until they finally consolidate their listings and offer me someone lol. The only thing I did this week that felt anything like progress was finish a full reading of a really good PhD thesis that the candidate wanted to submit asap and as far as I know, has, and I partially reorganised my spare bathroom (yes, I have two bathrooms, it's a bit of a mystery) into what looks if you half squint like a music room though I am not entirely sure how that could work practically speaking. At least it's not just a pile of boxes. Then I can turn the spare room into an office and 'library' and everything will start to fall into place in this excellent flat which I love, but which needs work still, to make it mine properly. OK today is 'marking masters theses day' a kind of gruelling but ultimately rewarding twice-yearly enterprise which hopefully won't make me sicker. 

congratulations on adding to your collection

...that's what discogs says when you buy some record or other on discogs. I hate it. I don't think of myself as having a 'collection'. But I am also aware of how I have developed, bizarrely really, a big fat record 'collection' again in the last few years, almost despite myself. When I helped to make the Broadway album in, um, 2016 or thereabouts, or was it earlier, I funded the recording primarily from selling my albums, getting a few hundred dollars at a time. I don't even remember what they were. It wasn't indiscriminate selling, and there are some I would never part with, but essentially I was like 'I don't care about albums that much, and I'm downsizing anyway - what difference does it make'. Somewhere along the way I've started building it all back up again, but very different. There's a lot more non-English speaking stuff in there, which builds on a few bits and pieces I've long treasured like Skaldowie, with amazing things like Barbara, and all those incredible Awesome Tapes from Africa LPs. Oddly enough while I love a lot of records from Finland they are often in English eg Tasavallan Presidentti and did I ever mention I kind of like this group called Pintandwefall? But I am also getting into Litku Klemetti, her songs are in Finnish, remind me to tell you about her sometime. 

Anyway this evening I saw this advertised and I was like, hmm. I don't have a copy of The Modern Dance  and this one is white lol. I could easily have nabbed it 'for my collection'. But I kind of like being a massive PU fan but not owning the album everybody who doesn't know anything thinks is their best. I do have two copies of Art of Walking though, you know, the one that was supposedly a mispress of an earlier iteration, and the other one. I'm the only person who likes that album. It is the greatest though. It fucks, as young people say. 

So I am in a way interested in what the artefacts you do and don't accumulate say about you. Not you. Well, maybe you. I also don't have any records by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Genesis, The Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd, Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, AC/DC or Michael Jackson. Now you won't want to come round when I ask you over to listen to records will you! You know it'll end up being a procession of Pintandwefall sides mixed with the Bee Gees. Ugly. 

rabbit rabbit

 

june 1952 flook

 

Was there really a time (viz. the 20 June strip) when people would just show up at a holiday locale and expect to book in to a hotel? Wouldn't that mean instances where people could not be accommodated, what would they do? Go home? Spend the night at the train station and hope to book in somewhere the next day? Go to another holiday place? The strip seems to suggest that finding a great location was part of the excitement?! 

Note in the 23/6 strip the locale has been shifted, by unseen hand via a balloon amendment in the final frame, to 'America'. (btw I have no skin in this game, whatever that revolting-sounding phrase is actually supposed to imply, but what I mean is I don't care if Flook is set in the UK or the US or whatever, I just find it mildly interesting when things are changed for a US market but seriously, you can't expect every strip to have a reminder at the top, 'this is set in England', it would instantly overcomplicate a very simple thing). 

I wasn't entirely sure what to do about the strip annotated '6-31' because there was no 31 June in 1952 just as there isn't going to be one in 2022. But I figured... whatever.