lame

Is when you bug people to come along to something that is usually really cool, and then on the night that they come, there's some lame shit ugly stuff that makes everyone uncomfortable, and they leave at intermission and miss your stuff.

Have Mercy

Mercy Arms played last night at work. I was really impressed- definitely would have paid money to see them. Besides sounding pretty, they are genuinely interesting to stand in front of. Kirin Calunan is bjork and jarvis cocker's shirtless, bounding love child and lead singer Thom Moore is as engaging and understated as their tunes.

The crowd was small (though apparently their largest over this tour), only just over 200 folks by the looks of it, but o my sweet lady, weren't they shiny. I think I even saw a couple of spray tans in there. Which always look stupid in the rain.

There don't seem to be any videos online that really capture their live thing. This is sort of close, but probably better just to go to their myspace to get the feel-up.

messy christmas

My flatmate shot down my brilliant idea to have a kiddy pool full of red and green jelly for festive wrestling purposes at our inaugral Christmas party. So now I need help in coming up with a new party activity, or maybe even several. Over the day the suggestions have evolved into a mass naked honey nut scrabble activity. I'm still taking suggestions.

I saw Baseball and the Mountain Goats over the weekend. Baseball seriously put shovel to dirt. The MG were pretty tired and their music isn't as energetic either, so it was kind of this warm up, cool down kinda gig. I had a good time. It wasn't too weird being there with the ex lover and i really like my new mountain goats shirt. It's long in the body the way that doesn't make me look like I want to show my belly button off to the streets and it looks like a white shirt that's gone through the wash with some bright red socks.

Also, I got namechecked on http://onlythemovie.com/. I need some kind of interpretive dance move that is half thankful-blush-for-reading-my-crap and half strut.

the you in every song

I'm going to see the mountain goats tonight. My little brother first introduced me to "No Children" years ago and I've loved their yearning, witty, apocalyptic folk ever since.

The ex lover will be there tonight and that's a little weird. Our song was "Old college try" and our breakup album was "Get Lonely". The music is pretty integrated into the way we grew into and out of each other.

I'm still learning whether there is music i can take with me or if some songs should be left in the past.

when the festival is over

I saw Only and Tout Est Parfait last night at the last night of the Possible Worlds festival. At first the long, languorous trekking by Only's two adorable protagonists, Daniel and Vera, frustrated me. Then I realised that I recongised this maddening, horizonless feeling that was pressing on my chest. It felt like being a kid again, the future stretched out before you and a whole other future stretching out beyond the first. This beautiful, natural little film didn't just remind me of being twelve. I actually had some kind of physical chemical reaction and felt twelve again. Only also featured what has to be one of the best on-screen kisses I've ever seen. That kiss captured all of the awkwardness and the uplifting joy that comes with every peircing transformation in that magical period of pre-adolescence.

In fact, if the little boy had been sitting on the swing and the little girl had run away straight afterwards, it would pretty much have been a faithful dramatic re-enactment of my first kiss. I think his name was Sean. I've lost all my diaries from that time.

The soundtrack from this film was brilliant as well- I'm not sure if this is the name I read on the credits, but I've been listening to these guys today and it's a similar sweetheart-indie kind of sound, so it does give you the general vibration. http://www.myspace.com/theenvelopes

The night began in innocence, and then Tout Est Parfait ripped it out from beneath us in the most achingly beautiful way. This story of suicide, friendship, and family was a delight to watch. The conversations afterwards were just as challenging. One person suggested to me that it was so difficult for many people to watch because it simply cut too close to the bone- the bone being their own suicidal thoughts or attempts. I've never, ever contemplated suicide personally. I don't think I'm hard-wired for it. I found I reacted to the film in the same way that I react to death generally; I find the ceremonies of death intensely life affirming, intoxicatingly so. Some of the people I watched it with had the opposite reaction, like the film was a portal window into some kind of terrifying abyss. We were all drunk on our own wildly disparate emotions afterwards, which I think might be the mark of universality.

The journey from the discovery of childhood to the pain of adulthood was a testament to Matt and Marianne's hard work. Anyone can put on a party- but creating moments in people's lives where they walk out feeling more excited about the possibilities of the immediate future is a gift, and one we are blessed to be able to share with them all year round.

Young People Fucking

Check out our pregame:

Photography by Victoria Waghorn.

The Crunch

I've decided that due to The Crunch, and exchange rates and other factors, that I can't make it over to DC in January. Which sucks.

But on the upside I scored a free trip up to Byron in January instead.

Life lesson learnt today: Recession = free hippy holidays.

Punk Monk Propaganda is taking off too- crazy US distribution deals, an awesome new partnership with the very funky Scream Kings, a radio show, and a galaxy of really exciting projects for the new year. I'm so much more comfortable when I have all of these moving and shifting horizons, they make it easier to live in the future.

Matt Ravier blogged a really great interview with Vic recently that explains everything we've been up to and where we're heading. It's a long read but a good read.

Dermot and I are screening the emergency film that we had to write yesterday morning in the cab and shoot five minutes after writing when the brothel fell through AGAIN. I'm still really passionate about our original 1 minute silent sex film idea and hopefully we can use the idea in the coming months. Pending a few compression hiccups it should be screening at the sold-out Young People F**king tomorrow night with other kino 1MSSFs. Our film is called Afterglow.

Here are some screencaps of the film. The actress is Donna Hogan.

this is my favourite song of all time. i only just discovered this vers today.

wildhearts and onions

two things i discovered tonight:

-I am more than a little bit in love with the wildhearts. They played at my work tonight and I was all starry-eyed, especially to "beautiful thing, you". Apparently they trashed kerrang's office one time in the 90's. Only about 200 people turned up tonight though- how do folks not know of this band? I thought they were the kind of half-remembered buried thing that funkyindietypes got off on. I've got this sneaking suspicion that indie is a high school clique rather than a scene anymore.

-If you try to eat your cold half-kebab hours after you put it down in front of the computer, all you taste is onions.

metallic

i find metal music one part relaxing, two parts fascinating, one part beautiful and three parts owch.

recession = poledancers

According to this: http://tinyurl.com/6mcj4c

I imagine they'll be spilling out onto the streets of London soon. Twirling backwards from traffic lights. Trapezing from street lamps. Get ye to London, financial lost puppies. There's gonna be a few openings in the sex industry.

i look like astroboy

reactions to the new haircut, which was kind of a happy result of a language gap between me and the cutter:

"Did they install rocket boosters in your feets as well??"
"You'll always be beautiful to me..."
"But you like it, right?"

International Space Travel and Katie's First Hooker Pad

katiedyd: i'm going to an inauguration party on January 20th, i've decided.
internet: so? once again, you've proven yourself utterly unremarkable.
katiedyd: i'm going to one in DC! with sophie, who i haven't seen since London two years ago!
internet: i can be in DC whenever i want. i am all places, always.
katiedyd: fuck you, internet.
internet: omnipresent network-state trumps psychotic bouts of schizophrenic internal dialogue, always.

In another episode of "You're not quite as grown up as you think you are, KT" (that's the last time I'll refer to myself in the third this post, promise), I went to my first brothel this morning. I was location scouting for one of our one minute silent sex films that we're throwing together as part of the Possible Worlds Canadian Film Festival here in Sydney. If all goes well, then our films will screen before the screening of Young People Fucking. Anyway, this place was the location to end all locations. Pink walls, leopard skin carpet, faux-luxx rooms with showers and porn screens, the lot. It is seedy, loveless sex on a pancake. One of my mates is one of the girls there at the moment and she showed me around. That was an intense emotional experience in itself. I love that girl, and not just because she's a location goldmine this week. I was really touched that she'd reveal that part of her world to me. So hopefully everything goes well and we can get it into post in time for the deadline next week.

I love experiences that change the way you look at the most ordinary day-to-day happenings. My friend said that before anyone considers going into the profession, she says to them "Look around a train carriage. If you can't get past the fact that you're implying consent with all of them, then this isn't the job for you." I will never, ever look at a trainful of men the same way again. Or a shop-rack full of shoes after seeing the collection of platforms that this place had.

nessie huntin' eve

I realised today that not having a couple of quick-witted workmates around at the podjob has dulled my senses. I used to have to work to get the first call in. Now I'm just spinning around on my own, with a few satellite funny folk, without anyone to force my moves earlier and earlier. I think this has made me lazy.

I've been working my mothertrucking fanny hide off trying to get everything done around the podjob lately. But as of this arvo, I have one entire blissful week off. And it doesn't eaven eat into my annual leave. Which means I've somehow worked an entire week that didn't exist between May and now. I disgust myself sometimes.

So me and the flatties and their lovers and a few others off to Lake Conjola to go catch Nessie, like this guy did:

not dead

and not trying.

tra la la

I've been singing with this new acoustic sort-of band, which has been particularly fun. I sing to my friends when I'm drunk, and they like it at least half of the time. That's how I met Toni- I catterwalled within his ear range at a mutual friend's house warming. He is a guitarist and the apparent ringleader. Toni is a tall Lebanese boy with long and luscious curls who writes dark and miserable poetry and wants to be referred to as Lady Godiva on stage. I find this excellent.

The Sleeper

Directed by me.
Shot and Edited by Dermot McGuire.

We're experimenting with using mobile phone cameras for cinematic projection, working with the lo-res instead of against it.

Soudtrack is Godspeed You! Black Emperor- "Sleep"

Warning: also contains me acting.

the sleeper

Derm and Kate dip their toes into creating a film for big screens with a mobile camera. And yes, the second image is supposed to be upside down.

happy bar wench on vanity

working the end of fashion gig tonight. I've been strapped to the pod for the last couple of days, so dancing behind the bar is going to be a well-deserved groove.

Shoot days for Miara, the narrative peice written by my favourite brasilian expat have been settled on, as well- first week in October. I think I've had sufficient rest from filming. After the insane first six months of this year, I needed a break. But I'm keen to get my AD boots back on and manage the bejezus out of you punk monk folk- and the ring in crew too. No one here is safe.

And while I do see the irony in saying this in a blog- I thought I was self-absorbed until I saw this this morning:

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Kind of reminds me of the time that I left my new digital camera alone at home with my old flatmate. When I came home, there were 265 photos of her (the total capacity of the memory card), all taken from arms length. Apparently she didn't know how to delete them. I reckon she just ran out of space to take more.

kings and lovers

the lover is not the lover anymore, hence my silence. He hasn't come home in about two weeks so I figure he's gone for good this time. It's been a brilliant, sparkling, ugly, crazy two years. Less said about that the better.

Been getting into the new KOL stuff as it comes out. Luckily I have a KOL obsessive at the podjob who is like my own personal KOL newswire. Being drip-fed use somebody was an undeniably pleasurable experience in a week of rather shit ones.

In more abstract and interesting news than all of that, here's yet another article that is pointing towards the pheonix rising of vinyl. To me, it makes perfect sense to buy the vinyl if you're going to purchase music at all. The sound quality argument has been around since day dot, but to my mind, the worth of buying music in a physical form rather than just as a sound file online is in its artifact status. And if the product ceases to be the music itself and starts to become the physical artifact, then why wouldn't you buy the vinyl? There's simply more room for the graphic design, the lyrics and the credits. In other words, all of the tasty merchandising that somehow makes the relationship between the fan and the artists all the more rich.

On that note, this is what I was 'tubin today:

cool kitten

one good thing about the podjob, discounting the fact that they make me wear shoes indoors, is that sometimes the dude that sits next to you will say, "hey, you've gotta see this kid i met last night," and show you clips like this.

what have jaffas taught YOU today?

I was disgusted to notice this morning that I've actually started thinking in status updates when I'm in front of my work computer. I haven't eaten any breakfast yet, mostly because I was a zombie this morning after working at the bar last night. I had a few leftover strawberries and cream lollies and some jaffas, so I ate all six of those and washed them down with the leftover sunkist that was also in my bag from last night. Then into my brain pops the gramatically incorrect phrase "really wants breakfast". Or it would be grammatically incorrect, had my brain not hardwired the fact that I don't need to put in a definite article to define myself or even conduct my (let's face it, SCINTILATING) internal dialogue in the present tense anymore when I'm sitting in the podchair. Facebook and Twitter do that for me. So it is official: I have become Katiebot, only able to function with the assistance of computational devices, and as such, exist permanently in the past tense.

All of the experimental witch stuff is up on the www for the entire netty universe to see. You can check them all out here. Ours was Heron Ryan, the first one on the list, with the emo-looking tearful eye of an AJ.

In other news, I am totally in lust with Billie Piper again. That sexy period detective thing she did is eclipsed by the eye-whipping that is Confessions of a Call Girl. I am not a TV person, and I'm definitely not the kind of person who can commit to being at home at the same time, week in, week out for a whole television season, but this may be the show that breaks me. I'd like to think that all this robotic becoming is rubbing off on my under-developed ability to keep to some semblance of a routine.

steering clear of conflict? discord? unrest?

not our annointed leader. he's avoiding 'argy bargy', according to the video clip from the Advertiser.

teh 'dance

oh yeah- our film totally made it in for the Experimental Witch Project.

Which has been preselected for the 'dance. You read correctly. THE 'DANCE.

Our director was Aaron March, and we did Heron Ryan- scroll down on the experimental witch link above to see his name on the winner's list.

pretty chuffed.

Saving for a ticket to Utah, starting, now.

brand new hate

my flatmate loves these guys.

i argue that the line "use my body while i sleep" is a loaded one upon first listen. Apparently I'm an asshole because he's singing to some sick friend.

besides that he sounds like a whingy, whingy teenager.

media in the pub

I've been to a couple of conferences this year through the podjob that have discussed the bloggers v citizen journalists v traditional journalists. Usually they descend into petty name calling. Apparently these events don't happen often enough for everyone to have their say, because there was a whole new public rant night yesterday evening. I went along before the production meeting with my punksters. I was expecting more of the same old rivalry between content producers, but I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. There was only one dude who thought calling non-journalists 'morons' was the most productive way forward, and it was met by a satisfyingly comic "oooooooohhh". I also dug the fact that there were a lot of online entrepreneurs there with an equal voice to the journos. It was refreshing to hear all of these voices within the one conversation.

Now I'm not a journalist, a professional blogger or a citizen journalist. The podjob is in more of a service industry where I'm expected to give a professional assessment of the media to government and business. My job wouldn't exist if journalists were always fair and unbiased. So I find it pretty entertaining when journos sound off about how anyone other than a journalist writing content is diving in untrained, uneducated and highly biased. While the bias is definitely there, and is often more pronounced than in print media, I don't agree with the suggestion that the writers are uneducated. Oftentimes they are highly experienced in their field.

As for training, I think that there are multiple signs pointing towards the need to teach kids journalistic ethics from the word go as part of their civics lessons.

Later, went on to pow-pow about the music video. When I got there, I found out that the project had been canned momentarily, so we started rapping about a new narrative magical realism short that we'll pick up next month. No camping for that one, which is way too awesome.

My four days "off" weren't as hermit as I'd been hoping. I didn't sleep in my bed once. Too many parties. I'm up a couple of new friends but down my white jacket- I loved that thing, and some klepto took advantage and lifted it from the Eaton St party on saturday night. I'm hoping that seeing as we all have mutual friends involved, that they would have the COMMON HUMAN DECENCY to NOT BE LAME and return my jacket.

colin the dead girl-whale

I've only got 10 minutes or so; I'm on my break from the bar and have to be back amonsgt "hardcore" lovin' bogans in ten minutes, so my confusion will have to be brief.

Colin- Sydney- WTF??

Have you all gone mental?? It's a WHALE. Its mother left it to die. The other whales could hear the baby crying and decided to leave it be. That is nature.

I get that we shouldn't be intentionally horrible to animals. Those koala leg-hackers in Queensland should be locked up. But I just can't see the sense in girls rushing red-eyed out of office buildings around the city hiccupping about a whale that they'd never even seen. It's not your pet, lady. Man up.

I heard this arvo that someone was actually planning on erecting a MEMORIAL STATUE of the creature.

And my choice line of the coverage tonight?

"If Steve Irwin was here, he'd be ashamed."

Speaking of dead pets, Lara's work fish died today. I can understand the sadness there. A relationship was developed and it is now over. So RIP all swimming things that died today.

beach house and hair dye

Kait and I dyed our hair last night. She got purple dye ALL OVER MY FACE. So we tested my ex-hairdresser's theory that purfume takes it off and it worked a trick. My hair's not bright purple, it's kind of black that really wants to be purple. Hers is MJ from Spiderman red.

After the hair dying debarcle and with purple dye still conspicuously all over my hands, I rushed over to the hoey for a mexican food-and-dreampop adventure evening with Ky. I was actually more impressed with Bachelorette- this too-sweet chick with a thick NZ accent and a couple of old computer monitors set up with some pictures and some sound waves coming off them. Her voice is pretty good too, and I liked some of her soundscapy stuff. Her lyrics didn't grab me but I liked her show. Beach House were kind of the opposite... loved their music but their banter broke the spell. Which is such a shame because that girl has the most delicious speaking voice. It's a shame that she didn't say anything interesting. She had this odd way of saying something banal that made me feel really uncomfortable. A feeling not unlike that horrid sinking panic that you feel for someone when the traffic blows their skirt up and they still have to stand there waiting for the pedestrian light with all the people that saw their knickers.

Oh, the food at the hopetoun's upstairs bit Rider did not disappoint. Get the warm king prawn salad with chorizo and slow roasted tomatoes. My lord. Sex in a salad. (p.s. I was looking for their website and this review came up- holy fuck, if you don't like carlton, go without a drink for two hours, and you're lucky they served your beer in perspex. It reduces the chances of you getting glassed for being a wanker.)

We're doing a film clip for MzAnnThropik in september too, which I'm quite excited about. We have to camp out near warragamba dam the night before the first day of shooting. I hate camping. I'm planning to steal the backseat of whatever vehicle we arrive in. We also need a shitload of shagpile carpeting- so Internet, if you have any or know where to get it cheap, let me know.

Meanwhile, in today's podjob tubing I noticed that Sean Kingston's Beautiful Girls film clip has been watched over 45 million times. That boggles my mind.

things katie doesn't understand about the lover, Vol 23. Ch 14, abridged version

katie: I just listened to the slow side of Songs Not To Be Misconstrued all the way through for the first time in… ages, and I can't believe you ended on "the blowers daughter" and actually expected me not to come running back to you like a little girl
the lover: it wasn't tactical. the large majority of that playlist was complete long before we attempted to part ways... i can't help but feel that some of the songs that were late inclusions may been the result of that tumultuous period during the winter of 2007.
katie: I'm glad we're not tumultuous this winter. We've proved we can be happy in the cold.
the lover: as long as the electric blanket is on. metaphor? no

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ThuXEDvCZk

wanker words

reportage.

every time someone says/writes it I want to say "REPORTS! REPORTS! REEEEEPORRRRRRTS!" like some kind of under-stimulated geek child to an intellectually barren third grade teacher.

underground serenade

Last night I was coming back from a production meeting in Kings Cross, on the very steep escalators from the Bondi line platform to the underground level at central, where I met some boys. They were drunken and cheerful and lost. I thought our exchange ended at the escalators ("Do you wanna come dancing with us??" "Nah, I'm on my way home, thanks though" etc), but as I was walking away one of them started singing Savage Garden at the top of his lungs ("I want to stand with you on a mountain, etc") and all his friends joined in.

I've never had a chorus of boys from Byron Bay serenade me with a 90's pop song in a train tunnel before. I smiled a bit, and blushed a bit, and gave them directions to Scubar.

This wasn't as weird as when I went to get dinner for the girls on Saturday night and a dude in a car on the opposite side of King St yells out to me triumphantly, like he'd just found a damsel in distress and was announcing to her that All Was Okay, For He Was Here Now: "Girl with the red bag and the yellow shoes: you look like my ex girlfriend!"

no time for polaroids

So I haven't been writing lately because I haven't had time to do anything that I do for myself. The podjob has been very stimulating. Like prolonged electroshock therapy. Or having day-old bruises punched.

Actual-eye, I haven't written since kino kabaret. Fun, but not as cool as last time, when I met all the punk monk crew. This time was far more intense, making more, but (for me, anyway) making less, because what you create isn't really of quality when you have less that 40 hours to produce something and you decide that working that week would be an awesome idea. I was more burn out than fire of inspire. But the up-side was that I got to work with a bunch of different people every day, so at least I met up with some great people. The parties were rad.

We had a housewarming. Lara nearly called the law on Kaitlyn. Sometimes I feel like the babysitter and I need to stop taking on guilt when other people are creating very bad vibes. I've just been so on edge because of podjob pressure that I can't take shit from friends, and my skin is thinning with every hour I don't spend in bed. Not fair to everyone around me, because I don't even have the energy to get mad, I just feel real hurt and walk away real sad about how selfish people can be. Which doesn't make the world better in any way, and I'm just as bad as them for being silent. That's not all about my flatmates, by the way. It's about everyone, everywhere. I just can't cope with humans the last few weeks.

My mind feels really disconnected from my surroundings at the moment, and I'm ignoring all my body's pleas to slow the motherfucking train down. I need a break. Need to go to the desert and scream into the sand.

In some good news, we got shortlisted for the experimental witch. Would love to show you the trailer, but AJ won't give me the link because he thinks it looks so shit in 4:3. So in twelve days of finger crossing, we should know our fate on that one.

Did have time for just one polaroid. I envy Raen's bejewelled camera that develops so magically in front of your eyes. Images without screens are so human. In the good way.

spit 'tubing

So whenever I have something mundane to do at the podjob, I listen to youtube clips. I understand that this is somewhat like a blind man listening to his VCR, but I started off by listening to music clips and playing youtube DJ with some folk at my place of employ. So the progression to not-watching comedy and then not-watching visual media that was clearly intended for watching was swift.

Anyway, lately I've been hankering for some harp and I found this guy, who is my current spit-guru:



I passed this dude around to a few select podders and one of them came right back at me with this guy, who is my new personal hero:

there's fire

I can't wait until I'm living in a house where people smoke outside, like the chimney stacks that they are.

leaving home and moving on

I'm reporting from some kind of black hole vortex where all of my past possessions and high school pain have crash-landed in my lounge room. Somehow I've managed to stack all of my worldly artifacts into categorised piles in the lounge room floor like some kind of deranged librarian AND have a mind-fuck online closure session with the guy who taught me that guys can be dicks.

First things first- we found a home. It meets all of our desires- white walls, you fall out of bed and onto King St, courtyard, no evidence of poltergeists, and a CLOTHESLINE (!!). Big ticks all down the desire page. It even has a spa bath, which was not on our dreamy-house wish list, but is accepted graciously from the realestate gods nonetheless. We move in in 8 days. We'll be having a "Loveshack" themed house warming in the first week of August. Hence my shit-stacking. I've GOT to start throwing stuff out more. Faster, pussycat, cull! cull!

Anyway, in amongst all this stacking I'm on facebook, as is my nerdish wont, and this guy that i've known since we were ye big gets chatting. When I was 14 i thought this guy was incredibly sexy and he used to do some very unreligious things to me under the desk in 9th grade religion class. He had turned into one of the cool kidz though and I was your garden-variety geek with early-developing tits. This apparently justified him totally ignoring me or openly teasing me out of class. I really liked him and it was a big thing for me at 14. He taught me the valuable lesson that people who want you for sex don't necessarily give a shit about your feelings. Anyway, that was years ago and I was over it by the time year 10 rolled around. Still, i guess it was what you'd call a formative experience.

We never kept in contact- i don't really talk to anyone from high school on a regular basis- but this facebook thing is there and now you can chat on it, so when he said hey tonight i said hey back. We've done this polite, shiny white facebook heying before and it's been pretty unremarkable. Then tonight in the middle of the banal you-could-be-anyone smalltalk, he launches with how he'd been thinking about it and that he was really sorry he was a dick to me in high school. I honestly hadn't thought about it all for nearly a decade but as soon as he apologised I remembered how wretched unrequited puppy love made me feel at the time. And the apology meant a lot.

Tonight's lesson- unexpected closure feels awesome, especially when you thought you were already closed. And throwing out three years worth of your crap makes you feel simultaneously librarian and kind of evilly materialistic. Mayhaps someone will call in ten years time and apologise for letting me get my room into such a farking state.

the yellow terrace and the kissing glass bird

Lara is moving in with us too now... I'm excited about this house. Propelling, exciting, creative electricity. What they used to call "good vibes" in the olden days before it was a munter party in a park. We're checking out a bright yellow terrace today with a white picket fence. With any luck the bedrooms aren't cupboards under the stairs.

I've also got a new rule: only speak about what I've done, not what I'm going to do. More mystery, less dissapointment.

Got a job at the Gaelic pulling beers, which should be pretty sweet- free music, actual physical work, it all feels so wholesome. I'm sure it won't feel so wholesome in a couple of weeks when my barwenching shoes are all sodden. But I needed something to distract me from the office, and, y'know, pay for the sinful lifestyle I've been leading.

My director Mr B and the production company therein have a new home, so documentary stuff is on the backburner, burning slowly but brightly. Which is good because everything else this week has been moving like a greased pole dancer.

the kissing glass bird-

kino and the hunt begins

Both 'foreign film' and 'Mine Demons, Mine Own' screened on Monday night at Kino. Everyone seemed to dig it, so that was cool. Black and Blue Gallery was my big discovery of the evening though- I want to have all my parties there. The bathroom has a skull-design shower curtain, there's two sexy columns to frame the projection, and it's got an awesome view out over the city. Stealing simon's good work again. I really need to start downloading my own photos, I'm about three months behind.

K-blonde and I are going to check out a couple of appartments this week- we are the huntresses of real estate rentals.

foreign film update

I took yesterday off the office job to sleep and spend some face-time with the lover, who has been mysteriously absent during the week. It would be justafiable if he was blowing me off for cheap booze and loose women, but i'm pretty sure it was just long sleepins with the bed to himself and online blackjack. Either way, spending time together yesterday was really fun. This 'couple that sleep on the same time rhythm' thing could catch on. Watch out, nation.

Due to my sleeping all day I edited the challenge film all night. It's alright. The light was making the focus do crazy focus things that I didn't notice on the wee camera display and for some reason the lover imported it into imovie instead of FCP, so I think something was lost in the translation copying the clips over. So it has a gentle fuzz to it. Which may or may not look monumentally shizen when it's projected. Either way, the costumes looked cool, as you can see from Vic's far more focused still shots. Despite my technical anti-skillz, you can't argue with Vic and Stevie's bangin production design. I'll post the little monster after the screening.









post script: actually, these particular shots are pretty representative of the focus thing. Softly, softly...

Leaving home

Last night, promptly six hours after deciding it would be so, I told my flatmates that I was moving out with K-Blonde. I have no problems with moving, but it's going to hurt financially. I didn't realise that I had such a great deal where I currently am.

I'm not only worried about the financial side, I'm genuinely sad about leaving the place. I've been here for going on four years now, since I was at uni. My bedroom is the most square feet that I've ever had to call my own. My mural made out of postcards and general colourful life-souvenirs that spreads over one corner will have to be taken down.

First time I slept with someone who wasn't my boyfriend was in that room. First queen bed. First time someone played me a song they'd written about me.

It was in that room that I hid in while my flatmates raged on outside. It was in that room that Dominique and I made a mattress land that we both could live in for the last weeks while we saved to go to London. It was in that room that I searched like a zombie for my led zepp albums on the Sunday night that Scott died, in case Dad wanted to play any of those songs that we listened to at his funeral. And I'm pretty sure it was in that room that I managed to tell the lover that I loved him. It was definitely the place that he broke up with me the most often.

So anyway, I've become a deflated trawler of realestate.com, trying to find the next room of first times. A decent bathroom and kitchen thrown in is apparently too much to ask these days, though.

long weekend

F: BdR
S: Come Together- british india, VHS or Beta, Y & R, o my.
S: Come Together- but colder, and wetter, with a bit more tea and a bit less pop. Living End were a nice throwback to high school. Hit the Agincourt and danced it off.
M: made "Foreign Film" for Kino. Vic and Stevie put together some bangin' mod costumes for Kaitlyn, James and Leticia. Troopers.

teething

I have one wisdom tooth that's bustin' on through in a really painful manner... went to the doc last night and he was rather blase about the whole thing. Apparently my tooth isn't some kind of rabid alien spawn trying to force its way into my brain through the back of my jaw, it's a normal, albeit kinda giant, human tooth growing upwards in my mouth the way nature divined. Which would be cause for great comfort if it wasn't making me so damned uncomfortable.

Something exciting and adventurous may well be happening at work... shhhhh for now. But it's making me bounce (silently) all over the room like a puppy that swallowed a fairy on meth.

Working on the poker doco this weekend, which is another cause of my bounce-owch my jaw!-bounce refrain. I've never really been a poker player, but B, the director and all-round champion of the project, has been putting me through Hold 'em 101 in the last few weeks. The game is fun but what appeals to me the most is the way the old gamblers speak about their profession. There's an old-world gentleman's code of war about the way they strategise, play and make deals, and a hypnotic romanticism to the way they talk about risk and loss. Daddy, when I grow up I wanna marry a hustler.

sweet child o mine

Yes, this is my new bambino.

totally... in... love.

Should

work some

alas

there are too many interesting things to see

Kino #13 was rock and we were all remarkably well behaved at the pub afterwards, in that no one got jacked off under a table this time- or maybe people are just getting subtler about it.

I accepted a challenge film for the first time. A challenge film is where the audience or the hat chooses your topic for your next film. The hat handed down my fate in the form of a white strip of paper with "FOREIGN FILM" written on it. I've scraped together the bones of a script from my sickbed today.



Kino #13, from the POV of the fan. Will be a bit strange not going to the chalkhorse any more.

winemouse

Maybe i should try the baby mouse thing next time the lover tries to leave.

I never thought i'd hear pete doherty say wiggedy wibble, but there you go.

Bonde

I can't fucking wait for these guys to hit sydney on the 6th... then come together festival on the 7th and 8th. Trying to bug Kaitlyn to come with me to BdR. Henceforth known as the Queen's Wild Weekend

Spoiler

I went down to my grandma's on the weekend with my brother, which gave me the chance to finish off the book I'd been trying to read for six weeks but had been interrupted by my involvement in the local Witch of Portobello Experiment (our team did Heron's Story. I'll post the youtube clip for the entry I worked on when it's up online) and throwing together two films for Kino Sydney, Cut Off, directed by me, and Mine Demons, Mine Own, the Surgical Sideshow collaboration directed by Victoria.

Anyway, the book I'd been trying to read was Karoo by Steve Tesich. Generally, it's an entertaining story, but it started off so masterfully that I thought I was reading some kind of new american classic. Then the ending died in a hole in a way that you can't help comparing to James Joyce and finding rather sparse and angsty in comparison. It's such a shame because most of the book was really enjoyable, then Tesich goes and ruins it. I spent about two hours cursing him for coming up with such an indulgent wank of an ending.

Still, you should read it. At the very least, so that I have someone to commiserate with.

Corrupt Hieroglyphics

So I stayed up until 3am making the call sheet a work of organisational art.

Then I find out this morning that the fucking 90 day trial on my flatmate's laptop only sent corrupt hieroglyphics to everyone and I have to try to do the whole thing today in my lunch hour. I know I've been a fragile sooky la la this week, but that was just a cruel twist, Computer Jesus.

On the upside, this is all in aid of the rather enormous amount of fun we'll be having making a delectably demented short film piece with whacked performance artists Surgical Sideshow tonight. At midnight no less, coz that's apparently how the sideshow freaks roll.

Surgical Sideshow are like a nightmarish silent children's pantomime show, where the oversized demons like to perform random acts of surgery and sometimes eat foam entrails. Pretty jazzed to be working with them. And of course my Punk-Monk Propaganda production tribe.

Songs Not To Be Misconstrued

The lover made this 2-CD mixtape for me approximately the third time we broke up last year... actually, he threw it together before that, but then left the CDs in the Mcdonald's paper take-away bag that he packed the rest of my possessions in. It was called Songs Not To Be Misconstrued because some of them were love songs and he didn't want me to get the impression that he felt that way about me. It's this definitional disease that he has.

I haven't listened to it all the way through in a while but that's what I'm doing today.

Work is still shit and it's not made any better by the fact that all my friends have left or are leaving.

This is one of the best songs off the mixtape. The alcoholic couple in his songs are pretty reflective of the way we work, generally, but this is one of the sweeter choons.

Emergency

Sometimes, you're sitting at work, hating the unbeautiful meniality of some task but simultaneously enjoying re-listening to the diablo cody/ john cusak myspace artist-on-artist. Then you hear the south-pacific accented Voice of God come over the PA and warn you that the next annoying interruption to the day he just interrupted is going to be the emergency test sirens. Which then blare, despite the total lack of emergency.

As you sit there with the unheard dulcet tones of john cusack warming your earphones pointlessly under the blown-out hypersiren, you realise that maybe the universe was trying to tell you that the real emergency was the long silence that you'd maintained online since about 2004 when the most interesting thing you had to say was 'i'm so glad i'm not pregnant... again'.

And then just as you're feeling like maybe you achieved something today by having a virtual brain-vomit, the Voice of God announces that the emergency test is over, a good ten minutes after it actually was over.

I've never heard one of the security guys at the front desk actually use that accent anyway. I'm pretty sure one of them is an unemployed voice over artist who likes to spread his wings by making my ears bleed once every couple of weeks.