Back So Soon?

Yes is the answer to your question.  I was in Japan for two weeks.  It was great.  There’s lots of shit that’s different to how it is here blah blah blah.

Unsurprisingly, the small number of white people that were there were big old douchebags.  There were probably heaps of Japanese douchebags too, but everything they did was adorable so I didn’t notice.

In the meantime, Yves Klein Blue decided to release the filmclip for their latest single, which I directed.  Enjoy?

And yes, this does mean I’ve seen Michael’s dingaling.

The Van Houten Theory

There’s a Swedish school of thought regarding life revelations and the application of generalised and randomised laws of statistics to rationalise and predict patterns of luck.  It is as follows:

Over time wherein the law of averages and luck is allowed to operate freely, eventually, everything will come up Milhouse.

You Can’t Beat The Irish, Unless You’re The English

The other night at work we had a band called The Wolfe Tones play.  They’re Irish.  My family’s Irish, and I used to be proud of that.  Now I wish the English had killed the drunk assholes off years ago.

In all seriousness, we had more than a thousand outrageously hammered Irish and they are absolute cunts.  They yelled and demanded more beer than they could physically carry, punched women in the face (true story) and jigged around to every fucking song the band played for two and a half hours.

I felt like I was on one of the lower decks of the Titanic, and I just wanted the son of a bitch to sink already.

At first I was sorry for these peoples’ families – imagine having to deal with these pricks for parents all the time.  But then I realised that their babies back home were probably drunk off their tits too, cursing the British and calling Australian barstaff racist.

At one point, I walked into the bathrooms to make sure they didn’t yet look like that burrow thing Leonardo di Caprio lived in in Gangs of New York, and saw one of the most puzzling things I’ve ever witnessed.  Some prick, in all of his inebriated, illiterate wisdom, had walked into the disabled cubicle, seen the cistern, duly ignored it, turned into the opposite corner AND STARTED PISSING AGAINST THE BACK OF THE DOOR.

As in, there’s the toilet, but no thanks, I’d rather take my dick out and wee all over the floor like some errant kid who got into the whisky at the age of 7 and accidentally lost control over his bladder because he didn’t know better.  In fact, this guy probably DID start downing the whisky at the age of 7.  They all looked like they started hitting the bottle at around the same time as they started refusing to eat brussel sprouts.

No wonder the English didn’t grant them independence for 8 or so centuries – they can’t even use the toilet properly.  I wouldn’t let them govern themselves either.

I Don’t Even Know Where To Begin

Ok, so there is an organisation at the Uni of Queensland called Sapphos Sisters, which exists to represent homosexual women and provide a place for them to hang out, drink wine, wear vests and cut each other’s hair really short.  That’s fine.  That’s good.

There is a position on the UQ Student Union called Vice-President of Gender and Sexuality, whose job it is to run Sapphos and generally make noise and paint signs about how she’s queer and so are her friends and how everyone should stop making a big deal about it.  Again, fine.  Good.

When this wonderful bastion of modern enlightenment, love and compassion writes emails, bulletins or facebook messages, she starts them thusly: Hello my luscious, beautiful homos.

NOT FINE.  NOT GOOD.

Are you fucking serious?  Luscious, beautiful homos?  If you hadn’t already made such a big deal about how you’re a lesbian, I would have said that that is the gayest shit I have ever heard.  Seriously, luscious?  What the fuck is wrong with you?  For someone who probably reads a lot of Sylvia Plath, you’ve got a shocking way with words.

Luscious?  REALLY?  As if calling your constituents beautiful homos wasn’t already sickeningly poxy?  This girl is probably in her 20s and is already sounding like a watery eyed, floral printed guidance counsellor from some shithole school in the outer suburbs, who had to turn to the state education system after her potato farm in Northern NSW failed.

Oh, and at the end of said communication, Wonder Woman completes the wave of nausea with something so contrived and amazingly flimsy I could hardly believe it.  Ready?

you. are. beautiful.

Yep.  She’s throwing full stops into a Christina Aguilera lyric because, as a gay woman in power, she wants everyone to know how special they are.  Modern day hero.

you. are. a. douchebag.

Puns Do Not Encourage Faith in One’s Professionalism

So there is an actual, practising, open for business law firm near me that is called Just Us Lawyers.  Anyone see a problem here?

Just Us.  Just[us].  Justice.  Geddit?

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

You people are lawyers.  Actual university graduates with a recognised degree (I assume) and a working knowledge of the Australian legal system, with which you are to counsel and assist those who do not.  DON’T PUT A PUN IN THE NAME OF YOUR BUSINESS.  This isn’t a quirky childcare or local hot dog stand, this is the sort of organisation in whom people are supposed to place trust and large amounts of money.  You’re all retarded.

And for God’s sake, throwing in some lighthearted PUNCTUATION does not make any of this better.

Just[us] Lawyers: for when you want to sue your neighbour and be represented by a 14-year-old girl on MSN Messenger.

Who the hell approved this venture?  Someone, somewhere, towards the top of this prestigious hall of learning decided that their business should be ridiculed.  Self-respect?  No thanks.

Really?  A pun in the title?  Come on guys, you’re a suburban law firm, not the Courier Mail.

People Should Say Things They Actually Mean

Why, on God’s wonderfully developed and linguistically excellent Earth do people still use words in such a way that leave me convinced they suffer from Foetal Alcohol Syndrome?

Yeah, that’s right, someone said something to me that I found annoying, took umbridge with and decided to rail against on the internet.  Surprised?

Ready for today’s topic?  Good.  It is as such: People Who Say “Thanking You”.

A person will actually, in an attempt at expressing gratitude for something, say “thanking you”.  Excuse me?  Don’t tell me what you’re doing, just fucking thank me.  I don’t stand there saying “looking at a dickhead”, or blurt out “greeting a friend” when I greet a friend, because that would be retarded.

You want to thank me?  Say thank you.  It’s actually easier than the self-masturbatory attempt at class that I’m sure you think saying “thanking you” is.

And, do you know what?  If you don’t actually utter the words “thank you”, or some legitimate derivative of such, then you’re not thanking me.  You’re just describing the way a normal person would act in the situation.

Flickring

No, not a renegade innovation in the field of adult intimate toys.  Maybe I should put an apostrophe in the title, after the r.  I started a Flickr account, because I’m damn talented and felt bad for withholding all of the killer photos I’ve been taking from the culture-starved masses.

For your consideration:  www.flickr.com/photos/textbookslater/

(for some reason, they’re blurry here.  WordPress is obviously racist against images.  Check the Flickr for the proper shit, in case you want to put it in a book you’re writing about the surprising wealth of talent amongst amateur photographers on the internet).

Besties

Do you ever feel like a particular song or album is actually your friend?  Like it knows you and somehow shares feelings or sentiments with you that no-one else does?  You’re wrong.  It’s an inanimate object.

Someone else created it either to try to make some money or talk about shit that they think about.  Sometimes it just happens to coincide with what you’re thinking about so chance makes it relate to you.  Sometimes it’s just really pretty or sad or clever and you can’t help but want to hang out with it a lot.

In any case, I present my 5 Best Album friends from this, the 2009th year of our Lord.

Number 5 Best Album: Dirty Projectors – Bitte Orca.  It literally sounds like throwing shit at a wall and somehow making it stick in a fascinating way.  Scales I didn’t know existed seem to govern the odd melodies and progressions and make me feel fucking arty for being into it.

Number 4 Best Album:  The Middle East – Recordings of the Middle East.  If you’ve heard this, you probably know what I mean.  It’s heavy with hope and pretty stuff.  Just a bunch of guitars and harmonies and feelings thanks.

Number 3 Best Album: Yves Klein Blue – Ragged & Ecstatic.  It’s either the incredible storytelling, the way the arrangements sound familiar but wholly new or the fact that the drummer gave me a handjob once, but for whatever reason this album was the soundtrack to a lot of my year.  Colin (I think that’s his name?), wherever you are, you have sweet soft palms and the patience of a saint.  Also, the solo in Digital Love fucking rules.

Number 2 Best Album: Grizzly Bear – Veckatimest.  Yep, getting all indie and predictable here.  They somehow manage to make an album able to be described as intricate chamber pop and still be fucking awesome.  This album seems to be so carefully crafted, but just on the verge of losing its shit.  Like Larry Emdur.

Number 1 Best Album: Yay!  It’s Animal Collective’s combination of Merriweather Post Pavillion and their Fall Be Kind EP.  If you want to know why, read Pitchfork or something.  They’ll probably agree, and if you don’t but can’t formulate an argument as clever or articulate as theirs then I don’t want to hear it.

I also really liked the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ record for being soft and slow for the most part but still somehow punk and really affecting.  Phoenix’s is great but pretty overrated.  Also worth mentioning: The xx, Julian Casablancas, Girls and Arctic Monkeys.

Oh, yeah, I was supposed to continue on with the biggest fuck-off stupid moments from the year as well.  SO, I present to you 5-1 of the douchebag achievements of 2009:

Everyone at the Katy Perry concert looking like Katy Perry;

Everyone at the Sarah Blasko concert looking like Sarah Blasko;

Some fuckhead doing a straight rip off of Such Great Heights and making number one on the US charts;

Chris Brown only beating the shit out of Rihanna once, AND;

Beyonce scaring the bejesus out of me by hurling her not-insignificant hips at me in a confronting bodysuit for three and a half minutes.  I saw Paranormal Activity and was less disturbed than each time that flim clip came on.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times

So there were some albums and stuff that come out this year, and a whole bunch of them were good.  Heaps more were shithouse.  It’s finding the difference between the two that seems to prove the challenge for our dear society.  For example, the only reason Miley Cyrus isn’t nominated for an OSCAR for Best Original Song is because the song she proffered wasn’t actually specifically for the movie.   Man, criteria can be tough.  Personally, I would’ve kept her off the list because her music sucks more dick than she does, but I’m not part of the Academy.  Yet.

SO, here I offer my list of the best albums or EPs released in 2009.  I also offer my list of most almost-unbelievable and stupid moments of the year.

Number 10 Best Release: A.C. Newman – Get Guilty.

Number 10 Worst Moment: At 12pm yesterday, a battallion of ‘disaffected’ youths lined up all the way down the street outside the Tivoli, for about 200 metres, for the Short Stack gig that night, 8 HOURS LATER.

Number 9 Best Release: …And You Will Know Us By The Trail of the Dead – The Century of Self.  This album should count itself lucky for being included.  Writing the artist and title just took seven minutes.

Number 9 Worst Moment: Enough people like Short Stack to fill a line that stretches for 200 metres.  I just hope old guys don’t see that and take it as an indication of our generation.  We’ll look like douchebags, given that in the 60s and 70s people would do that sort of thing for BOB DYLAN or THE STONES.  Not three raven-haired ladyboys who actually use the fact that they’ve had over a million YouTube views as a selling point.

Number 8 Best Release: Mumford & Sons – Sigh No More.  Maaaaaaaan I love a husky voice.  And banjo.  Throw the two of those into emotive rock n roll and I’m sold like a Thai teenage girl.

Number 8 Worst Moment:  La Roux, in all of its mania and hype.  That girl’s voice is like pouring mouthwash in my ears and then forgetting to spit and rinse after 30 seconds.  DEAR EVERYBODY, PLEASE STOP MINING THE PERIOD BETWEEN 1980 AND 1989.

Number 7 Best Release: The Veils – Sun Gangs.  Fuck you if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

Number 7 Worst Moment:  My mum making If I Fell by The Beatles her ringtone.  It’s not fair to make me hate a song of theirs because I hear the same 18 seconds of it every half an hour.

Number 6 Best Release: Volcano Choir – Unmap.  Bon Iver gets all chunky with rhythm and the avant-garde.  This album was somehow both scary and really sexy, kinda like Hermione Granger.

Number 6 Worst Moment: I work at the Tivoli, and when Opeth played some chick asked me if I loooooved them.  I didn’t.  She insisted they were the best band in the world (almost always a stupid claim).  I soon found out how wrong she was and left early, soundtracked by an echoey swirl of ‘emotional’ metal.  I think.

I’m gonna finish this off tomorrow.  Mainly because you’re probably already bored and I really don’t wanna stretch the friendship.  Stay tuned for more listy goodness.  Fuck I love making lists.

Problems I Have With Titanic

Avatar has been nominated for a Golden Globe for best drama, which isn’t surprising I guess given that James Cameron’s last film won about 43 Oscars and made more money than Tiger Woods’ golfing career.  It got almost as many women wet, as well.

I just hope it isn’t as full of annoying bullshit as Titanic was.  Take, for example, the dodgy old woman Rose, who was not nearly as hot as young Rose, or as easy.  At the beginning of the film, when they have all the jewellery and junk they found from the wreckage laid out on tables, she manages to find MULTIPLE pieces that belonged to her.  Are you serious lady?  There were thousands of people on that ship, and the scavengers just happened to stumble upon a whole heap of shit that belongs to you?  Oh, my hand mirror.  Oh, my snuff-box.

Whatever Rose, I know the real deal.  You left your rich douche of a fiancée and spent the rest of your life dirt poor, and then saw an opportunity to make a bit of cash or have some nice things again.  I wouldn’t put it past you to do something like that – you let Jack fucking drown because you wouldn’t share an enormous ballroom door with him.

Also, what the fuck is she doing at the end?  She has the Heart of the Ocean, which is obviously worth a ridiculous amount of money (it even has a French name: La Coeur de l’Ocean) and she throws it overboard!  I take it back about her being a money-grubbing whore – she’s just a crazy person.  Rose!  Keep the extraordinary piece of historical jewellery!  Sell it if you don’t want to keep it.  Give the money to someone who needs it or maybe even spend it on a fucking haircut.

Man, even when they’re old and should have learnt better, bitches are crazy.

Wasn’t this originally about Avatar?  Sam Worthington is pretty good at being badass, even when he’s all blue and queer looking.  That’s queer as in weird, by the way, not gay.  Although he does look like he’d know his way around a pair of testicles.