Many people know that i’ve spent the entire winter holed up in bed watching dvd of television programs. Yes it’s true, i watched
Brothers and Sisters had me hooked from the start. Such compelling-ly mad characters. It was fun in B&S watching Calista Flackheat and Rachel Griffiths’ lips compete for whose could be the most wobbly due to puffy injections.
Mighty Boosh is of course beyond compare.
.. and now i’ve found something new, something i hadn’t seen before .. Life on Mars. Ooh it’s good. Unfortunately the first time round, the Movie Reel gave me disks 1 and 4 in the same case .. so i’ve had to wait for the next instalment.
American Gothic was strange, because it was promising .. but so disappointingly Lame. There’s one sheriff in town who rules the place with his mysterious psychic powers – and regular murdering – but somehow he doesn’t use his powers against the main heroes. The heroes are irritatingly pathetic. Not recommended.
Jon Faine asked me if Cairns was competing to be the most ignorant, rednecked place in Australia. i said it was in the running, but that this was just one pub. Let’s not go overboard with the generalisation, i tried to imply.(But respectfully. Faine is one superhero. (Link to interview below 🙂
Before i state that abusing people (and their cities) because of their behaviour isn’t always helpful, i’d like to add that Sydney is still in the lead for that competition, after the Cronulla riots of 2005.A couple of people getting kicked out of a pub really doesn’t compete with that.When you add in all the dog whistling coming out of another NSW town .. Canberra, then Cairns isn’t in the running at all. Did i say Canberra? Maybe the messages of fear and suspicion, of hatred and social division, have been emerging from Kiribilli all along.
So lets leave Cairns out of it. Cairns is a beautiful city full of wonderful people. So is Sydney. Wonderful people that deserve all the safety and first-rate public education we can muster.
Still, by crikey, i know what Jon meant: don’t you wish we’d all just get over it. Calm right down. Get mentally healthier, and see things in perspective.
Don’t shoot Brasilians because we think they look Middle Eastern and carry a backpack on the Tube. Stop blaming minorities for our global imbalances.
Elect governments that are far less committed to spreading social division and fear like honey on toast (just to conceal their out-of-balance economics).
Fund public education properly, so that people have a clue about how to live in this world.
(Link to radio: chalk on faine, abc melbourne, mornings (thursday – nope you’ve missed it now)
.. but i might have a copy if you missed out. Okay, here’s a listening device:
powered by ODEO
Thanks for reading. (thanks kalandrakas at flickr for “how to pray the japanese way“; abc images used without permission)
Sam and Booshi downstairs don’t have TV, they just watch DVD and youTube. Especially The Moon from the Mighty Boosh. At the New Year Party, Boosh had a youTube room going downstairs. It was fun. They watched Evolution of Dance.
i really enjoyed David Attenborough narrating slug sex, it is astonishing.
Who is David Blaine? Is this street film a spoooof, or is he the real magician? Forget channel nine, i will watch the whole series
(eyes roll), much love from micahel
Here in Melbourne, smoke covers the city again. The sun peers through the haze like a big red sore eye. It’s hard to breathe. New Zealander firefighters are shown injured on the television.
Australia trounces England in the Ashes Test Cricket. Another bloody summer. The streets were full of road rage yesterday.
All sorts of people put things online. Take a look at this crazy guy – he calls himself Sid Secret. i think he’s the next LonelyGirl15.
Last night, here in Melbn, Oz, the world capital of art and culture, we experienced the Snuff Puppets’ version of the Twin Towers – very irreverent and moderately shocking. Two people dressed in enormous skyscraper costumes were battered by an Arab puppet with an aeroplane on a stick. Tremendous Art.
(But we should remember, that it’s not okay to laugh about that day because, “the world changed from that day on“, as Marylou Badeaux reminds us in this Herald Sun article.)
As well as the Snuffies and, again, the amazing Town Bikes (Suxy and Fuxy go Clubbing – you has to see to believe), The Spanish Club also saw the astonishingly insane Dilapidated Diva emerge from retirement for a glamorous performance of La Vie en Rose.
After encouraging seven volunteers to lie on the stage with their legs in the air, so she could lick and caress their shoes, my favourite moment was when the Diva pulled apart her microphone mid-song, and throwing it on the stage in frustration, continued to sing at full voice, while dancing with a man in a yellow raincoat. The woman is a genius.
Her parting shot was of course, the middle finger up at her loving audience, “You are all assholes!” she cried.
Tim, Sam, Nathan and Michael joined the crowds to boogie at Spanish Club (Kenny Lopez’ Cuban All Stars), Laundry and then the Old Bar. Going wild with Leanne on the dance floor, when the DJ came up with two beers and said, “These are for you, for being the BEST dancers EVER.” She was playing AC/DC mixed with 1950’s Rocknroll, what could we do? I’ve got to say this was easily the best award i’ve EVER received in my LIFE.
so how can i be grumpy on a day like today?
much love from michael
it’s friday night, so michael joins Tim and Sam on the Edward St. couches for some friday night football. The western bulldogs look like they might lose to essendon, who are fighting to avoid the wooden spoon. Tim is annoyed because the Dogs are not playing well enough.
The highlight of the evening is this crazy dvd called ‘The Critic’, about Jay Sherman, NY Film Critic. Jay, a cartoon character, is bald fat and unpopular. His boss hates him because he cans all the holyhollywood films, and his highest rating is a 7. i loved the show. Jay is dark, depressed and funny. Must have been made last century because the twin towers loom over the NY cartoon skyline.
The bad news is Tim and Sam house being sold from under them again. Bloody property owners.
