well it's substantially into 2006 now and I continue to find myself interesting

I watched the Long Way to the Top Live spectactular which was on tv last night. I taped it for no special reason, and watched it too, also for no special reason. My favourite bits were Tamam Shud, Coloured Balls and Spectrum. These three really didn't fit the whole extravaganza very well which was perhaps why I liked them the best. We stopped getting shots of the crowd enjoying themselves when they were on (though Mike Rudd did get the crowd to sing a verse of 'I'll be gone'). I noted that a lot of the bands probably weren't really the bands at all and I would be interested to discover how it was decided what made something credible. How many Twilights were in the Twilights? How many Axioms were in Axiom? Presumably Don Mudie wasn't in 'em or something would have been made of it; on the other hand Glenn Wheatley was in the Masters Apprentices (wa-hey!) but nothing much was made of that. Of the two songs Axiom did, one was a Brian Cadd solo hit ('Ginger Man'). Of the one song Chain did, one song was a Matt Taylor solo hit. Well, there is a distinct possibility that out of 20 million Australians I am the only one who could give a loose root about these distinctions.

Then I started watching (this blog should be called What I Watched on the TV, either as a monitor for pre-recorded media, or direct from broadcast, Today) the late 90s rock film Dead Set but then I remembered there was that documentary on Andy Warhol so I thought... Mia might want to watch that (she's recording vocals in the music room at the moment - see, there's someone who actually does things, instead of just passively soaking up the fruits of western culture) so I am videorecording it. You know, Andy Warhol is one of those one million people who in one sense I feel I already know 50 times more about than I ever needed to, and I don't particularly love his work, but the split second of the program that I saw, which featured some ducklings swimming in a little patch of dirty water inside a pedal boat in a lake, seemed interesting. I mean if there were any more images like that in there I would feel it was an effective enough investment of time and electricity.

Anyway, I'm being too hard on myself because a lot of the time when I'm watching television I'm doing something else as well like drawing or typing. These last few days I have done three pages of the second instalment of my graphic novel, and they look great, especially one heading where I drew the vine from the front window of Heathcote behind some letters, and blacked in the rest of it, and I'm so pleased with the result I have to look at it every time I go past it on the table. Actually when I drove up to Gladstone Park to return a DVD today I was listening to the radio (Mia fixed the radio in the car, what a gem) and they were talking about people who do more than one thing at once to give themselves the false impression that they were busy, but getting stuff done. I agree I might fit that description but I would also have to say - is this acculturated? - that I could literally not imagine listening to the radio and not doing something else. And as I said, I tend not to really watch television without doing something else as well - unless it's got subtitles or a light plane with James Reyne in it which is about to explode.

I have five cassettes on the shelf to my right. They are: ABC's The Lexicon of Love which I believe I have blogged about sufficiently already; Men at Work's Business as Usual which I have never listened to but like to always have the option; Gilbert O'Sullivan's Southpaw, which I really should listen to sometime because I've always enjoyed G O'S. It features no hits (that I'm aware of) but it has a song called 'The Best Fun I Ever Had' which I am very keen to hear; that's the kind of song title that really thrills me. I imagine that's why I was keen on the Farmers Boys, they always had intriguing titles like 'Probably the Best Investment I Ever Made' (that might not actually be the correct title, I'll get my butler to fix it later). The other two tapes are Max Q's album Max Q and Janet Jackson's Control. I am not entirely sure why I have the Max Q album on cassette as I already have it on vinyl and as I said to someone only a couple of weeks ago (hell, why do I have these conversations!?!) I'd rather hear Orchestra of Skin and Bone anyday. I wonder where my copy of that LP got to, because I don't seem to have that anymore. And Janet Jackson is just a personal favourite of mine. I have that really great album of hers with 'Black Cat' on it, you know, 1812 Overture (I know that's not what it's called, but my butler can fix that when he does the Farmer's Boys thing) and I have her greatest hits, with that song about running away to a desert island that I always associate with my employment stacking shelves in the science library at the University of Sydney, because I think it was a hit then and I used to listen to Martin Molloy (why no 'and'?) on whatever gross commercial radio station they used to be on. During the fulfilment of that employ I also became very familiar with Neil Young's superb Everybody Knows This is Nowhere which I purchased on cassette at a garage sale around that time and listened to constantly. I was going out with Felicity at that time and she did not know where to place herself in regard to me owning a Neil Young tape. It was perplexing in the extreme for her, rather like I think as if she found that I had a suitcase full of magazines about hot rods or some other private interest that she didn't have a handle on. Why exactly my possession of a Neil Young cassette had this effect on her I frankly don't know, but I do know that she thought it very odd. She knew nothing at all about Neil Young, and for all I know she had never even heard of him before. It was one of those strange contretempses (I know, I know, that's not the plural of contretemps and I know, contretemps is probably not the right word, but luckily for me I've got the old butler who can just clean that stuff up anytime I say) that had no explanation then anymore than it does now, 12 years later. I still think Tony Martin is really funny and I thought Bad Eggs was a great film, I seem to fly in the face of a lot of hotly-held opinion there although I know Mia agrees with me.

I have booked myself to go to Wellington in mid-February for a conference. It's so funny how not only have I asked all the people I know who have NZ connections what they know about Wellington, and got no real information, but I have also forgotten that I've asked them, and asked them again. I am a total pain in the arse like that. Wellington this, Wellington that. The only thing I know about Wellington is it's named after a dance.

action packed

Last night nye and we were going to do some sociable things during the day but it was frankly too hot to leave the house, as wretched as that now sounds. Instead we stayed in and watched Return to Eden on DVD. The rough story behind this epic has become part of Australian pop culture lore but I am not sure if I ever watched it when it was on TV. The best bits were, of course, James Reyne and his best line - though only in context of so many others and you have to watch about 3 1/2 hours of the show to realise this is hilarious, is 'Eden? I'd rather not'. Soon after that there is a very special moment when Wendy Hughes' character, Jilly, gets bad news on the telephone but we only hear her hysterical drunken upper class voice obviously ditheringly unsure of what it's all about yelling down the phone. That's the other best 'line' but it's not really a line just great delivery.

When we did finally get out of the house it was around 8 and not quite dark yet but still very hot. Trains ran all night, which was excellent. We got to the Old Bar at about I don't know when. New Season played - a one-off reformation apparently (or two off? I think they played at a party a short while back) and they were splendid. And Panel of Judges played last just after 12 and were their usual excellent selves. There was a stage invasion for Panel and Shane even did some impromptu, though uninvited (perhaps even unwelcome) wordless vocal contributions through Alison's mike.

The pictures time's arrow-style are Panel before and after stage invasion and Southern Cross station at around 7 am with everyone looking very bleary and hideous and the sun coming up, though most of those things are only implied in the picture. And stated overtly in this explanatory text.

My brother is about to become a father within hours apparently, he and Nicola are at the hospital.

warmish

Well, the papers this morning say it will be the hottest new year’s eve since records were first kept, but the temperature of 42+ has been revised a little, down to just high 30s. I still feel I should stay in the same spot and not do too much unnecessary moving around. Nevertheless we are going to go to the Old Bar tonight and see Panel and it might be an OK night. I dunno.

We spent the last couple of days at Heathcote I was writing a journal article and Mia was painting and Millie and Charlie just lay around indoors. Charlie was too freaked out by all the smells on the ground (she hasn’t been to the country before) to piss on it. How heritage-aware is that. Ultimately she could bear it no longer and found a small bush only about twice her height to get on top of and piss. While we were there she growled a lot too though, including when she saw a couple of kangaroos – a small and a person-height one – in the shelter of some trees just inside the boundary of the Heathcote property. This was yesterday. I have nightmare memories still of Millie and Silver racing off to catch kangaroos a few years ago so these dogs (Millie is the same dog of course) weren’t off their leads at all while we were at Heatchote. My father’s whippets have caught up to kangaroos a couple of times and got big gashes in their sides for their trouble.

We had two days without newspapers or television, it was great. When we got back last night we read the newspapers and watched two movies on DVD one was Rock School which was pretty good but I felt that the main guy’s motivation was difficult to divine. True, he had a big success at the Zappanale, but does this mean his methods were always correct? And how weird was it that in 2003 (when the film was made) he seemed to be equating ‘rock’ with ‘rock from 1966-1972’ and basically teaching the kids all the stuff. I mean the guy was probably younger than me, anyway, so it was obviously a retro interest in any case… but… you know. All that Zappa, Hendrix, Black Sabbath stuff. I am not saying that’s not rock, but it’s a very small part of the canon.

The other film we watched was 28 Days Later which is the one where the entire population of Britain is infected by a virus called rage (if I was a crapped out newspaper columnist I’d make some hilarious comment here about how they already are-ha-ha-ha) except for a few scant types who have to escape all the others. Very Day of the Triffids in its execution (especially the explanation as to how the main guy escapes the initial outbreak) but actually pretty effective at least until the second half when they end up in an army barracks and surprisingly for all the soldiers are if not as bad as the ‘infected’ people they are definitely a different kind of threat. The reason I say this is not effective is that it seems to set the story on too limited a course – a lot of British films, if I may say so, end up doing this – they start off on a broad sweep and end up plodding in the nitty gritty. Of course I can’t think of any examples, so maybe I’m wrong. However generally speaking I thought it was a pretty good film. Now I am getting too hot to type (I already wrote ‘a pretty god film’ then ‘a pretty goof film’) and might have to go and get under the house for a while.

christmas eve pink stainless tail

Mia and I went to see Pink Stainless Tail play at Pony on xmas eve. It was a pretty great show really even though there were bass string/kick pedal problems which I think pushed them to be more inspired players than usual (that sounds like damning with faint praise, I'm not saying they're not always inspired players, I'm just saying there was a particular edge to the whole proceedings which I think in part came from their frustration/difficulty). I think they are one of the best rock bands in Melbourne, and it's a shame that no-one really seems to like them much. They are as much to blame for this as anyone I suspect. Firstly, they send out oblique strange promo material before shows that possibly confuses people and secondly their actual presentation is as guarded as it is funny. But it doesn't matter in the end because I'm sure we all had more fun that night than most adults.

On Boxing Day we went to Gavin and Jane's for some kind of gathering I drank too much vodka and then a bottle of cider and something else, I forget what it was. Apparently was ridiculous trying to ride bicycle home much to Mia's irritation. Sick all day yesterday and clearly still feeling the effects - can't type properly, keep making errors every 2-3 words. I only get staggeringly drunk about once every 6 months, not surprisingly it sneaks up on me when it happens, I don't realise it's happened.

Charlie gave me the vodka for christmas. There's about 2/3 of the bottle left but I'll try to enjoy it responsibly... soon

missing link

I was in Missing Link today and bought the Lakes LP and the Architecture in Helsinki LP and one of the young men behind the counter said under his breath 'good taste'. And I said, 'did you say "good taste"?' and he said yes and I said 'you should say that to everyone who comes in here, just "good taste" under your breath, because I was amazed at how good it made me feel.' He said he could not in all conscience do such a thing because of some of the things people bought. I still think it would be a boon to sales. Though judging by the amount of studded youngsters apparently cashed up they possibly don't need more sales.

Later I got my haircut at Simon the barber's of Glenroy. Totally ten dollars and thoroughly recommended. Simon is a bit bald but that seems to make him care more about the hair of others. I'd have the complete shits with all the haired individuals I attended to.

nevertheless good old douglas fir eh

However I do enjoy getting Douglas Fir down from the top of the cupboard in the music room. He is a sound-sensitive talking Christmas tree who sings a couple of songs. One is 'Jingle Bells' and the other is one of his own invention which is particularly great because he garbles the bits he couldn't be bothered thinking up and just cuts to the chase, so it's something like 'Ba ba dada da, christmas joy, ba ba dada da Santa joy, ba ba dada da give me stuff, ba ba dada da not enough', in a kind of Pee Wee Herman voice. Love it. The downside of Douglas is he is sound-sensitive so he's likely to go off at any time, and so you often want to turn him off, but coming towards him to turn him off sets him off again, and you have to wait until he's got through another 'ba ba dada da'. You don't want to turn him off in the middle as his eyes and mouth are open and it might look like he's been shot or something. When he sings his eyes light up green which looks excellent particularly in the dark. Charlie was amazed the first couple of times but now she just regards DF like everything else, with weary disgust.

if i only had a heart

I suppose once upon a time someone who didn't care for christmas was a novelty. I the great writer cannot even say the slightest interesting thing on this subject. I can't be bothered. My brother is similar, only more so, but he made a practice of drawing attention to his tude on this. I just suffer in silence. Thinking everyone knows I'm not suffering. What am I supposed to do, act like I'm on ecstacy? I'm not a Christian but even if I was I think I would still hate the fuss. I just hate fuss.

OK, enough of that. I have thought some interesting things this week actually but they've all disintegrated into nothingness over time. Doesn't matter. I am, er, going to switch credit cards, and, um, it's quite warm today but I'm going to take the dogs for quite a long walk this evening.

Last night we went to Francesca's house for 'drinks' and I had ginger beer and some actual beer. Conversation did not move into radical territory. It's funny how aware I am of people talking about themselves, mainly I think because I am jealous of them - I wish I was talking about myself. You know how it is, I'm sure you're the same. I really wanted to get Ada a copy of Pee Wee's Big Adventure but it seems to have been eviscerated (to use the word of another in a co-authored paper submitted yesterday) from the canon.