big weekend

*

Friday night we went to the Victoria Hotel in the city to Kerryn's birthday drinks had a long talk with her boyfriend whose name I don't know how to spell, about the Laughing Clowns and Jemima Jemima and The Bites. When I got there Mia was like into this vodka lime and soda stuff and it was happy hour and isn't it amazing even at happy hour prices you buy the bottle twice over when you buy, well, six or seven drinks but it does seem amazing. And I did not play pool, and many at the table were doing themselves up to look like they had been injured, as they were going to a party. I was trying to get them to say where the party was so I could belittle the idea of a party somewhere, but obviously there was a pervading fear I might then attend, so no-one was willing to tell. Ultimately it slipped out but I've forgotten already. Then we went to the Public Office where our good friends F&N were holding a classy lesbian night. Every half hour or so the music would stop and someone would get up and do a little show. There was a woman with hoops, and one with tassles. Apparently previous nights had featured a woman who squeezes herself into a small perspex box but this didn't happen. I drank vodka, lime and soda and it was happy hour. Then we went home.

I am not usually one for drinking two nights in a row, in fact two months is pushing it for me, but this time I made the effort as we were heading to Whipplegong. It rained as we went and we listened to a pretty bad Lloyd Cole album that I had just purchased on tape at the Brotherhood Bizarre. Actually it might have been OK but how would we know. We could barely hear it.

Whipplegong was in full swing by the time we got there despite it pissing down everywhere. I would like to list highlights but (1) I know, from discussions with many at the event, that they will all be reading this so I feel selfconscious - that will have to go on my secret blog and (2) I was drinking red wine this time and it did something to my memory. I do remember there was one of those boy discussions about where every band on earth came from, it had a witty beginning (Stephen organises his records by country) but a tortuous unfolding. I know there was African-styled amateur music going on in the dance studio, and the soundtrack to Velvet Goldmine got a good going over, inc. 'Virginia Plain' particularly. I fell asleep to the unpleasant strains of a song about Mr. Richard Smoker. The next day Aladdin Sane was out, and getting a going over, what's going on? What is the Whipplemeter telling us about November 2005?

In the morning I was the first to get up, like the good soldier I am, then Carla, Randall and Rupert showed up and disappeared quickly to get some breakfast in town, then James appeared and... I think Toby, and we did some cleaning, particularly bottle removal. I tried to make some tea, well, I did make some tea, but it wasn't the best. Later Stephen gave me some coffee. Miranda and James made breakfast for the multitude with turkish bread, garlic, balsamic vinegar, avocado, tomato and the secret ingredient: their hands. It was great. I had three. Also Stephen got some stuff out like broccoli and put it on the barbecue too. It was radical. I had some. They all started convening in their music studio so we left. They were planning to cover some song called Shoopy Shoopy Shoo or something and I didn't want it in my head all day. Actually we left because we had been asked to drop in at Heathcote on the way back where Michael and Nicola were hanging out. We did. Alba was reasonably miserable because according to Michael she doesn't like the country. The area round H'cote is very green, I don't think we'd been there for over a year, and it had changed radically.

We got back and I slept fitfully on the couch, it was quite enjoyable. Later we went and got videos, none of them even worth talking about here.

*10 Dec 2023 update: I somehow came across this post - btw I recall NOTHING of the events outlined above, but well, it was 18 years ago. But it did make me think I wanted to find out something more about Jemima Jemima, who I recall seeing a few times and I know they made an album, which I may have owned, and may still. I went looking for it on discogs - nothing. I went looking for it in google images and this was all I got - a poster mentioning them as support for the Bird Blobs. So, I'm putting it here just to prove they did exist. It came from https://hatfulofhistory.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/who-made-radelaide-more-ephemera-of-a-music-scene-past/

fires gone out

Spent a long time last night trying to relight the pilot light on the hot water. Someone's coming out this morning to 'look at it'. They charge $20/15 mins and a call out fee on top of that. Couldn't have come at a worse time moneywise. I suppose we 'need' hot water.

walkin' from jacana station

'Station' sounds like a word you're leaving a 'g' off. Posher people should say stationg. Like Anglo-australian people from a monocultural age say restarong. (I suppose restrant sounds too much like restroom or, even worse, restraint.)

I had the pleasure of walking to Broady station this morning and just missing a train, but still getting to town on time anyway, I had to go to JB and meet my mother who was buying a dictaphone and for some reason thought she needed my advice which just meant I had a three way battle between her and helpful JB staff person Kelly who had questions of her own. I think it all ended up alright. This afternoon I walked back from Jacana station because I can't handle the traffic on Camp/Johnstone Roads, I'm that sensitive.

Oh maybe 'station' doesn't sound like a word you're leaving a 'g' off. I don't know anymore.

it 's just pissing down

I don't even know why theres a phrase like that actually, especially considering pissing down is something impressive and large scale, and a pissant is something tiny and pathetic - why isn't a pissant something enormous and powerful? 'Christ that's no ordinary ant...' Anyway it is pissing down, and I am working on the rewrite for the first year subject, and it's coming along alright, except I have to download a few chapters other people have written and this computer is very slow. I am listening to Mark Eitzel's album Candy Ass. That's not the title of the album, that's what I'm calling you - yeah you. Last night we watched Supernanny, South Park, Drawn Together and Queer as Folk, which is gee, at series 5 and I still don't like it.

once again the glitterous lights of the city beckon

We went to the Public Office last night to see Marc play a fairly impromptu set along with Kids from Russia (argument later in the car between myself, Mia, Chris, Marc? about how much they were or were not like You am I, also an argument about which Kid was better looking - once the swap cards come out there is going to be much controversy) Talk Show Boy (a rapper, essentially, and about the skinniest guy I've seen, and a great t-shirt, saying More Nina Hagen Please. Toby asked me later, if Barrage is Marc Almond, what's this guy? And I said Neil Tennant but faster) and Crayon Fields, who really are an amazing band, a lot like Herman's Hermits crossed with Captain Cocoa and Haircut 100, with none of the disadvantages of any of those. Mid State Orange were on last but we were gone by then to hang out in the backlane at Fiona's birthday. I hadn't wanted to go to the party as we were not invited, except in the way of 'yeah tell everyone to come' kind of way, which is not acceptable in birthday parties in my honky protocol. Apparently there was a glitterous theme, as many were dressed up as blaxploitation transvestites or, in the case of Gavin, Donald Duck meets Harpo Marx. Sadie rounded on me and called me a fool when I suggested to her father that he might want to come to see Panel at the Pony at 2, but I knew (apparently she doesn't) that he never goes to see bands unless he's playing on the bill, a la Elle McPherson or Posh. But Chris, Shane, Olivia, Mia and I did go and see Panel, and they certainly packed a punch, and Justin Fuller was there marvelling at/obsessed with Dion's cut off gloweave windcheater and kept yelling 'do you have a hot torso?' and Chris got onstage in the last song and threw beer in Dion's face, and he also did something to a guy who was there taking photographs, I don't know what but I saw the guy point at Chris and mouth the word 'arsehole'. Then Chris pleaded to be taken back to the party just for a minute so we went and then of course he didn't want to leave but too bad. We got home between 4 and 5. I hope you enjoyed my Saturday night. Woke up at 1:00 today. Then we went and walked the dogs. Later in the evening Mia went on Alison's 3CR show, it was a really good show. I did some dishes and read Vivien Johnson's excellent book about Radio Birdman.

finished reading that biography of John Farnham

That was a relief though I wonder if there are any bios of Farnesy that take him further than Age of Reason (though admittedly it's downhill from then on). I was interested to read that John has a sperm count .2 (whats? sperms?) above the average and that he likes to do an impression of Billy McMahon by squeezing his buttocks together and inviting others to look at his buttocks squeezed together. Apparently it looks just like Billy McMahon. He first did this on Uptight in 1969, which reputedly had the nabobs that be in the Liberal Party, espying McMahon on the show and the broad applause he received, deciding to usurp Gorton in McMahon's favour. The rest is history. A great phrase that, you could put it on anything. What really freaks me out about the book (Whispering Jack by Clark Forbes - surely a pseudonym!?) is the retouched pictures, which I assume were retouched to highlight the contrast, for use in newspapers. There's one with Kenn Brodziack looking like the Joker, and another where Glenn Campbell's head looks like a beach ball. No, what really freaks me out is Farnham's desire to show his arse a lot, but I'm coping.

what a long strange trip it's been

It took me two and a half hours to get to Burwood this morning, starting with a half-hour walk to Jacana station, then a long wait there, then a ride to Flagstaff the woeful station of the underground, then a delayed (but express) train to Camberwell, then an all-stops-to-Box-Hill, then a bus. Luckily I had essays to mark, a book about (the films of) Peter Weir to read, and a laptop computer to mess around with.

The Peter Weir book made me realise how much I don't like the bollocks of auteurism. Why pretend he operates in a bubble? To be honest, pretending he operates in a bubble makes him fantastically more boring than he would otherwise be. He seems to be just making the same film over and over again, and the author just wants to draw out the similarities between Picnic at Hanging Rock and Dead Poets Society. I always thought I loved the former and couldn't stand the latter, but obviously I am wrong, as they are basically the same fumes from the still of Weir's genius. The guy who wrote the book doesn't appear to have too much understanding of Australia, either, as his description of the opening scene of The Cars that Ate Paris makes painfully clear.