March 2007 Archives

when i sit in front of the machine each morning, i read three newspapers online. i read the New York Times like a good american. i read the BBC to get some perspective on my perspective. and now i read The Age, one of Australia's best papers, to turn my perspective on its head and discover who knifed who's baby while wrasslin' a crocodile.

i read them in that order.

but when i got to The Age today, i noticed their top headline was about David Hicks. this isn't so surprising. people are pretty upset here about the fact that Hicks has been locked up for five years and that the Howard government has been unable or unwilling to do much about it. the article says that the "new" tribunal opened with the military judge dismissing two of Hicks' civilian lawyers. it is alleged that the tribunal is changing the rules on the fly. again. pretty important news, i think.

I swung back through the BBC and sure enough, there was the story on their front page. except it was smaller and... uh.. did not mention anything about the lawyer dismissal. it did talk about Hicks' footwear (very important).

and the New York Times? not a goddamned thing. no story. if it's there at all, i can't find it.

they do have the important news that five years ago lily tomlin yelled at david o. russel on the I (Heart) Huckabees set and that blogs are writing about it again. so there's news about news that there once was news, but what about all the stuff that's fit to print?

i just found out my friend nina was killed.

it was her 30th birthday and she went climbing near Wellington, where she's been living. there was a rock fall and even though she was wearing a helmet, she was struck in the head and killed.

there are great photos of her on my picture page, under 2004/superfriends get superdrunk. she was the Insatiable Sweet Tooth Girl and i was Cell Phone Reception Man.

she was direct and smart and funny and cute and successful. and now she's dead at thirty.

bye neeners. miss you. check out that smile.

this past week i've gotten turned on to two awesome radio things, both of which you can stream over the internets.

the first is BBC 5's Mark Kermode's film review program. if you like hearing what is horribly wrong with all the movies currently playing and thereby saving yourself a few quid or dollars or whatever, you'll like this. this week's episode covering sweaty oiled greeks and the death of vanilla ice's career got me hooked.

the second is pretty much anything on RRR. Triple R is my local radio station here in Brunswick. like you've dreamed, there still are radio stations that have DJs who play music they like, regardless of what other people think. everytime i tune in it's a completely different show (now? it's "Twang", but last night it was "Wordburner"). think of it like a constantly renewing mix tape. real player required, unfortunately. it reminds me of a more eclectic KPIG if that means anything to you.

you know that whole writer's block thing?

that's how i've felt this week about my life. i've got liver's block. it's as gross as it sounds.

can't quite figure out how to live these days. is it exhaustion, lack of exercise, or the constant buzzing of flies? can't say.

it's odd, too, as this has actually been a fairly cool week.

for example, i went down to my local pub, The East Brunswick Club, for trivia night. the wifey was full of blah so i went on my own, hoping to run into heavy metal frank so i could join his team. no such luck. it had been a drizzly day and there was a low turnout for the whole trivia thing.

hadn't been there for more than a few minutes when someone clapped my shoulder; my neighbor dorjet. irish guy who happens to be chef at the East. in and out of the kitchen for the evening, he introduced me to the two bartenders, kate and lucy. between the four of us and some judicious text messages i actually came in second! won a bottle of two-buck chuck and the esteem of the quiz mistresses.

they asked, "which attractive young celebrity has hired two bodyguards to protect her from a transvestite stalker?"

i said Stephen Rae. (best known for The Crying Game; ha ha)

plus i correctly identified the real subject, sienna miller, as they played Venus in Furs after asking the question and i got the hint.

so that's one point for a right answer and one point for effective comedy.

in reality, i aced the film section and sucked on the music and pop culture sections. whatever. everyone else was even less informed. and the bartenders know me know. never a bad thing.

it also turns out that dorjet is a film junkie and writes. so we have some stuff in common. hopefully when he evicts his alcoholic housemate next week we'll get to hang out more.

i've also commissioned some art! pretty cool, huh? i met this guy Entropies on the ORG. he makes these amazing quilts and he's gonna make me one based on this photo i took in india.

so that's good.

also, i'm reading amnesia moon by jonathan lethem. it's incredible.

and i mailed in crossword puzzle number three to the new york times. if they don't buy this one, they is idiots.

i had vastly unpleasant dreams last night.

i dreamed about unfriendly friends and about working for a big cheery corporation that employed me to make people keep quiet.

i did not wake up so smiley.

i've done the lions share of this project for my un-favourite client and am mostly just waiting for them to review my work so i have some sense of what to do next. i'm making gentle progress in getting things going on the new company, which still seems like a decent idea.

and i feel like i've been in australia for five months and don't really have any honest-to-goodness friends yet. i've got people with whom i'm in friend-internship with, but no one who calls me up at random times to see what's up. "hey, it's friday, what are you up tonight?" no one who shares the substance of their lives with me. excepting my lovely wife of course.

i need to remember that what i'm doing now is "living somewhere new." that just being here and getting by is a major accomplishment. the fact that i'm meeting anyone at all and getting anything resembling work is fairly miraculous.

i don't feel miraculous, however. i feel like one of the zombies in Shaun of the Dead.

i keep digging around for some big project to involve myself with but it's not happening. i feel like i'm in some sort of big suck. all my motivation and potential and eagerness is drawn out of me by the vaccuum of "new life in australia."

there's only one thing to do.

i need to start working on Shark Tornado again.

you remember Shark Tornado, of course. that's my screenplay about a small town terorized by a tornado full of sharks.

i'm not quite sure how the movie goes, but i'm pretty clear on the poster. it would read:

SHARK TORNADO! What could be worse?

or perhaps:

SHARK TORNADO! First it blows, then it bites!

i feel better already.

some film reviews:

sunshine
i thought sunshine was a really good movie for the first half, but then i kind of thought it was not so good when reels 4-6 were fed in upside down and then got switched around out of order and then they just gave up. i give it eight stars and three clovers. it also gets twelvty-six diamonds because even though the projectionist learned everything he knows at shoebox school, danny boyle was there afterwards and he had interesting things to say even though they fucked up his film. plus i got to babysit rose byrne and she was magically delicious. to look at. i did not lick the celebrity. i have learned my lesson on that score already.

hot fuzz
i thought hot fuzz was extra loud and then they kicked grandma in the face! that was awesome! i also really liked all the parts with the funny jokes! they were funny! lolz! i thought it was as good as Shaun of the Dead except with less zombies and more guys who say "yarb." after the movie the guys who made it answered some questions but they were sort of jet-lagged so mostly just made jokes about their forbidden man-love for each other. i give hot fuzz eighty-eighty hot fuzzy pink moons and a glass of milk. i would like to see it again because it had a lot of funny jokes and one time, this guy, he like shot his gun in the air and yelled and this other guy got a small church stuck through his face. it was awesome. and loud.

the end

just met with a local web designer.

we've agreed to try and start a business selling pre-fab websites to small/medium businesses for set package prices.

he'll tackle the tech and i'll wrangle the content.

the web is booming here. it's the australian dawn of internet awareness. (read = broadband now works.) i think at the very least we can prove competitive in the intro-website market. and i think we can offer an attractive price for a premium service.

frankly, it sounds like a serious step up from what i've been doing here so far.

but then i spent my morning trying to understand terms like "concessional stamp duty." despite what i thought initially, this phrase has nothing to do with redeeming tickets won at the skee ball lanes.

it means "a shift kicking people for reluctant punks."

just so you know (gloat gloat)

next monday i'm going to a director presented screening of Sunshine. that director being Danny Boyle. (Shallow Grave, Trainspotting, 28 Days Later)

next tuesday i'm going to director/cast presented screening of Hot Fuzz. them guys being Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and Edgar Wright. (Shaun of the Dead, Spaced)

it ain't the cinerama dome, or even wellington's embassy theatre, but that's three sneaks of cool films i'll have seen in a month (the third being The Host).

there's hope for this city.

fer fucks sake!

i just got an email from this client. wanting me to come in tomorrow to get briefed on this job and start right away. tomorrow is saturday.

tomorrow is saturday march 3. that's more than three weeks since i was first asked to come in for a meeting on this project on february 13. now, after cooling my heels for three weeks they need me to start right away, that being saturday.

i told her i'd have to cancel plans and that when required to work weekends i charge time and half. she suggested i think about it. "it" being not charging her to come in on the weekend.

i declined. i'm going in on monday.

anyone else want to hire me? please?