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Like a Kabuki Mask

I make a shortcut on my way to university. After exiting the train station, I go up a laneway, across a carpark, and up two more laneways, which halves the time it takes to get to the diagonally opposite end of the block. The shortcut provides a unique view of the businesses on the block, from behind, the side of each building that isn’t facing the street. The following buildings and businesses make up the block;

1. A police station. The officers stationed here only venture out to check that the cars in the carpark, of which there are about five, not including police vehicles, are displaying parking meter tickets on their dashboards
2. A courthouse
3. A coffee shop, where highly strung lawyer-types go to score weed under the counter to calm themselves down, which they smoke on the carpark-facing balconies of the courthouse, their skin stretched tight in the mornings and leathery under their makeup by the afternoons
4. A brothel. The brothel is an entirely pink two-storey house, with the front door boarded over, and no signage aside from an arrow pointing down the side of the building. The windows are always covered. the brothel sits in the middle of the block, not facing the main roads on any side
5. Some run-down apartment buildings
6. A gift shop. The gift shop has high priced giftware, sold by young Asian women. Their shop is small, and only faces a one-way laneway. There are no signs. The gift shop is clearly a front for some kind of money laundering operation, probably run by the fathers of the young ladies whose carved wooden kitchen trays I buy whenever my friends get maried
7. A Greek Orthodox church. The church is run entirely by two old brothers, one the priest and the other the gardener
8. A function centre. The function centre also opens onto the laneway, and isn’t signed. Although it looks like a function centre on the outside, the sides and higher windows are clearly that of warehouse space. It is in fact, a front (quite literally, as the front of the building only has been styled) for the large-scale distribution of some kind of illicit substance(s)
9. A series of small shops that sell illegally imported, obviously pirated, or foreign language movies.

There is also a small Asian woman in her late twenties, who walks in the opposite direction to me every day. We generally pass at, or within twenty metres of the parking meter. As I have just alighted the train, I am always there at the same time. She, presumably without such a means by which to time herself, has still never been more than forty-five seconds early or late on her daily walk. She always looks scared.

My Doctrine Oft Comes With A Bassline

So it turns out that gloating over the ignorance of liberals has been cool for a long time. The metaphysicals did it, and the dancefloors do still. And Jay-Z stays mum on the New Perspective.

Man, dreame no more of curious mysteries,
As what was here before the world was made,
The first Mans life, the state of Paradise,
Where heaven is, or hells eternal shade,
  For Gods works are like him, all infinite;
  And curious search, but craftie sinnes delight.

The Flood that did, and dreadful Fire that shall,
Drowne, and burne up the malice of the earth,
The divers tongues, and Babylons downe-fall,
Are nothing to the mans renewed birth;
  First, let the Law plough up thy wicked heart,
  That Christ may come, and all these types depart.

When thou hast swept the house that all is cleare,
When thou the dust hast shaken from thy feete,
When Gods All-might doth in thy flesh appeare,
Then Seas with streames above the skye doe meet;
  For Goodnesse onely doth God comprehend,
  Knowes what was first, and what shall be the end.

–Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, Sonnet 88, 1633

At the starting of the week
At summit talks you’ll hear them speak
It’s only Monday
Negotiations breaking down
See those leaders start to frown
It’s sword and gun day

Tomorrow never comes until it’s too late

You could be sitting taking lunch
The news will hit you like a punch
It’s only Tuesday
You never thought we’d go to war
After all the things we saw
It’s April Fools’ day

Make tomorrow come I think it’s too late

You hear a whistling overhead
Are you alive or are you dead?
It’s only Thursday
You feel a shaking on the ground
A billion candles burn around
Is it your birthday?

–DJ Shadow, Six Days

Please don’t bow in my presence, how am I a legend?
I just got 10 number one albums, maybe now eleven
More hits than a Now! 11
That is no reason to treat me like I’m somehow from outta heaven
Heaven knows that I’ve made my mistakes
Thank God, what a guy, as I say my grace

–Jay-Z, Thank You

The Best Ever

I’m going to say this very matter-of-factly. If you ‘get it’, you’ll know how I’m feeling, if you don’t, you don’t.

Last night, I saw The Mountain Goats play.

John Darnielle was completely bug-eyed and insane, and clearly enjoying it a lot. He played a lot of songs from the latest album, a few from the Tallahassee and We Shall All Be Healed era, and a few earlier ones. It was awesome, even though of course not everyone could get the songs they wanted. The band left for a few songs, meaning we got a good variety of songs–some with Darnielle screaming and thrashing his acoustic guitar like the ‘old days’, some with him plonking away by himself on the piano, and some with the whole band making a racket.

I got a prime position, second row, with only two very short people in front of me. I was also right between the keyboard and the standing mic, which meant that no matter whether he was on keys or guitar he was no more than a metre or two away. I may have wet myself with excitement a couple of times. During the first encore they played Houseguest, a cover song that John clearly loves, and he got into it like he was singing along to his favourite song in his bedroom. Except that then he started leaning over into the crowd and sticking his face into other people’s faces, even at one point ‘serenading’ my girlfriend… is it getting warm in here? We had better move on.

Actually, I don’t know where to go from there.

Edit: Check out FasterLouder’s photos of the gig, and see if you can spot the excited kid.

Target and Being Poor

When I was a child I would get teased for always wearing cheap Target brand clothing. Since then Target has wised up to the ‘cheap’ perception and started using generic-sounding made up brand names on their clothing.

Now that I’m an adult I’d never shop at Target. That stuff is way to expensive for me to afford.

On a related note; clothes shopping is awful. If anyone can tell me where one finds men’s formal or dress shirts that suit people of rake-like physique, please let me know ASAP.

Alive Music

The other day I went and saw Antony & The Johnsons at the Opera House. It was the first time I have ever been inside the Opera House as far as I remember, and it was plenty fun. The orchestra was interesting to see, even though I had little idea what was really going on. It’s definitely worth seeing the Opera House form the inside.

If you like the idea of seeing an overweight and overly camp man wail away like some poor man’s Jeff Buckley – except that Jeff Buckley would then turn around and shake the foundations of a pub, before backing that up by mesmerising a stadium the following night – over lyrics about his mum and the ocean while occasionally playing something fairly vague on the piano, taking breaks to opine (did I mention this guy is excessively camp?) about very ill-informed political and evolutionary (what the?) ideals that have absolutely nothing to do with his music no matter how hard he tries to draw a link, then you’d probably love Antony & The Johnsons. You’d probably be one of the twenty people in the venue who cheered his drivel and laughed at his apparent jokes while everyone else smacked their foreheads. It wasn’t my cup of tea though.

Girl Talk on the other hand, was a sensational gig. Mr. Talk, or Greg, or whoever he is, jogged onto stage at The Enmore Theatre like some gangsta, up to his desk that had two laptops on it, and two feedback speakers. One laptop was just a backup. He quickly went from gangsta to pasty white man, but proceeded to crank out a little party for himself, much like I do when I sit in front of my computer with nothing on my screen except iTunes. Except that every now and then he gets to look up and notice however-many-hundred other people also at his party. On these occasions where he looks up and notices the party going on he would stand on his desk and dance around, crowd surf, throw confetti, et cetera. Pretty much the best job in the world. Everyone was fair drenched in sweat early on, and not many shirts stayed on. My night was capped off by him playing the first verse of Juicy in the closing moments of the gig.

And pretty close to the top of the must-see-before-I-die list, The Mountain Goats are playing in this harbour city in April. Who wants to come with?

Acquitted

You know what I don’t do quickly? Move on.

KFC’s Racist Advertising, America’s Myopia

Some excellent developments from the United States of the World to-day, that demonstrate why reality is far funnier than fiction, people are far sillier than we think, and satire will never die.

KFC Australia, who hold a sponsorship deal with Cricket Australia, have been running adverts during the televised cricket coverage. The ads cover cricket survival tips, such as how to score a decent seat at the ground, or how to stop your in-laws ruining your day of sitting in front of the television to watch the cricket. The advertisements are clearly tongue-in-cheek. One of the adverts features the usual star, Mick, stuck in a crowd of West Indian fans at a game. West Indian fans are known as a fun-loving, boisterous, and noisy group. They are adored by cricketing nations worldwide for being such. Mick offers them a bucket of KFC to distract them from supporting their team. What do Americans see when they watch the advert on YouTube? They see a white guy offering black people fried chicken to shut them up. Speaking as one who has watched the cricket for the last four days, and hence one who has seen the advert as many times as anyone has, it never occurred to me once that the advert was racist. And so news outlets in America are kicking up a fuss. On the one hand, this is hilarious. On the other hand I almost feel ashamed to share a planet with these people, to be part of a race that offers up America as the height of our civilisation. That sounds extreme, and it’s clearly hyperbole, but the daftness required to be so short-sighted is huge.

It reminds me of the episode of Extras where Maggie starts seeing a mixed race actor. She gets so caught up in trying not to be racist that it’s all she can think about. She ends up trying to sneak a gollywog toy out of the room and getting caught, and the guy leaves her to sort herself out.

And while we’re on Extras, here’s a back-and-forth between Andy and Maggie from the aforementioned episode, which I relived with a friend the other day;

Andy: Well, there is that test I can give you.
Maggie: What test?
Andy: The racism test they give you when you join the Council to make sure you’re not a racist.
Maggie: I’ve never heard of it.
Andy: Yeah, do you want to do it? Just ten questions–You’ve got to answer totally honestly, okay? Just relax, you’ve got nothing to worry about… unless you are a racist. Okay, question one: Who would rather see with their shirt off, Brad Pitt or Sir Trevor McDonald?
Maggie: Brad Pitt, obviously.
Andy: Obviously?
Maggie: What?
Andy: I can’t say anything until the end. Right, question two. This is about racial awareness, cause often you catch out a real racist because they don’t know or care about any black issues. Who is the prime minister of Great Britain?
Maggie: Tony Blair.
Andy: Correct. Who is the Prime Minister of Namibia?
Maggie: …I don’t know…
Andy: Ooh, you knew the white one… okay, um, oh dear. Who is the Queen of England?
Maggie: Queen Elizabeth II.
Andy: Correct. Who is the President of Djibouti?
Maggie: Oh, this is ridiculous! I’ve never even heard of blubbin’ Djibouti!
Andy: Oh! Please do not ridicule the totally valid African language, please. Alright, next question. Who would you rather have waiting for you when you get home tonight, Johnny Depp or OJ Simpson?
Maggie: Johnny Depp, because of the murder thing.
Andy: Because of the murder thing? I think you’ll find that OJ Simpson was acquitted, but in your eyes because he’s black, he’s still guilty!

When Friends Are Gone I Know My Savior’s Love is Real

On the weekend my close friend of many years, Sylvia, was married to my good friend Sly. The wedding was sensational. Roseability Inc., congratulates them.