Smells like poser

Movin' on up

Tue, 10 Feb 2009 01:59:52 GMT

Guess what you're reading? It's the first LJ post I've made from my new office at the university. Well, I am sharing it with two other people, but since they're not here today it's MY office. The computer isn't too bad either; it might even be a bit flasher than mine at home, especially since mine has gone on strike or something and is refusing to run at a proper speed, but that's another story.

I'm still not enrolled yet though. My status has sat at "Pending" for nearly two weeks now and when I made some enquiries yesterday I found out that it hasn't changed because I haven't submitted the enrolment form that NO ONE told me about, which has to also be signed by my H.O.D. and the Dean, as well as about 20 other people (probably; anyone who knows the university's administration will understand). This really fucked me off and made me want to unload at everyone I've been dealing with (I did ask on more than one occassion if there was anything else I needed to do and was told "No"), but I know that if I did they'd treat like shit for the rest of the year, so I have to be all sunhine and lollipops to their faces. Damn academia!

It really feels like I've arrived, though. I've started my Masters, got 3,500 words to do by next Friday (haven't started) and I'm gradually adjusting to the idea of having all my free time ripped away from me like a ball of yarn from an angry kitten. Good times. If only I was enrolled, then I could get the allowance and not to work so much. Oh well, give it time I 'spose.

Also, there's a Clash poster on the wall here. Nice.

Fuck you

Thu, 05 Feb 2009 05:20:36 GMT

In the news today:

-The idea to crush the cars of offending boy racers has been squashed by the finance companies worried about their payments being threatened. Never mind that it's their fault that these morons have their cars in the first place as well as all the other harm they've done to the economy by dishing out easy credit to people who could never afford to pay it back.

-Everyone's pissed off at Christian Bale for unloading a fierce tirade of abuse at a DP on the set of the next Terminator movie, insisting that no one deserves to be yelled at like that. I've been abused worse for far less so I don't see what everyone else is on about. If a guy is constantly messing up the scenes of a passionate method actor like Bale, especially if it's high in emotional tension, then he should anticipate an earful, and rightfully so. Shouldn't expect any different on the set of a movie being made by the guy who directed Charlie's Angels though.

-Two of the people arrested in conjunction with the death of Nia Glassie could be out of jail by August. That'll learn 'em! I'm also sure the mother of 10 who was caught drink driving while heavily pregnant will learn her lesson from the community service the defence counsel wants. Bonus points for the judge who doesn't want to lay charges despite numerous warnings for drinking and her comment to a probation officer that she doesn't want to give up drinking because she likes it too much.

-A Waikato train driver received a hail of bottles and stones after he stopped and advised some kids that playing chicken with trains on a bridge might not be so safe, illustrating why I never bother to help out the little shits.

Honestly, I'm usually not too affected by the news or people's reactions to it, but this really depresses me. Now more than ever, I really, honestly, deeply loathe people of all colours, creeds and gender.

Except you, of course.

YEEEEEEEEEEEAH!

Wed, 21 Jan 2009 22:02:49 GMT

</a>

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Changefest '09 - Obama's Inauguration

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

</div></div>

"like Malcolm X catchin' the Jungle Fever"

Mon, 08 Dec 2008 11:07:20 GMT

4 weeks since posting.

Man, it just feels like such a chore these days, like calling my mother. A lot of the time it's really hard to come up with a lot of stuff worth posting and when you do, it's impossible to find the effort or time to broadcast it to the world. Is it 'cause I'm not as bored any more? Since holidays began I've been devouring legions of books/movies/albums in between working some extra shifts at work, and it's been a welcome relief from having to read/watch/listen to something studiously, which is an efficient method for killing any joy you may have experienced otherwise. Almost as a cleanser, I've gobbled up a lot of Stephen King film adaptations and read IT, which took me about a month, with it's 1100-odd pages and all. Most of it's been pretty mint. Check out The Mist if you haven't already - it's one of the best horror films I've ever seen and has future classic smeared all over it.

One classic I seem to have missed the boat on is The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Maybe I'm oblivious to something, 'cause I found it a bit silly and boring. All the screaming shredded my nerves after a while and it was REALLY hard to care about what happened to the characters. And I can say that, because I've seen it now, so at least there's that.

Apart from having to be a bit tighter with my dollars lately, things have been pretty good. Results came in and I got a B, a B+, an A- and an A, so that's cool. In the process of applying for a MA for next year, just got to write up my proposal. It has to be a few pages, but it's double-spaced too, so that's not so bad. All I gotta do is come up with some decent waffling.

Also, this film rocks balls:

There don't seem to be many people who've heard of King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, but it deserves a big audience. You've got Billy Mitchell, former teenage video game champion and world record holder in Donkey Kong, who now has a restaurant, his own line of hot sauce and a tribe of slavish devotees who make up the world of competitive video gaming. You've got Steve Wiebe, a science teacher who takes up Donkey Kong and smashes Billy's record, only to have his record attempt ignored and his general presence abhorred. Then it turns into a nerd's Rocky, a true underdog story for the ages. The best thing is that it's a documentary. Fuck reality TV, that shit's for chumps.

Some days, I really hate the internet

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:13:53 GMT

It only took me a few months of going there to realise that the people who frequent Digg aren't always the cream of the crop in terms of intelligence, sense of humour and creativity. Yet I can still barely believe the amount of uproar generated by MTV's apparent decision not to award Rick Astley (you know, the 'Rick Roll' guy) their "Best Act Ever" award, despite overwhelming votes in his favour. Now, even though I don't care, I can see how it's a dick move on MTV's part, but I wouldn't expect anything else from them either. At any rate, it certainly isn't worth the fury expressed in the comments. How can anyone with anything close to what most of us would call a life care that much about an internet meme, especially one that should only appeal to pre-pubescent boys? The act of Rick Rolling isn't far removed from prank calling and while I don't cast judgement on anyone who finds it funny, placing this much importance in it seems impossible lame to me.

The worst part is that it's just some guy's blog; there isn't any link to an official MTV site, so how do they even know it's genuine? Few things piss me off more than blind belief, and these guys even have Republicans beat.

There Will Be Balls

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 02:34:12 GMT

Dammit, I really should've seen this coming.

Along with No Country Old Men, which was such a massive disappointment that it's put me off ever watching a new Coen brothers film again (Burn After Reading looks like the kind of stupid bullshit you'd make if you had researched the theoretical structures of comedy without actually understanding humour yourself, like a guitar player who is technically amazing at playing but wouldn't know a good riff if it cut his nose off), There Will Be Blood has been hailing as one of "the" films to watch this year, but guess what?

It. Is. Fucking. Boring.

It's about 2 1/2 hours long and practically nothing happens. Daniel Day-Lewis shows his magnificient acting skills, the cinematography is wonderful and the soundtrack (provided by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood) is suitaby evocative. But so what, when there's almost no plot or interesting characters for these formidable talents to utiliise. As per bloody usual, however, this bland, empty, meandering claptrap is being met with high critical praise and topping Top 10 lists everywhere.

Makes me want to throw up. I couldn't maintain my attention span after the first hour was over, which is a shame because I had really looked to watching this for months and have only just been able to find the time. Perhaps the worst sin is the dialogue. It's not as horrible as, say, a horror movie, but it's nowhere near good enough to belong to a film hailed as a "classic" (apparently it only takes a year before a film can be deemed classic by whomever decides such things). Watching it reminded me of watching movies like Babel, which I thought would be an awesome film but was actually just a depressing hodge-podge that didn't deserve it's 150 minutes or so.

This could've been a great film, but the sad, inescapable fact is that there's no point to any of it. Most great films have some sort of point to make, even if it's trite, but this film seems to only exist to look pretty and convince critics that it's wearing the emperor's latest line of clothes. What bugs me the most is that I like to think of myself as someone who knows their movies, but again and again I find myself disagreeing strongly with the majority of critics on films like this. It's like scenesters of any variety: there are groud rules laid out about who is and who isn't worthy of praise and, regardless of the actual quality of their product, they are to be abhorred or adored. If going to university has taught me one thing, it's that you can make an argument for or against anything so long as you can find an appropriate context into which you can squeeze it.

Just more faux-intellectual bullshit for the masses I guess. Now Forgetting Sarah Marshall, there's a movie!

Nice one, dicks

Sun, 02 Nov 2008 21:49:23 GMT

For fuck's sake Hell. Almost nothing offends me, but Hell Pizza's lame, "controversial" campaigns always manage to raise my ire. OK, the Hitler thing was kinda funny, but handing out condoms? Making fun of Steve Irwin's death? They might as well just launch a postcard campaign saying "We're called Hell - shocking, right? Doesn't it just INFLAME you?" for how pathetic and obvious their schtick is. Like Marilyn Manson, it's all about trying to appear edgy, but that's hard to do when everything you do is just a lame retread of someone who did it better. How dumb do you really have to be to make fun of Sir Edmund Hillary in a New Zealand advertisement when his bones haven't even been cold a year? You'd have to be even dumber to throw Heath Ledger into the mix, and all for the sake of drawing attention to their overpriced, although decent, pizzas.

Makes me think of the kind of people who wear those "Good Bush, Bad Bush" t-shirts and think they're funnier than Delirious-era Eddie Murphy.

In other news, I watched Doomsday yesterday and it was one of the best blatant rip-offs of Esacpe From Absolom/New York/L.A. I've seen in a while. Basically, there's a killer virus, Scotland is walled off and quarantined and everything's OK for 30 years, until the virus hits London and starts fucking up motherfuckers. Of course, there are still a lot of survivors in Scotland, leading them to believe there's a cure, so they send in that hot chick from Boston Legal with some soldier guys. Imagine how crazy a whole country's worth of Scots would get if they were walled in for 30 years without any contact with the outside world:

Yep, seems about right. While it's highly derivative, Doomsday delivers the visceral joy, with fast-pace violence, nice set pieces and rad costumes. Mad Max is another clear influence, which means a few sweet car chases and a vaguely homoerotic subtext, as will as the awesome Killbus up there. One for the 13 year old boy in all of us.

Also, in honour of this cool write-up of the Saw movies, I watched the first installment last night for the first time since it came out on DVD. It still held up OK, although I have two bones to pick. Firstly, enough with the flashbacks. Every film in the franchise has an annoying habit of using excessive flashbacks to remind the viewer of something they saw about half an hour ago. The first is especially good at making use of subtleties, but they piss that all away by beating us around the head with that to which the subtleties are pointing. The worst is when Adam tells Lawrence where he got the photos from (you know, the ones in the bag with the hacksaws) and we get a redundant flashback to Adam pulling the bag from the dunny. I hate that because it not only insults my intelligence, but it also makes me think that they needed to add filler in order to stretch the film out to feature length. They lose more points for overuse of Lawrence in the car park. I'm pretty sure that I forgot what my nana's voice sounded like because of the space that took up. Nice.

My other grudge is that they attribute everything to one terminally ill old man, when I always thought it'd be way better if the killer ended up being revealed as a cult who carried out his whims. Think about it, it makes a damn sight more sense. Given the amount of intimate life details that Jigsaw is privvy to, he might as well be omniscient, making him just another in a long line of impossible skilled movie serial killers (when I first watched Saw, I kept thinking "This is OK, but Se7en takes it to school in the short bus"). However, if he was a cult leader dispatching units to orchestrate his projects, Fight Club style, it wouldn't be so hard to quell my sense of disbelief. Still, it's not about the plot, it's about the gory traps, and they do still inspire a fair amount of terror, so I have to admit that it still holds up a few years later. I'm still not much of a convert though.

In other years, I'm done with university for the year and it's so relieving to have a licence to laziness again. Poor Emmy has two more exams to knock off (one of which is today), but the end is in sight. I've been trying to sort out what I'm doing next year, but my application for the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing is taking forever. I was warned that, while they're glad to have me do the MFA, the English department is extremely short of supervisors of study so the odds are it won't happen in 2009. It fucks me off because it has (almost) nothing to do with the quality of my work and (almost) everything to do with the massive cut-backs and lay-offs that persist in happening. My application has only been making the rounds for a week and a half, so I might still get a bite, but I can't shake the feeling in my gut that I'm going to end up just doing a boring Masters thesis instead.

But fuck it. I'm just glad I'm done for the year and can focus more time on projects like reading It and setting a new personal record for time spent in pyjamas. Some might call it wasting time, but what do they know?

Goodbye, children

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:52:05 GMT

Isaac Hayes dead at 65.

First Bernie Mac, now this? Someone better keep an eye on Samuel L. Jackson.

At least Chef got a decent send-off.

"wicked and psychotic, mixed with a fatally cruel sense of humour"

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 05:00:08 GMT

That's what Johnny Rotten said about Shakespeare's Richard III (the character that is, not the actual play) in his autobiography. This week I had to plough through it for my Shakespeare Adaptation class and it's random to hear that someone like Johnny Bloody Rotten can identify with a major character in English literature and still sing about being pretty va...cunt. It cracks me up though; Richard III (the play) was written to hassle the guy of the same name in order to fit in with the opinions of Elizabeth I and allow Big Willy to keep his head, while the guy who ended up rallying against everything Elizabeth II stands for identifies with him.

...

Maybe that one's just for me.

Anyway, yeah, busy semester. I'm lousy at Shakespeare so getting through a play a week as well as grappling with an adaptation is chore enough without having to read a novel a week for NZ Literature. At least I enjoy that one though; we just finished getting stuck into this impossibly pretentious and toffy book called Different Kinds of Pleasure. It's all about these poncy rich fucks getting into ballet and latin and cricket and stuff like that while whining about their lives and doing nothing to fix their problems. Also, the most interesting characters get killed off or made to look bad, so it was pretty insulting all round. Great fun to savage in class though.

Other than that, life's going pretty good. I think Em and I have been going out for about a six months or so, so that's awesome. Turned 25 the other week too, which means I get $220 a week from the gummit instead of $191 like I used to, so that's awesome. Went and saw The Dark Knight last week and that was just stone cold wicked bad sweet. Can't wait to buy the DVD.

But yeah, things are pretty good all over. If only I wasn't forced into doing a Shakespeare paper, then I'd be set.

Once again, New Zealand triumphs

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 12:00:15 GMT

I wouldn't have minded.

No Country For Your Face

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 00:17:58 GMT

OK.

Everyone who knows me knows that I'm somewhat of a film buff and that I'm, without wanting to sound like a wanker, fairly intelligent when it comes to interpretation, symbolism and all that sorta thing. No Country For Old Men, aka the winner of the Best Picture Oscar earlier this year, is a film I've been wanting to see for ages. Everyone I know who saw it told me it was wicked. I've been having this movie's merits expressed to me ever since someone was able to download it. I like the Coen brothers and I love the idea of a GOOD movie being released for once, so I couldn't wait for it to be released at the store.

Guess what? It fucking sucked.

Well, to be fair, the first 3/4 ruled, with it's fantastic cinematography, superb acting and excellent storyline and pacing. But then, at around the 1 hour 30 minutes mark, the story grinds to a halt and just peters out, leaving the remaining characters to indulge in pointless, meandering monologues that don't explain anything or entertain anyone. Basically, it's the film equivalent of beating Bowser at the end of a world in Super Mario Bros. and being told that the princess is in the other castle.

Yet the film's getting almost universal praise. Admittedly, it's better than the other crap that gets flung out nowadays, but at least Cloverfield entertained me and left me feeling energised rather than...nothing. In fact, Cloverfield is one of the few new movies I've watched this year that have been any good in any measure of the word [also worth watching is Infamous, The Dajeeling Ltd., Juno and Perfume: Story of a Murderer, but I digress], assuring me that decent new movies are the lastest endangered species. Pretty much everything that comes out is either overwhelmingly generic, undermade, overloaded with bad CGI or just too damn arty-farty. Some big budget blockbusters get a pass because of their role as blatantly mindless entertainment, but most of the time they even fuck that up [except maybe for Iron Man, which I've heard is good from many sources and is getting almost universal...wait a minute!].

But No Country is a film that should've been a slam dunk. The Coen's have an amazing pedigree and they do sinister violence with a subtlety rarely seen in a world overrun by Saw clones. Maybe there's something I was missing. Checking out messageboards only resulted in me getting further annoyed as it's full of people being called morons and dumbarses for not liking or getting the movie, making it seem like the kind of movie that only pricks like so they can joke with other pricks about the uncouth commoners who need things like "closure" and "entertainment" and "coherency" in their movies. So, apparently, the only thing stopping me from enjoying this movie is that I'm not a prick.

Actually, I take that back. What stopped me enjoying this movie is that it finishes rather than ends. Like Broken Flowers, No Country is techincally brilliant yet doesn't have a proper ending and just cuts to black at a random moment, as if there was a stopwatch by the camera letting them know when they had enough to pad out a movie. This being a bad movie isn't in itself such a bad thing, but it bugs me that THIS is what is getting all the critical praise, meaning that I can't really trust anyone's word on what makes a good movie, possibly because our standards are so low now thanks to years of half-arsed filmmaking.

Usually I wouldn't go on a rant like this on here, but it pisses me off so much that I needed a outlet and I'd only be branded an idiot if I dared to try and have a proper discussion on a messageboard. No wonder I read more these days.

Another example of why Achewood punishes

Wed, 23 Jan 2008 09:25:50 GMT

Amen Mayor Smuckles.

The last few weeks have been a real mixed bag. More on that when I feel like telling.

Big Day Out was powerhouse.
Heath Ledger died, what a massive drag. Every time I saw a DVD cover with his face on it at work tonight I felt my heart skip a little.
Auckland was well fun, like usual.
My natural grandmother also died, another drag.
I got enough holiday pay for me to successfully pay off my overdraft by term time.
Sorting out uni is turning into a hassle.
Handed in my notice at work; once 25 February rolls around I'm unemployed.

Details at six.

My story about Sir Ed

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 14:58:37 GMT

So Sir Edmund Hillary has tapped his keg and, while it's sad and all, dude was well old and had done as much as anyone could hope to achieve in his life, so big ups to the man who had no qualms about the knocking off of bastards. That time I got to meet him seems worth bringing up now, if only because it's a good story and now's as good a time as any to share yarns about the dude.

See, unbeknown to most, Aranui High School has a lot of ties with Tibet, specifically the areas where Sir Ed made great strides to improve the overall quality of life. I forget the specifics, but one day it was announced that he was going to pay our humble school a visit, so of course we had to put on a massive show. As part of the drama group, I was roped into helping write and perform a short sketch celebrating Hillary's bitchslapping of Mt Everest and I bet you can't guess who got to play the man heself. Go on, you'll never pick it.

I forgot what happened in the sketch. There were jokes about Weet-Bix and knocking off b-words and some outrageous Scottish stereotypes, but I cannae ken more thin thit. What sticks in my mind is the classic moment when he came in to watch the arse-end of a dress rehearsal and then we shared the mother of all photo ops when I, dressed as a a young Hillary, rucksack and all, shook hands with the real deal, who looked dapper as I might add.

I might also add that, apart from when the cameras were around, he was a right grumpy shit, totally over the media and any other unwanted attention. Couldn't blame the guy; knighthood must come with all sorts of hassle after all. His wife was absolutely lovely and she even went so far as to say that I "captured him completely, it was like looking back in time" [!],which still remains the best compliment I've ever recieved for my "acting". Naturally, I was fully shitcanning myself at the prospect of playing someone who was right there in the fucking audience, but knowing that I pulled it off did more for my ego than a million blowjobs.

So yeah, a tops bloke on all angles in my opinion, but that's not the best part of the story. During the fluffaround of giving a performance and meeting the man and being all "Hey I just played you onstage" I managed to secure myself an autograph on a fiver, which he apparently fucking hated doing. I just heard tonight that signed fivers are getting upwards of $400 on Trade Me. With all due respect to the man in question, it looks like I've accidentally got myself quite a nice cash cow all of a sudden.

At the same time, it feels a bit like selling Kurt Cobain's shotgun; it's just a wee bit sacrilege. What's a dude to do?

Times is rougher than a mother

Sat, 22 Dec 2007 09:32:53 GMT

Fuck I hate the holidays. Not so much the Christmas/New Year's sorta thing, that whole shebang is perfectly fine and for the most part I'm indifferent. But man does it suck knowing that not only do I have no school, but neither does anyone else, which means more kids everywhere, but especially it means more kids at work. Arrogant, disobedient little sods every one of them and if they're not an ill-bred little hellraiser, then I bet they're thinking about signing up. Worst of all though, there's no uni.

On the surface, an absence of classes is right up there with sex with Jessica Alba on the list of Awesome Things [although I can only speculate unless she starts answering my letters], but, much like a certain pill-popping uber-doctor on TV, I put a lot of stock in my academic endeavours so no uni, for me, almost means no identity. Without a class to be bunking from or an overdue essay to be procrastinating on there's not a helluva lot else going on for me besides Guitar Hero, Calvin & Hobbes and Paul Jennings. Oh, and the ever-annoying Sorting Out Of Next Year's Classes.

After a meeting with the Head of the English department, the esteemed Mr Patrick Evans, who was pretty impressed with my results and wanted me to keep studying more than I want sex with Jessica Alba, I've fully embraced the idea of doing an Honours year in '08. He stressed the creative writing courses offered and said I'd probably be interested in what sounds like the best class possible for someone like me. Basically, I meet with him [or another teacher] once a week [or fortnight, if I wish to be so lazy] to talk about whatever I've been writing. No classes, just meetings. I don't even have to do more than one story if I don't want to. Too good to be true? Not this time. The best part is that I don't need a portfolio to apply. The only requirements is approval from the HOD, and seeing as how he was practically bribing me to take it I think that it's more or less in the bag. Man, recognition smells sweet.

Oh yeah, and BDO '08 timetables are available now. I've already planned out my day:

12:30-1:15 - The Checks
1:15-1:45 - Liam Finn
2:15-3:00 - Kool Keith and Kutmasta Kurt
3:45-4:30 - Dizzee Rascal
4:45-5:30 - Battles
5:15-6:15 - Unkle
6:15-7:00 - Tom Morello aka The Nightwatchman
8:30-9:15 - Enter Shikari
8:00-9:15 - Bjork
9:15-10:30 - Rage Against The Machine
10:45-11:30 - Supergroove

There's a bit of overlap but you get the idea. 2008's already off to a good start.

Worst Synopsis Ever

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 02:42:09 GMT

"In Springfield, Lisa convinces the locals to clean up the polluted Lake Springfield after the sinking of the stage of the Green Day in a concert of rock and roll. Meanwhile, Homer saves a pig from being killed in Krusty Burger and adopts it, calling the animal Spider Pig. After two days, Spider Pig fills up a silo with its excrement and Homer dumps the silo in the lake, polluting it. The angry population forces the Simpsons to move to Alaska. Meanwhile the president Arnold Schwarzenegger is induced by his advisor from EPA to put a dome over Springfield to hold the population and destroy the city. When Marge sees the new in the television, she tells Homer that they must return to Springfield to save their town and friends, but Homer is not convinced if people of Springfield deserve their support."

That's taken verbatim from the Video Ezy slick for The Simpsons Movie. Who writes this gibberish?

An article about fillums

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:57:09 GMT

Exaggerating Quality for Fame and Profit: 5 Incredibly Overrated Cult Films

By Cliché Guevara

Ever look closely at the cover of a DVD? If it’s a film that made brontosaurus bucks at the flicks, you bet your bunghole that it has “Special Edition” written in nice shiny letters across the top. Maybe it’s the 2-disc “Collector’s Edition” with an extra disc full of the same hour’s worth of footage re-cut as 4 different making of that you’re never going to watch anyway. Yet even though most of us are cynical enough to know that it’s all a bunch of poohdust, there’s still an undeniable allure to these labels that makes us feel like we’ve gotten a good deal, even if the stripped-back, single disc, not-so-special, non-collector’s edition is $5 cheaper and has just as much movie on it.

A similar spell is cast by the shakily defined genre of arthouse. Like indie, cult and New Wave, it’s impossible to come up with a definitive definition of what constitutes an arthouse film. Personally, I think it’s a silly term – surely all cinema is art, right? According to Dr. Wikipedia, an arthouse film is “a typically serious, noncommercial, independently made film that is aimed at a niche audience”, which at least explains why the vile rape/revenge fantasy I Spit On Your Grave ever got made. However, the good doctor falls short of telling us why arthouse has become a blanket term used by film nuts and video stores the world over to include anything that’s just a little bit odd and doesn’t warrant ordering more than 2 copies.

I don’t know either, but I do know that “arthouse” films, as a rule, get way more praise than they deserve, from mainstream and independent media alike. And don’t forget the stupid bastards who watch these pretentious, explosion-free, witless “portraits” and then go on to look down their noses at the flat-headed philistines who didn’t get the obvious symbolism between a boring road trip and the American occupation of Iraq (the sanity-draining Twenty-Nine Palms). I mean, what more information do you need? So, in the interest of saving you two hour chunks of your life so you can watch more downloaded episodes of Heroes, here’s a list of my Top 5 Overrated Arthouse films.

Overrated Film Number Five: Adaptation (2002)

Reception: “overwhelming critical acclaim” (Wikipedia)

Why It Sucks: The short version is that it’s just too confusing to be fun. Even reading the plot summary has you reaching for the Nurofen and you end up knowing less about the film than before you read the damn thing. Supposedly, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman is asked to write a screenplay for a film adaptation of a book, but decides that the book can’t be filmed. So he writes a screenplay about a scriptwriter trying to write a screenplay based on a difficult book, which is basically the film version of that old trick we all played in fifth form English when you write a story about how hard it is to write a story.

As well as all that, Charlie (who’s a real person and writer of this migraine) is annoyed by his twin brother Donald (who isn’t real, but is in the movie, I think) who also wants to be a screenwriter and- oh who the hell cares? I’m sure that Kaufman felt really clever when he was sitting as his typewriter banging this out, but ultimately Adaptation is afflicted by a similar curse to the one that plagues The Simpsons: it’s more fun to talk about than to actually watch. Except that Adaptation isn’t any fun at all to watch, despite the presence of two Nicholas “Put the bunny back in the box” Cages.

All in all, it feels too much like a post-modern self-indulgent experiment that has most of its fun at the expense of the audience. A lot of critics and film buffs love it, so you’d be forgiven for assuming that it’s something more than a rotten egg omelette. But, really, it’s just Charlie Kaufman talking to his imaginary friend and getting his buddy Spike Jonze to film it. Gotta give them points for guts though; this was either going to totally rule or totally fail. I guess what happened really depends on your interpretation.

Redeeming feature: Well, they did make Being John Malkovich, and that was pretty decent.

Overrated Film Number Four: Coffee and Cigarettes (2003)

Reception: A big following amongst anyone who considers themselves “cultured” and/or is a White Stripes fan

Why It Sucks: Because it’s like a 95 minute version of every conversation you’ve ever had in a café with anyone. On paper, it’s a decent concept, but Jim Jarmusch apparently forgot that most of our conversation is made up of small talk and small talk is, well, pretty fucking boring. If Jarmusch has set the whole thing in one café with the camera weaving in and out of different conversations then he’d really be onto something flash, but by making a series of short films instead, he kills the chatty flow he could’ve easily maintained had he not been so hung up on casting celebrities as well as established actors.

Admittedly, two of those celebrities kick immeasurable quantities of arse and the conversation written for them is exactly how we would imagine them conversing backstage. But not even Iggy Pop and Tom Waits can keep their segment from lapsing into a series of extended pauses punctuated with awkward silences and shifting gazes. This motif, like the eye-catching blend of black and white weaves through all the stories, meaning that even Jack and Meg White, another two talented musicians who also climb to have a sibling-like relationship find themselves being reluctant to talk and shifting their weight like the Chief of Police being put on the hot seat.

So it’s a good thing that Jarmusch has the Wanker Squad on hand to point out to fun-killing cretins like myself that the films are about how we can get drawn into the world of someone else’s obsessions and fascinations if only we had the time to go have a cuppa and a ciggie. But if their conversation is anywhere as dim and uninspiring as what we see here, then who’d want to bother?

Redeeming feature: Bill Murray. The guy’s like tomato sauce; he can make anything palatable. Yeah, even Broken Flowers.

Overrated Film Number Three: 9 Songs (2004)

Reception: I dunno, but I guess there’s a fan base comprised of horny men and art students who don’t want to admit that they like porn, or, in some cases, both

Why It Sucks: It makes sex look dull. Also, it’s an extremely lazy concept that makes arthouse fans drool: what if, instead of focusing on walking down the beach holding hands and talking about kittens, we make a relationship film that focuses entirely on the screwing? And, in between extended scenes of rutting, we can have bands like Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and The Dandy Warhols playing a song in Brixton Academy? I have to admit, it sounds like an entertaining romp, no matter how transparent Michael Winterbottom’s grasps at notoriety are here. But then he had to get all weird with it.

First of all, the film is 69 minutes long, immediately ruining any credibility the project may have had originally. Maybe I’m making mountains out of mole turds here, but if I was making a serious film about sex then I’d do anything to avoid making it 69 minutes long. If he couldn’t be bothered doing some editing there, Winterbottom might as well have called it Bands and Bonking. Also, much was made of the fact that 9 Songs shows “realistic” sex scenes, a cinematic rarity.

Bullshit. Not once was there a moment of awkward positioning. Not once did the actors come across a condom that simply would not open without application of the rip’n’tear technique that most of us have had to apply at one time or another. And Matt’s onscreen orgasm has to be the most pathetic, pitiful and downright emotionless climax in the history of the world. Even Paris could have done a better job. Still, there is a bit of a sexy air to the whole thing, but damned if it doesn’t get old really quickly. Just rent a porno if you want to watch sex. At least they look like they’re into it.

Redeeming feature: The bands. I actually found myself skipping through the sex to get to the music, which is kinda like fast-forwarding through House to see that McDonald’s ad where Richard keeps hitting himself.

Overrated Film Number Two: Donnie Darko (2001)

Reception: Do you need to ask? This film is so popular there’s even a book about it, with a foreword by noted physicist Jake Gyllenhaal.

Why It Sucks: It’s nowhere near as good as people make it out to be. Before I ever saw it, I had a friend tell me it was his favourite film of the last decade. Now, that’s some stiff competition there; anything that can lay claim to that title has to be better than Fight Club, Pulp Fiction and Josie and the Pussycats. Naturally, I had high hopes. Boy did I feel suckered.

Like Adaptation, the plot isn’t really worth relating as it’d just end with me punching the next stranger I see because of the frustration that comes with trying to explain a movie that throws around more horseshit than an angry gardener. Fortunately, Doctor Wiki comes to the rescue again with a diamond quote that sums up the film better than Ebert ever could: “One morning, a jet engine from a commercial Boeing 747 falls into Donnie's bedroom; he avoids death by obeying a voice in his head causing him to sleepwalk outside from his room, corrupting space and time.”

As you do. This is probably one of those “maybe it’s just me” things, but if someone’s corrupting space and time, there better be a bearded dude named Rufus with a magic telephone booth somewhere in the vicinity. Instead we get some creepy guy in a bunny suit, which is probably meant to be a reference to Alice in Wonderland or something. At any rate, it doesn’t come close to cutting mustard and is just another pointless plot point in a film that is basically The Matrix without the kung fu.

Redeeming feature: It provides a handy gauge for finding cinematic wanks.

The Most Overrated Film On This List: Elephant (2003)

Reception: A few awards with foreign names

Why It Sucks: I need to digress for a bit: Fuck you Gus Van Sant. Kevin Smith may have turned into a hack version of himself, but he still nailed your arse to the wall when he portrayed you as a money-grubbing hack in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. It’s bad enough that you re-filmed Psycho scene for scene, which makes as much sense as Britney Spears trying to create Straight Outta Compton word for word. But then you had to turn in this go-nowhere up-yours to people who enjoy films where stuff happens and people have actual conversations. Which just so happened to be based on Columbine, no matter how much you say it wasn’t.

It could just be that I have a personal biased against this guy, but Elephant really is a shitty, shitty movie. A movie based on Columbine could’ve been really enthralling by capturing the tension those kids that survived must’ve felt when faced with heavily armed nihilistic teenagers, but instead we get clouds. About every five minutes Van Sant cuts to a floaty shot of clouds blowing by in the wind, apparently to symbolise something. And don’t get me started on the walking. After 30 seconds of following someone shuffling around an oppressive school hallway, we understand that they’re feeling isolated and strange. So why fill up half the movie with it? Run out of ideas to rip off? Also, check out Last Days for the same thing, except this time it’s about Kurt Cobain. Only, not.

Redeeming feature: It ends.

Also worth sharing

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:30:22 GMT

Damn I love Achewood

We have just lost cabin pressure

Mon, 24 Sep 2007 23:05:55 GMT

The editor of Canta is leaving after the last issue this year, meaning that the position is open for next year.

I can safely say without exaggeration that I have a fair chance of scoring this.

It'd be a fantastic opportunity.

But I wouldn't be able to move to Wellington in January, something I've been excited about for months.

Oh shiiiiit.

Satellites O’Love: Stalking The O’Lovelys in Wellington

Mon, 03 Sep 2007 06:52:04 GMT

So here's the reason I went up to Wellington. Enjoy!

Satellites O’Love: Stalking The O’Lovelys in Wellington

By Cliché Guevara

There are figuratively millions of people in the entertainment industry whose personalities totally go against their body of work. Despite waxing lyrical honey on fireside love-making, Isaac Hayes is a bit of a jerk by most accounts. Sting is generally regarded as a major douche bag even though he had a particularly funny Simpsons appearance (“Quiet Marge, he’s a good digger!”). Quentin Tarantino is also a total and utter bastard, going against- actually, that one makes a lot of sense.

But nothing could be further from the truth for Christchurch band The O’Lovelys. For those who haven’t experienced the fizzy dollar mixture that is an O’Lovelys gig, the band mines a musical vein somewhere between The Veils and Yeah Yeah Yeahs with a slight twist of Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds. Although that description serves as a good starting point, it hardly does them justice as their sound is really quite unlike anything heard before, with an overdose of energy and passion that grabs your heart and loosens your booty. At any rate, it’s more accurate than some of the other descriptions bandied about recently, like comparisons to Cat Power and the label “new folk power pop”, whose meaning still totally escapes me.

Point-missing descriptions aside, The O’Lovelys have a vitality not often seen in the murky Christchurch music scene. Like contemporaries and soon-to-be household names The Ragamuffin Children (keyboard seamstress Brooke Singer also doubles as one half of this whimsical duo), their music is a lifting breath of fresh air that gives life to songs that are chocka with a scroggin-like mix of drama, energy, theatrics, groove, rock and soul. It’s hard to fathom how a group of young scallywags can produce such amazing soundscapes, but when you hang out with them, you can see where their spirited performances come from.

Perhaps a roll call is necessary. At the core is the dynamic duo of Laura Lee (vocals/synth) and Brooke (keys), collaborators since lunch money days at Hagley Community College. Laura Lee’s opera-trained voice is powerful enough to make vultures cry and gargoyles dance with Brooke’s ballerina-elegant key work providing a foundation most divine. Supplementing the sound is resident guitar hero Joe B Sampson a.k.a Joe Sambo, who is the kind of guy who buys a $7 hip flask then gives it to you because “you’ll get more use out of it than me” (Thanks Joe!). Bringing up the rear is Matt on drums, laying down rhinoceros-heavy beats with surgical precision. By their powers combined, they are captains of the O’Lovely ship and just recently they let the wind in their sails, pointed themselves towards Wellington to record their debut EP and went hard for starboard.

Guess who tagged along like a stubborn barnacle on the hull?

Random bits from my notebook #1:

(the band strikes up a conversation about KFC)

Joe: I used to get it on the way to practice, all the time.

Brooke: Urgh, I went off it even before I turned vegetarian.

Joe: Those Twistas are getting smaller and smaller too, I swear it. Such a rip-off now. That’s why I don’t go.

Laura Lee: I used to see this little Asian man around my work. He’d say he was going to KFC, but he’d call it “Dirty Bird”. Every day he’d tell me about going to get Dirty Bird. Then he’d flap his arms like a chicken.

The bands a few years away from the Ritz lifestyle usually favoured by genre-twisting rock stars, so we had to make do with a backpacker’s. The accommodation was pretty spiffy actually, although it was a bit cramped with all the equipment we had to lug around. It was fun to constantly be mistaken for a band member though (“You know, I’m quite essential to the creative process. They wouldn’t get far without me”), and one particularly naïve person mistook me for the band’s manager. HA! As if. The O’Lovelys are one band that wouldn’t have any use for a manager, especially with Brooke and Laura Lee being every bit the professional musicians, holding together all the loose ends. Sometimes their organisation was a little unnerving; aren’t touring musicians supposed to be all party animal and no responsibility?

But we’re a long way from a motley crew here, although Joe does his bit for the spandex brigade by lining up Jager shots once the day’s duties had been taken care of. Not that the others were dull; anything but. Spare time was also spent drawing, cutting up flyers (pretty much all the band’s posters are done by themselves), mingling, talking about music ‘til the small hours and eating upstairs. Part of The O’Lovelys generous spirit came through using the medium of food:

“Want some of my pasta?”

“Would you like a spread of my peanut butter?”

“Want the rest of this Coke?”

“Another Jager shot?”

A far cry from the selfish hedonism usually associated with professional musicians and, in a weird way, much more fun to be involved with.

Fun is definitely the operative word with this lot, even when they’re working. Most of their recording was done at Art Space (at least, I think that’s what it was called) which, annoyingly, was too far out of town for me to be bothered mishing to. Seriously, it was like, totally far, man. Ages. I heard it was kinda chilly anyway, with Brooke having to wrap herself in a heavy blanket to combat the cold. I did manage to hang with them when they recorded somewhere a bit more central on our last day in town though. Laura Lee was laying down vocals that day and despite having a bit of a cold and a few missteps here and there, no one lost their cool. The respect paid towards each other was quite remarkable considering the little amount of studio time available and the urgency of the situation. Like I said, professionals. Natural born. Dyed in the wool. Bound to be huge.

Random bits from my notebook #2:

Joe: Hey, check it out: (holds up a sports bag with every panel made of material that’s a different primary colour) It’s my So So Modern bag!

Hugeness doesn’t come cheap and The O’Lovelys have spent a lot of 2007 paying their dues, playing an endless line of gigs around town in places like The Jetset Lounge, Al’s Bar and, of course, The Dux. Unless you live in Christchurch, you didn’t have a chance to enjoy their infinitely awesome live show, but that all changed with this trip including their first ever Wellington gig. They played with local Wellington band Fighting the Shakes at a club called Mighty Mighty on Cuba Street. It’s a fun bar, with a T.G.I. Friday’s meets Live At The Apollo atmosphere and drinks menus printed on LP covers. It also has animal heads mounted on the wall and a noted lack of a stage. No matter, the band doesn’t like being elevated anyway.

Unfortunately, sound check was a bit of a go-nowhere. No one’s fault really, it’s just hard to get much work done when there’s two bands to set up before a movie screening at 5, so it kinda had to be left as it was. It did provide a good opportunity to buddy up to the guys from Fighting the Shakes, who impressed me even before they played with their bass amp so massive that it required a sack barrow just to lug it a few feet. Raw power as. They were really nice fellas too, with a sharp sense of humour to boot:

“So what kinda of music do you play?”

“Oh, you know, Creed, Nickleback, that sorta thing.”
“Really?”

“Nah!”

Cheeky bastards, had us all going.

Sound check also provided Joe a good opportunity to flirt with Sally the sound girl, which of course led to Laura Lee insisting that he propose to her after the gig. You know, she might say yes, since he is in the band and everything. Everyone knows chicks love guitar players. Nothing ever came of it, disappointingly. Maybe Joe’s married to the music instead.

Random bits from my notebook #3:

“band backstabbed in betrayal of Shakespearian proportions”

“the lack of a sound check is the rawest deal since the Treaty of Waitangi”

-note to self: DON’T drink and review.

Even though it wasn’t a typical stage set up and the band hadn’t had a proper chance to prepare, the tone of “the Mights” suited their sound beautifully. Because there was no stage and a multitude of tables and chairs, their performance was more dinner theatre than a straight gig, opening up all kinds of wonderfully wanky post-modern interpretations. Not to me though, I was there to shut up and dance, what with more than a few beers under my belt. The first few songs suffered from being a bit fuzzy around the edges, but I was probably the only one to notice, if the dancing bodies were anything to go by and in my experience, they always are.

The O’Lovelys hit the ground running like always, with every note of every instrument ringing as potently as a heart attack and with every syllable out of Laura Lee’s throat going right for the jugular. Their endearing spirit was painted all over Mighty Mighty and it didn’t take long for all of the crowd to be swept up from under the carpet and into the swing set. Noting song titles is a bit redundant with these fun time warriors, as no one song is ever particularly weak or strong in any given set.

Maybe I’m carrying on a bit. Maybe I’m exaggerating. Maybe I’m missing out bad bits. Maybe that’s all true. But there’s no better way to capture the vibe of a good O’Lovelys gig. Anyone who has seen one would surely attest: even if they make a mistake, it’s awesome. Like a champion dancer, every misstep is quickly forgiven as the next five are sure to dazzle. The perfect mix of style and substance, tragedy and comedy, rock and some very dynamic roll. Maybe I am exaggerating. That doesn’t mean it isn’t bloody fantastic.

Fighting the Shakes promptly followed and they really tore the roof off the sucka. By that point I’d had a few more beers on the band’s bar tab (hey, it’s not my fault if the bar gives me free drinks without asking any questions) as well as a cheeky cocktail called a Bro Diddley, so I can’t remember much of their set other than it rocked like a brontosaurus having an eppy and included a blinding cover of Joy Division’s “Transmission”, which absolutely made my night and sent me off whirling Dervish towards ecstasy. No exaggeration necessary here, all you need to know is that these buggers are LOUD and fun with it. Check them if you get the chance.

The music industry is a notoriously hungry and fickle beast that often eats it’s young, but The O’Lovelys have the talent and the gumption to make it huge. With misery rock dominating the charts practically everywhere, surely there’s room for some genuine joy to enthusiastically slip through? From what I’ve heard of their soon-to-be-released EP, there’s chart-toppers a-poppin’ and no doubt there’s more waiting to be delivered in the collective minds of Team O’Lovely. With all the arseholes out there getting fat and rich off their art, spare some time for the avoidably puntastic lovely people that make up one of the most original and fun-loving emerging bands in the country. So, if you see they’re playing a gig near you, make sure you go. If you see their CD on the shelf, give it a listen. If you hear one of their songs played on the radio, like “Black Stitch”, “Scatterbrain” or “Spacesuits”, ring them up and ask them to play it again. Because time spent with the O’Lovelys is always more welcome than a free pizza.

http://www.myspace.com/theolovelys

Papa was a rollin' stone

Sun, 02 Sep 2007 04:19:34 GMT

Ah, Father's Day. As meaningless as all those Hallmark holidays are to me, today is especially unremarkable because of my lack of any kind of significant relationship with my father. It doesn't bother me these days; I'm a grown man, I've done fine getting this far without his influence and my mum does enough parenting to make up for it. I've always felt sorry for my 3 brothers and 1 sister that he had after divorcing my mother and today I was given another reason to hold that opinion.

See, Bryce, my youngest brother at 12, has been put into foster care and is doing far better than he ever would've done in my father's care, so no big deal there. He's a lot happier than I remember, he's doing well in school, all that good stuff. Today he was told to come over to my dad's house at 11 for a visit. He showed up a bit early to find no one at home, so he biked around for a bit and went back. Still no one at home. So he waited outside for 2 hours. No sign of life. Then he went home and called his house. 12 times. No answer.

As I write this now he still hasn't seen his dad today and it's obviously broken his heart. He'd even bought a flash frosted All Blacks mug and a card.

Now isn' t that disgusting? I'm pretty used to the neglect but I know that feeling of abandonment from my own childhood so it resonates pretty strongly for me. Especially since the last time I remember having a proper chat with my dad that he expressed a lot of guilt and regret about how slack he is as a father and how he'd promised to try harder. That was something like 3 years ago and he either hasn't chenged or he's gotten worse.

I'd think it was unbelievable if I'd expected anything different.

Now that that's off my chest...

As some of you I've had to move out of my flat suddenly because of internal combustion and some very ugly energy between Sam and I. I won't go into details here because it's such a complicated scenario, but I will say that I lost control and lashed out at him quite viciously, which in hindsight I know was the wrong choice to make because Sam's always been very sensitive to violence. Not that I think my actions are justified, but Sam and I were getting one ach other's case really heavily, rationality went out the window and the fists came flying.

Of course, there's more to it than that, but like I said, it's a complex issue that probably only makes real sense tot hose who know us really well.

So now I'm back at home and, although it was a bit rough for a week or so, I feel so settled and relaxed. It could be because Mum insists on taking care of every single domestic duty [who am I to argue?] but I think that getting away from the current vibe of The Bishop has been exactly what I'd been needing for...man, months. There's no real bad blood on my part, although Sam and I will stil be keeping our distance from each other for a good while.

Anner, Kate and Marc came out to Kylie's birthday on Friday [great night by the way, thanks largely to Michelle and her impossibly sexy dress]. I was glad to see that the dramas haven't had much of an impact of our friendships, although Marc really pissed me off by taking me aside and telling me that he wanted to hear my side of the story. Fair enough, but he would only let me talk for about two sentences then cut me off, so it was pretty obvious that he'd already made up his mind about my side of things. Kylie was trying to explain the situation to him and doing a pretty succinct job of it too [I was a bit too drunk] but he wouldn't let her talk either. Then he dropped some comment about how he heard I hadn't been taking my pills lately and maybe, maybe that's why I lashed out at Sam.

Nevermind that I have been continuing to take my meds and they've continued to work wonders on my moods, so fuck him for going there. But Marc is always going to be Marc so I'm not going to take it too personally. Still, I felt pretty insulted that he'd form such strong opinions without actually getting to the nub of my issues with me.

Those dramas aside, life's pretty sweet for me at the moment. I'm still sleepwalking through work [I'm at work right now even], I'm spending less money on bullshit and my thoughts are the clearest they've been for months.

If only we had internet on at home...

No Direction Home [Story]

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 06:14:22 GMT

Here's something I just finished for my Short Fiction class.

I wish I could've come up with a better ending but overall I'm pretty happy with it. Feel free to criticise the shit out of it.

“Aw for fuck’s sake!”

Once again I’m running late for a morning lecture and all I need is one cleanish mug so I can brew up a very necessary espresso to help dislodge the splinters from my brain. Once again all I can find is a chipped bowl and a solitary bent fork amongst a pile more reminiscent of overflowing Petri dishes from failed cloning experiments than dishes of the culinary kind. As I begrudgingly sipped on my rancid bowl coffee, I ran through my usual pros and cons list for living with my current fistful of derelicts.

There’s Polly, a warm friendly type with a flair for pancakes and a faithful beagle named Moose. Then there’s Anna, a sarcastic cynic like they used to make who’s unnaturally obsessed with skinny boys wearing floppy fringes and taking photos of herself despite crippling body image issues. And best of all there’s Johnny Zaing, my best friend and a strong contender for Weirdest Chinese Guy In The World. His life goals include being the first man to sleep with Brooke Fraser and developing a wine that not only tastes “positively orgasmic” but also causes the drinker to vomit violently. With Polly being an exception, I’ve known these people since milk money days on the schoolyard and in the six months we’ve been living together as students in this compost bucket on Sherborne Street these bonds have become stronger than Johnny’s homebrew sipping liquor.

I’ve also gained some new knowledge over these six months, such as the reluctance of most people to alter their ways. More importantly, I’ve figured out that too much time spent sitting in your room smoking pot and watching cartoons means that dishes are rarely much of a priority and you end up sipping instant coffee from a noodle bowl that drains any possible shred of dignity to be gained from the act while pondering exactly why it is you put with this shit in your daily life..

Methinks it might be time to move.

Smash cut to me moving in with Jack and Megan, a couple of two years who I found through the incestuous loose ties that holds the people of Christchurch together. Their story, as the friend of a friend who put me onto them told me, was that they met at the office where they both worked and love blossomed like a mediocre metaphor. Jack had just been steamrolled by his high school sweetheart and Megan was still coming to terms with her low self-esteem. Someone suggested they go out for a drink and the rest is for the ages. Just like a million other boring modern romances, although this one caught my interest because of the stark difference in their physical appearance. With Jack’s boyish good looks and handsome figure he could have any woman or man he wanted, yet he decided to pursue Megan. Megan, who had a face even Sid Vicious would think twice about. Megan, whose unfortunate nose and crooked teeth made her look like an albino Wicked Witch of the West. Megan, whose tragic appearance betrayed the golden personality hidden within.

Now don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against ugly people. Much like retards or any other kind of disabled person, they are different, not inferior, although I still wouldn’t trust a ‘tard with my taxes. But my curiosity has less to do with Megan’s appearance and more to do with the fact that Jack doesn’t seem to care. Sure, she’s an absolute gem of a girl, but personality is complimentary to someone’s appearance and never of greater importance, at least to my mind. Also, people should only be with other people of equal attractiveness. That’s why I’m still single – it’s incredibly hard to find a girl that I could take out to a party without having to endure the kind of stares that Jack and Megan have fired upon them whenever their hands touch.

My opinions on their coupling aside, it seems to work. Unlike so many modern partnerships they work as a team without resorting to anger or underhanded bitchiness. Individually they’re fantastic people as well, although I was initially worried about their mindsets when I saw the “MRSEXY” licence plate on Jack’s Honda City in the driveway. However, the alarm bells stopped chiming once he revealed that he got it second hand off a rent boy friend of his and decided that it was too funny to change, which summed up Jack’s character to me nicely. Any man who is both friends with a homosexual male prostitute and refuses to get rid of such a cheesy, giggle worthy personalised plate is sure to earn many gold stars on my achievement charts.

The interview went fairly typically.

No I don’t have any problems with smoking outside. Yeah I like the occasional dinner party, but nothing too hard out. No I don’t mind paying a set amount each week for expenses. Having a cleaning roster is quite alright with me, thanks. No I’m not allergic to cats. Man, I looooove James Brown!

That sort of thing.

No paperwork either, which is always handy if you need to bail at 2am on a Tuesday because one of your walls has fallen over. Best of all, I thought, these are people who understand how I want to live, who won’t put up with mould in the dog’s bowl, who won’t let mushrooms grow in the bathroom and who definitely won’t let the house be without a clean coffee mug.

As I neatly arranged my meagre belongings in my pristine new Fortress of Solitude, I was filled with a feeling of serenity and comfort that had been completely unknown to me since disengaging from my parental units all that time ago. It was like taking off my boots after a four-year hike. I was so invigorated that I had to stop myself from pirouetting with joy. This, I decided, is how prisoners of war feel when they’re finally returned to their homeland. This is how Anne Frank and Roberto Benigni would’ve felt if they’d made it out. This is freedom. Freedom from a best friend who can’t grasp the concept of “alone time”. Freedom from a neurotic girl who can’t stop talking about how fat she thinks she is. Freedom from another girl who never learnt that you have to clean as you cook. And freedom from her troublesome pooch, who once ate my magic mushroom stash and ended up barking at the microwave for three days solid.

It’s strange; I always thought that I’d find freedom amongst my closest friends. The friends who knew me the best, had seen me at my worst and were always in it for the long haul. Someone once told me that a good friend will bail you out of jail, whereas your best friend will be sitting in the cell next to you saying “That was fucking awesome!” In the folly of my yoof they were words to drink to, but now that I’m 22, I feel a certain air of maturity in my lungs that requires a lifestyle change and maybe even a friendship makeover. Being a drunken hooligan was fun on the bun while it lasted, but now it’s time for cleaner pastures.

Sure, I pondered as I alphabetised my CDs on my immaculate new bookshelf, I’ll miss Anna’s tireless tirades about just how much she’d like to lay the quivering body of Conor Oberst down by the gas heater while she makes whirlpools in his hair and paints his nails. And I’ll miss the marathon Grand Theft Auto sessions with Johnny that occasionally were known to last entire weekends, by which point we only had enough energy to scream the words “Crack a fat!” whenever we landed a sweet jump. Not to mention the batches of Chocolate Death Pancakes that Polly would fry up after we had a massive party. I’ll even miss the way Moose would wake me up by licking the bits between my toes whenever my clock radio pulled a sickie. But I won’t miss the squalor and frustration that comes from living in a house with self-righteous students who lack the adequate awareness of the world to know that the rubbish bag needs to be changed once it is overflowingly full and that truant puddles of vomit won’t clean up after themselves.

Yep, I’ve got a good feeling about this place.

The first month with Jack and Megan was, for lack of a better term, pleasant. Our evenings were often spent placing informal bets on who would win NZ Idol and attempting to topple Megan from her position as reigning Queen of Trivial Pursuit. On the weekend, these private activities would give way to very classy cocktail evenings that provided excellent opportunities for me to meet and greet their friends. It was on one of these cocktail evenings that I accidentally seduced one of their Korean co-workers by drunkenly carrying her off to my bedroom like a caveman with a mammoth carcass. I think her name was Song or Sang or something. Man I caught hell for that one. The bitchkrieg that Megan laid on me would've made Hitler turn tail and get the hell out of Poland.

"What were you thinking?!?"

"With all due respect, my penis was clearly the captain of my brain train by that stage."

"No you don't. Don't you try and hide behind your witticisms. Just because you have a sharp tongue doesn't mean you can cut me down to your level!"

"Now who's hiding behind witticisms?"

Fortunately, Jack came in from getting milk at this point and saw fit to intervene and remind Megan that Sing Sing (or whatever) is a fully grown woman who should've been in charge of her inhibitions and that I am merely a dude who can only be expected to act as dudes do.

A guy's argument if ever there was one but bless his bottle cap collection for at least shifting Megan's focus from me and onto him. She frogmarched his arse up to their room and continued the verbal air strike well in to the wee hours. The issue was never brought up in front of me again but I did notice that Sung didn't show at another cocktail evening. Whether she simply wasn't invited or was afraid of more Neanderthal romance remains unknown to me.

Of course I could let Megan away with that. It is rather ungentlemanly to give your flatmate's work buddy one night in rutting heaven and not even have the decency to remember her name. Truth be told I was quietly ashamed of myself after the fact. I consider myself to be a decent guy and decent guys don't take advantage of drunk Koreans. Still, there was no mistaking that look in her eye and I would've called her again if I'd had the forethought to ask for her number.

I did try and bleed it out of Megan but she'd already labelled me too much of a pig to be allowed anywhere near her timid Asian friend.

People and their impressions, I dunno.

Seems fitting that around this time I started to notice that the first impressions Megan made on me were starting to show some cracks.

Despite being a hip young professional, she was still tight with a dollar and would never loan me a few bucks for the bus. Plus, I would always find big clumps of her hair in the shower drain. They were gargantuan, like they were some Rasta hippo's dreadlocks or something. It bugged me, but I never brought it up, figuring that she simply wasn't aware and that I'd have to devote some serious training hours towards reaching any kind of satisfactory solution when, naturally, I couldn't be stuffed. Sure gave my mind something to munch on though.

One night I came in after a late lecture and man had it been arsey. It's hard enough to pay attention to Post-Colonial Writing in New Zealand without having some sub-intellectual wonk mentally masturbating all over the admittedly-quite-good-although-overrated work of the writers at the turn of the last century every five fucking minutes. Maybe it's one of those personal opinion things, but I can't help but feel that, as fascinating and important as these old authors are, their work has little resonance with a modern man of the land like myself. So whenever a Johnny Limpwrist starts spraying the white stuff around as soon as one of those names is dropped in any context, the blood starts to bubble.

Fortunately, help was at hand once I got home. After digging out my Hendrix stash tin from underneath my mattress, I put on a record and set to rolling myself up some herbal remedy. Once I'd finished tidying up the edges and admiring my handiwork, I applied the flame and said hi to the spirit in the sky. As the aroma of the city's finest filled my room I began daydreaming.

About whether I'd rather live without my thumbs or my middle fingers (thumbs won out, but only just). About the hilarious face that the Unknown Korean made at the height of intensity. And, for some reason, I pondered on the weird energy that permeates throughout Christchurch.

It seems whenever I walk through the inner city that I'm surrounded by people picking at rubbish bins, scouring the ground for discarded ciggie butts and hassling passers-by for change, no doubt to support a nasty glue-sniffing habit. At the same time, at all sides I see privileged young people with such a narrow focus that they're almost cross-eyed. Not one of them has a spare thought for the outside world and even if they did, you know they wouldn't have a shred of sympathy for every poor, poor, pitiful person skulking down the sidewalk.

There is a lot of anger and hatred in this fair city. If I drunkenly wander home after a weekend on the bourbs and I don't get called a fag or challenged to a fight along the way, I have to crack out the proverbial champagne. Maybe it's the weather. Like most South Island towns, Christchurch has a shaggy grey shawl around its shoulders that is hazardous to a dude's mood at the best of times. No, that can't be it. If anything, I see more fights break out over summer. Maybe it's because we're so far away from war zones that we have to create our own. It makes sense: put a lot of drunken oafs in a drizzly city with an oppressive police presence and sweet F.A. to do and the beast will come out to feed. No wonder everyone thinks we're cocks.

I was rudely jolted away from my bullshit sculpting by Megan knocking on my door.

"Yo!"

"Yeah, um, that no smoking policy applies to weed as well."

Oh shit.

"Oh, sorry Megan. Would it help my apology any if I offered you a bite?"

"Ummmmm…OK, but only if Shadrach can come in too."

"Shadrach?"

Right on cue, Shadrach the cat skulked into the room with his nose in the air as cats are often wont to do. I was wondering why they asked if I was allergic.

"Shadrach's a cool name for a cat. Is he named after the guy from the Book of Daniel who refused to worship King Nebuchadnezzar?"

"What? Nah, Jack just named him after the Beastie Boys song."

Its funny how one innocent sentence can completely change the way a person looks in your eyes. What kind of chump names their cat after a rap song? A white boy rap song at that? Have I made a fatal error of judgement?

Wait a minute, whoa, slow down. That's just the ganj talking. I'm getting carried away. Jack and Megan are wonderful people with a perfect house and a cushy lifestyle.

I Have Nothing To Worry About.

Then she drops the bomb.

"It's so nice to have someone cool to hang with while Jack's out with Polly."

"Who's Polly?"

"Well, Jack and I have an open relationship you see. Polly is one of the other girls he has on the go."

"She doesn't have a beagle by any chance does she?"

"Yeah, how'd you know? Makes a great batch of pancakes too."

Well fuck me.

"So…are you open-minded too?"

Her index finger made elongated s-bends across my thigh and her eyes tried to meet mine as she uttered those potent words. In a split second I worked out the next step: I had to get the fuck outta Dodge.

I'm a dude to my core, so I didn't bail right away. Megan may have been as unattractive as a plate of cat sick but I still can't say no to an available opportunity. It was a bad idea though as I actually found myself feeling guilty as I made the midnight dash towards…wherever. The city always has a plan up its sleeve for me so I knew that an inviting couch or a crusty mattress was out there waiting for me to dig myself in and hibernate for a few decades. A couch far away from loose-legged yuppies with delusions of intelligence and insight. Hell, even a rock would do.

And so the cycle continues. Who knows where I’ll end up next? All I know is that I’ll keep drifting like an urban nomad, legging it out of the cereal bowl as soon as the milk turns sour.

Well, that’s not quite all I know. I also know that good flatmates are hard to find.

No money, mo' problems

Wed, 15 Aug 2007 19:38:17 GMT

So right now I'm up in Wellington. The O'lovelys are up to record their EP and play a gig at Mighty Mighty [went there last night, quite a cool place] so Anner and I have tagged along under the pretense of taking photos of and doing a write-up on the band, respectively.

We flew up on Monday and after talking to an on-to-it chick at BP [take notes Edgeware] we found Wellywood, our awesome backpacker's/nana factory. I only added that last part because a lot of their policies seem to be geared towards minimum fun. NO visitors. Not a PEEP after 10:30. DON'T be in the shower for more than a few minutes or the light turns off. NO USB plug-ins in communal computers. NO drinking in your room. All of this and constant reminders of the fact that we're under 24hr surveillance. But, rules were made to be broken.

Joe [O'lovely's guitarist] told me that yesterday he bumped into the little Asian man who vacuums the rooms as he discovered our 3 empty Jager bottles and 3 shot glasses.

"I'm sorry, no drinking in the room."
"It's OK, we were just drinking upstairs."
"Oh, that's fine then."

The pros definatly outweigh the cons though. Close to town, free internet, Sky movies and, best of all, the building's zebra-striped so it's easier to find as well as looking cool. Just as well too because it's been a boozefest every night since we got here. Last night was especially fun because we actually left our room and ended up watching some shitty band at Bodega ["This next song's called 'My Methadone'"] and checking out the aforementioned "Mights". They have a cool decor and menus written inside record covers that include cheeky sounding cocktails like Bro Diddley and Shut Up And Drink It. Bumped into one of my regular customers from Carlton Cnr too, which was a bit surreal but fun, if only because he was the first person I've met who recognised my Achewood tshirt.

We also encountered some harmonising Samoans on our way back to the bed-place that gave us a sweet rendition of the National Anthem and Amazing Grace. Then we gave them a few cigarettes and they gave me a few shots of rum. Ain't the world wonderful?

This morning I checked my bank balance and I've only got $58 to last 'til Saturday. Dang. Double dang because I won't get shit-all pay because I haven't worked [got some days in lieu though] so the next week or so is going to be a bit poison tits. That's not so bad though. It's been a total bitchkrieg trying to sort out flat finances while I'm up here though. It's rent week but I can't pay it until I get everyone's cash and Marc still hasn't put him through, meaning that Lyn won't get her rent until Monday and is likely to get shitty. But it's not my problem; I'm up here, she doesn't know my cell number and if you makes a surprise visit it won't be she'll be bitching out. HA!

I'm pretty fucked off at my friend Susan though. She's kinda unreliable at the best of times [problems with over-commitment I think, plus having a 4 year old tends to eat into your time] but she still hasn't paid for the fiddy bag I got her last week, even though I stressed to her that I need all the money I can get for this trip. Now that I'm feeling a bit too skint it just pisses me off a few shades. Why didn't she simply bring the money to Bob Dylan if she knew I was getting her weed?

Bob Dylan last week was pretty awesome, BTW. He came out with band, lights came up, they played a song, lights went down, repeat for almost 2 hours. Not a word was spoken until before the last song, when Bob started doing the "On lead guitar, Jimmy Staines from Bumfuck, Idaho" thing, although I seriously couldn't understand a word he said. Not that it mattered, I understood.

Man I'm grumpy this morning. Must be the hangover ham talking. Time for some Nurofen and a lie down.

Making Bongs With Less [Canta]

Thu, 14 Jun 2007 11:46:55 GMT

Making Bongs With Less – How To Be A MacGyver Smoker

By Cliché Guevara

Even though they tend to be silly by necessity, a lot of stoner movies and TV shows have got the personality, the look and the culture of the whole thing nailed. Practically anyone who has habitually smoked can relate to Harold and Kumar’s quest for White Castle while That 70’s Show perfectly captured the rebellious bliss that comes with being young and high. But Half Baked beats them all with its series of short stereotypes among weed culture, such as the over-enthusiastic Enhancement Smoker who insists that everything is ten times as awesome, “on weeeed”.

They’re not all annoying stereotypes though, as proven by the MacGyver Smoker. MacGyver Smokers are those guys who can fashion smoking paraphernalia out of anything. Most serious smokers know at least one guy like this, or maybe even a girl, who can take a fizz bottle, some gum, a straw and some chocolate wrapper and make a device. While stoner friends are hard to lose and therefore bound to be around forever, it is still a good idea to pick up as many tips as you can along the way. Maybe you already know some of these hints you’re about to read, maybe you know all of them. Maybe you even told them to me. At any rate, it’s all pretty handy advice, so use it well.

Making a cone or bong is relatively straightforward so I won’t cover it too much here. Basically, if you’ve got a socket set, you can make a device out of all kinds of shit, like Pringles cans, other cans, fruit, veg, fizz bottles or anything else that’s a suitable shape. If you need to make a bong, a straw will do the trick in a pinch, but a proper pipe is ideal and inexpensive. Blu-Tac is good for creating an airtight seal around your cone piece, but if you can be intricate enough, try wrapping heaps of cling film around it instead. It’s designed to seal in freshness, so even though it’s a little tricky, it makes for a much better seal. Always check to see if a bong bubbles before using it for the first time. And if you’re flash enough to buy a proper bong, never clean it, no matter how much other people insist. That way, after about six months or so, you get a resin toke every time, which is great if you’re skint.

If you can afford it, joints are my personal favourite way of getting high. It produces such a mellow buzz and it doesn’t have that harsh effect on your lungs so much. The best part is that you can stub it out and relight it later, or change your mind and chuck it in a bong, make spots, whatever. Oh, and then there’s the roach. These little fuckers can get really tiny, so having things like tweezers and safety pins around is essential. An ex-flatmate of mine had a most excellent roach holder named Plummy (or Plumby? I’m not sure. Apologies).

To make a Plummy-clone, you’ll need to get one of those bubblegum ropes in the round plastic container. After you’ve taken the gum out, shut the container and wrap the edges with electrical tape, making it airtight. Leave the dispenser slot free though, cuz that’s where you’ll be inhaling. Then you just need to make two pencil-width holes in the top. Put your roach in one, use the other one as a shotty hole and you’re sound as a dollar pound.

As He Died With A Felafel In His Hand author John Birmingham put it, bucket bongs are great because they “turn even the most bogus leaf into killer weed”. He also truthfully pointed out that they are inconvenient and kinda scummy. They’re helpful as in a pinch though, especially if you use a 3l juice bottle and even more especially if you can find one with a handle. If you can acquire a sandwich board-type sign (hopefully through legal techniques, wink wink, nudge nudge), drape a duvet over it and you’ve got a two-person hotbox that’s perfect for a quick pow-wow over the buckey. If, however, you can’t quite bring yourself to kiss the buckey, perhaps the Coffee Table Bucket is an option.

You can either make a basic CTB by buying your cutlery in jars (they sell it at places like Briscoes and The Warehouse) then using the jars with a 600mL fizz bottle. It doesn’t pack as much of a punch as a standard bucket bong but it does give you quite a hit. Plus, it uses less weed, it isn’t as awkward, and, if you have to, you can hide it reasonably quickly. The more complicated version requires a 1.5L bottle, a 600mL bottle and a lot of imagination because I don’t have visual aids. Basically, cut the top off the 600mL bottle along the line at the top of the label. Then cut the top off the 1.5L bottle along the same line. Now you want to cram the top of the 1.5L into the bottom of the 600mL Got that? This will probably take some trial and error, not to mention a lot of trimming, but once you’ve got it sussed and you’ve put your water in, you’ve not only got a dainty CTB but you’ve also got a self-contained CTB, meaning you’ll never taste water again.

Now, spots. Spots are a triumph of old-fashioned ingenuity and a tribute to how tight-fisted we are with our dollars. Spots are easy to sum up if somehow you’re not familiar: you roll up tiny dots of pot, you heat up two knives over oven elements or another heat source, then you apply the knives to the weed and inhale the smoke. The social element of spots really adds to the experience and can often lead to quick friendships. But what about when there’s no one else around? Well, you can take your potato masher, place the masher end flat down on your countertop, then chuck your spottle on top of the handle (see photo). Now that’s not a bad wee strategy, but one that my flatmate came up with has to take top trumps.

All you need is a 600mL fizz bottle (they’re handy buggers) and some Blu-Tac. Simple as really; just cut a square panel out of the bottle near the bottom, then Tac it to the counter top. Then pick up your spot, feed the knives into the gap and inhale the smoke through the top of the bottle (see photo). Piece of piss!

Another method that requires imagination and perseverance is the ice spottle. There are about a million variations on this, but the version I prefer involves a big fizz bottle, the bigger the better. Cut the bottom off, and then make some short cuts up from the bottom of it. Push the flaps up inwardly so that there’s a little reservoir for water to collect in. Bung it in the freezer overnight, and then store it there to maintain the ice. When you use it, the smoke will be chilled by all the ice and you’ll get a nice, smooth hit. You can apply the same principle to a normal glass spottle as well by storing it in the freezer for cold glass, at least for the first spot.

It’s always right before payday when you run out of weed and have to resort to scraping. If you’ve put enough through it, you can usually get a bit of resin out of your spottle or your cone and it won’t be exceedingly gammy. However, if you want guaranteed results, the bucket bong is king once again. The best approach I find is to put that resin back through the buckey, because buckeys taste gross anyway so you won’t really notice the difference.

Treat the world as a box of Lego and see what kind of out of it things you come up with. Like the time my flatmate and I found a length of bendy hose on the street. Most respectable types would have simply cast it away, but not us. We knew better, for inspiration had struck. A cone piece on one end and we were away. With one man lighting the weed and providing the shotty and the other inhaling from the other end of the metre long hose, we’d created the weed version of a beer bong. You can do this with lengths of bamboo, tubing, basically anything that you could make a cone out of. It’s a novelty but it tends to chomp through weed like popcorn so save it for parties when you can smoke your guest’s weed.

It’s a fact that kids are known for climbing over, under and around things. Even chairs and tables are exciting new frontiers as well as being enticing building blocks, which develops our primal instinct towards constructing forts. Hotboxes are a natural extension of that and are about as easy to pull off. See how many people you can accommodate. Anything less than five isn’t really worth the effort. Bonus points if you can convince the pizza guy to deliver to your fort.

Hotboxes can be a more personal affair, thanks once again to the twisted spirit of ingenuity. If you ever see someone asleep at a party in a room where people are smoking weed, tell them to blow it near the person’s head. Put your jacket over his or her head before the smoke leaves and encourage everyone to exhale underneath it. They’ll feel pretty awesome once they wake up.

That idea has since evolved and it’s gone to some strange places. If you take a head-sized cardboard box and cut a head-sized hole in it, then make a circular hole for another 600mL fizz bottle, you can make a weird contraption that has a “spout” at the top and room for your head inside. Then you need to throw a jersey overtop of the whole thing as well as your shoulders, so the smoke doesn’t escape. Sit in a room with smokers and get them to exhale down your spout. It’s a surreal experience and a strange high, but if you’re one for experimentation, it’s worth a go.

Finally, a quick word on stash tins. Always be on the lookout for potential tins, especially if they’re being given away free with something. Tobacco pouches are good for this, especially Drum. The handy thing is that they can hold your pouch, your weed and maybe even a cone as well as doubling as an emergency spot plate. And don’t forget just how inconspicuous those puppies look. The recent rubber packets for Lucky Strikes are quite good too, managing to be kinda waterproof and a bit of a novelty as well as holding all your shit (see photos).

Whether you’ve found my hints helpful, dumb or obvious, keep in mind that this is just a beginner’s course. Being a MacGyver Smoker involves being in a constant state of learning so no list of hints could ever be called definitive. I just hope that I’ve enlightened a few souls to some sacred weed secrets that will stay with them for life. I know that they will for me. Remember to keep your eyes and ears open for new ways to add to the efficiency of smoking weed and make sure to share any hints of your own to help keep the good times rolling. That’s about all you need to know about being a MacGyver Smoker. Like talking to women, it’s really all down to experience, but with my advice you should have all the stoners fawning over you in no time.

Oh yeah, and make sure you enjoy weed responsibly and happily. No one likes a buzz kill.

Welcome to Fuck U.

Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:31:11 GMT

I was in a fairly decent mood today. Fairly decent because I had a test for my American Images and Frames of Reference class, which I should be in now. But, thanks to Leonard Wilcox, hands down the most arrogant and difficult lecturer I've ever dealt with, I'm not.

Indulge me for a spell while I explain. See, I've always hated that class. It's a shame because the subject matter is fairly interesting [I love American culture and we studied The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, which I was glad to find is an awesome book about hippies], but Leonard is such a pretentious lecturer, with all his unnecessary intellectual language making all his points as clear as bullshit. I could put up with that though because I'm pretty good at not going to lectures and finding out what I need to know with independant research.

The bad thing about not going to lectures is that I had to go confront him the other day so I could get a test outline for today and the essay question [due tomorrow]. Sure, it's last minute, but the best essays come from last minute work anyway. That ordeal is worth a rant of it's own, but at least I got what I needed.

Or so I thought. After studying quite intently on two of the four questions he'd given me for the test, I show up today only to have him ask me if I'd got his email. I haven't done much internet stuff the last few days because I've been studying, so I hadn't. Turns out he'd given me the wrong version of the test questions and made it seem like it was my fault because I hadn't checked my email for the new questions. But he said that it was OK, I could just do a version of the test that reflected the questions he'd given me. Sweet as!

Except that he'd crossed off the two questions I'd studied on, leaving only two questions that I don't know ANYTHING about. I told him that and asked why I couldn't do the other two questions I was prepared for and he said that we could talk about it outside. I could tell from his tone that he was merely placating me, so I lost my rag, told him to stick it up his arse [literally] and told him the description I used after his name above.

Then I came here and checked my emails, and the fucking prick had sent me the same questions he'd given me the other day, plus one. So why the cross off?

I know I'm not the only one who thinks he's a total cunt and he's got a history of making things difficult for his students [no web notes, no references in the course reader and fuck-all in the pigeonhole], but this goes beyond the pale. I'm seriously considering making an official complaint because this shit just isn't cool, especially when the American Studies department needs all the passes it can get to avoid downsizing.

It's not a tragedy though. I can still get my BA with the Creative Writing paper I'm doing next semester, it just means that I can't put those extra letters after my name until the end of the year [sniff]. I'm still pretty damn fucking shitty though, becase I always try to make up for my slack attendance with good results. I got a B for my last essay, so there's no reason for him to think that I'm going to fail just because I don't listen to his nosense.

Just another week at Fuck University I guess.

Lucid 3 interview + review

Tue, 29 May 2007 23:27:42 GMT

Lucid 3 Interview
By Cliché Guevara

Lucid 3 are quite probably most well known for their blissful single ‘AM Radio’ that got voted No.1 single by Rip It Up readers in a 2004 poll, suggesting that maybe people who read RIU actually do know a good tune from their arseholes. Now they have ’Dawn Planes’, their third album out, on a major label and all. So imagine how fun and nerve-racking it was for me to make my interviewing debut over a troublesome phone with the effortlessly charming Victoria Girling-Butcher, Lucid 3’s honey-voiced frontwoman, who had a bit to say about NZ Music Month, accents and Hawaiian steel guitarists. Awesome.

So, first question: How do you feel about the new album?
It’s grand. Very very good.

Cool. Now, as you’re no doubt aware it’s New Zealand Music Month right now. Does New Zealand Music Month mean anything in particular to you?
Um, oh it means…I think it’s fantastic for raising the profile of local artists and leads to more focus on airplay for bands and that whole side of things, so that’s pretty much what it means to me. It is a valuable thing for us even though in the past I’ve looked at it and thought “Is that really worthwhile?” But I think it is.

That actually takes over my next question, which was about whether you feel NZ Music Month is important, but obviously you do…
I do and I think it’s interesting that there’s all this discussion about whether it serves a good purpose. This year I’ve heard more people challenging it than any other year and I think it shows that people are questioning the value of music in New Zealand and, at any rate, if people are talking about it then that’s a good thing.

I guess it shows that NZ music is less of a novelty than it used to be and is more of a valid genre.
Yeah. It was RDU that had the campaign: ‘Some New Zealand Music Is Shit’, wasn’t it?

Yeah that’s the one.
(sly chuckling) That’s so funny. It’s great. And it’s absolutely true, but…I wouldn’t want to say that too loud (more chuckling).

Yeah, I know. Are there any NZ artists that you think aren’t shit?
Um…Bill Sevesi. He’s my hero. He’s 80 and a Hawaiian steel guitar player.

Sorry, how do you spell that name?
Bill. Sevesi is S-E-V-E-S-I I think or is there an extra ‘I’ in there? Neil, how do you spell Sevesi? I’m dyslexic you know. That’s my excuse for being a poor speller.

Then came a few minutes of questions directed at Neil and more spell-outs than that D.A.N.C.E. video before Victoria suggested simply Googling it later which we both agreed was more likely to yield accurate results.

What do you think of those ads on C4 at the moment with musicians sitting around a table talking about NZ music?
I haven’t actually seen enough of them to comment probably. I think I’ve seen two and they were quite brief so I can’t comment.

Anything you might want to say if you were on one of those ads?
If I was on one of those ads? Ooh! What would I say about NZ Music Month? Probably what I told you before.

Oh I ‘spose, yeah. Now, one of the things about those ads is that they give the impression that there’s a friendly rapport among NZ musicians, like it’s a big family-
Hmmm, I actually think that’s true. I do believe that’s true. We actually look after each other really well. Most NZ musicians generally support each other. Of course there’s a competitive spirit under there somewhere but I think it’s a pretty friendly place.

Cool, so it’s not just lies. Do you think that a NZ accent comes through in your music?
I dunno! I don’t think I’d be objective enough to say but I do definitely despise people who do the act of donning an American accent and using that so I’d probably say there’s definitely some Kiwi elements in my singing, but I’m proud of that. As long as I’m not torn up there. Y’know?

Like you’re being yourself?
Yeah, and as long as it’s not too strong. Do you think it’s too strong?

Aw no no, it’s just that one of those C4 ads has the Elemeno P guy, what’s his name? The singer-
Dave?

Yeah, him. He’s talking about using an American accent when he sings and about how he thinks the Kiwi accent is sometimes put on a bit-
The Kiwi accent?

Yeah.
I haven’t seen that one but gosh! That’s pretty stupid…

Yeah he does make a bit of a fool of himself, just quietly.
Really? Oh nevermind. He’s a good fellow though; he’d probably be justifying his use of an American accent.

I’ve heard he’s friendly. When you’re performing overseas do you feel like some sort of cultural ambassador or just another musician?
Just another musician actually. I mean the music industry is huge and they don’t particularly care very much NZ. I mean, there’s so little difference to- no, no, I wouldn’t. I don’t think there’s a lot of advantage to being a Kiwi internationally and that’s proven itself in that there isn’t a hell of a lot going on for Kiwi acts overseas at a big scale. There are a lot of people doing well but, um, not as many as we’d like. So I don’t think it’s an advantage at all. Especially in the American market; they’re extremely suspicious of anyone who isn’t American or British. It’s amazingly ethnocentric.

Do you think there’s such a thing as a NZ sound?
No. No I don’t. But there used to be. There used to be the Dunedin Sound (laughs).

Like The Clean, The Bats, etc.?
Yeah I really think there was, but not any more. Aw, maybe? Maybe there is and I’m just not objective enough to say.

I noticed on your MyThpace that you’re selling your National Resoelectric guitar.
Yeah, good on you! Wanna buy it?

I would if I had money.
(laughs) Yeah it’s gunna be expensive.

Have there been any takers?
I haven’t checked in the last two days but I don’t think so. What does that mean? Does that mean that no one thinks my guitar is cool or is it just too expensive? I have sold a guitar previously through our website and that turned out to be quite a good method, yeah.

Maybe if you signed it?
I did I did I did! I felt like a real rock star, y’know? But we shall see. Desperately need the money (laughs).

True. Now what did you think of the new SpiderMan film?
Haven’t seen it. Unfortunately.

Neither have I, so no harm, no foul. How about the new Kings of Leon album?
Love it!

Yeah? Because I kinda thought it was a bit more feminine than their earlier work and that doesn’t really reflect their sound.
Do you? Right. It dwells on moody grooves a bit more and seems a bit more Grey’s Anatomy to me.

That’s a random relationship.
Well I don’t know, I was just watching it last night and there was just all this beautiful girly music all throughout the entire thing and cuz you said it was a girly so I made a connection there.

Sweet-bix. Well, that’s about all I’ve got to ask you…
Well I hope I’ve provided you with (deep breath) coherent and interesting responses.

Can we expect a tour any time soon?
We will be touring, not in the next month, but sometime soon.

Diggin’.

‘Dawn Planes’ is out now and it is very very good. Check out their MyThpace for new tracks and Victoria’s guitar: www.myspace.com/lucid3

Album: Dawn Planes
Artist: Lucid 3
Label: Capitol/Lupin Music
Reviewed by: Cliché Guevara

Obviously, I’m a student, and I guess odds are that you are too. Naturally, due to our heightened intelligence, we have no time or tolerance for so-called “decent tunes” that conform to restricting rules of contemporary song-writing, instead preferring to drown our ears in mediocre-to-interesting indie rock freak-outs that produce comments like “stimulating”, “challenging” and “huh?”.

But that’s all bollocks really, because nothing can beat a decent tune and Lucid 3 have tunes to stoke the fire while showing that there’s nothing wrong with straight-forward songs as long as you have the talent and the pop sensibility to pull it off. Lucid 3 play indiepop with just the right balance of both halves of that very delicate genre, avoiding sounding generic while still feeling as warm and familiar as a tattered hoodie.

The opening title track starts off with a nice keyboard groove that quickly moves through an ethereal chorus that’s catchy as cholera, before pulling back and giving vocalist Victoria Girling-Butcher an opportunity to show off those dynamite pipes of hers. The vocals are consistently strong throughout but they especially impress on slower, moodier tracks like ‘Oh Sister’ and ‘This Soldier’.

This mix of slow and fast dynamics works to wondrous effect on ‘Dawn Planes’, allowing the album to have variation without threatening the album’s coherency. ‘Every Dollar’ starts with a rock swagger not too far from The Fratellis then launches into another one of those sing-song choruses guaranteed to implant itself in your subconscious, all pitching tents and stoking campfires. On the flipside, the subdued energy of “All Ready Now’ works a wicked slow burn over your senses yet is gentle as a snowflake.

With most people guiltily buying NZ CDs because of the fact that it’s that time of the year, you could easily do far, far worse than ‘Dawn Planes’. It’s not a world-beater and it sadly isn’t going to dominate the charts too easily, but it is a sublime album of wonderful songs about urban life that most can relate to. It is also a perfect length; long enough to be a rewarding listen but just short enough that you’re left wanting more. One to paint your nails to, or whatever girly pastime takes your fancy.