Archive for April, 2003

Numero

Published
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Robyn
on April 30, 2003
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1. Kim Gordon is now 50. It’s not quite time for Sonic Youth to change their name to Sonic Oldies, but in nine years’ time when Steve Shelley turns 50, they should consider it. It should be noted that Kim Gordon still rocks hard. It should also be noted that I went off Sonic Youth about six years ago when I was talking to a 19 year old Smashing Pumpkins fan who was getting into Sonic Youth because Billy Corgan had cited them as an influence. It should also be be noted that “Goo” and “Dirty” are the best Sonic Youth albums, and anyone who reckons their pre-Geffen stuff is better is a poser.

2. I just watched “Logan’s Run” on DVD. When “Minority Report” came out Spielberg was going on about how they created the future world by taking the stuff we have now and projecting it into the future. Well, y’know, that’s also what the designers did when they were creating the 23rd century utopia of “Logan’s Run”. Only it looks very much like 1976. Like a 1976 mall. I expect in 30 years’ time “Minority Report” will look the same. Oh how we will chuckle at the cheesy special effects.

3. I was at a juice bar today and I ordered a smoothie. I paid for it with my credit card, but their machine did not accept credit card payments. It was really busy, so both the girls working there were busy making all the orders, and no one noticed that my transaction hadn’t gone through. I stood there with a ten dollar note in my hand waiting to be asked for an alternative method of payment, but it didn’t happen. One of them went up to the machine, ripped off the paper with the error message printed on it, then went back to making smoothies. When mine was made the girl gave it to me and went back to making more. Oh well.

4. You know what I’m really sick of at the moment? The New Zealand music scene. This is rather bad timing as May is New Zealand Music Month. I think I might have to not listen to any radio, not watch any music TV, not read any music press. Yes, I may make it to June with my sanity intact.

5. Oh, there’s this great scene in “Logan’s Run” where Logan and Jessica, after having been soaked with water, find themselves in an icy winterland. They find some furry animal skins to wear, but Logan suggests first that they take off their other clothes so they don’t have the cold, wet clothing on. This of course means that Jessica must show us her boobies. Then moments later, after the freaky mirror robot comes along, they put their clothes back on. Now that is actual gratuitous nudity. None of this pretend gratuitous nudity that my generation prides itself on.

6. Speaking of nudity, oh how scandalous it is to see the Big Brother housemates showering naked, and how nice those ones are who shower in their swimsuits or underwear. But then, hey, isn’t it normal to shower in the nude?

Over the show

Published
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Robyn
on April 29, 2003
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The first episode of the new Big Brother series aired tonight. OMG yes. I’m so addicted already. I’ve signed up to the web site and I’ve already caught up on the stuff that’s happens during the 24 hour delay between the show screening in Australia and New Zealand.

My two favourite annoying people care Carlo the loud, obnoxious soccer slut and Belinda the high heeled hairdresser. My favourite non-annoying people are Claire the bisexual PhD candidate and maybe Benjamin because when we last left him he was all alone in the round house.

What’s exciting is that one of the BB housemates who’s yet to enter the house is a fat lady. Of course she’s going to end up in the house because seeing someone that much overweight showering in the outside shower would make for excellent television.

Within minutes of the housemates first entering the square house, someone started singing that Big Brovas song. I hope that was the last time.

In solidarity for the 12 housemates I have decided not to leave the house for the next three months. Except for the times that I go out, that is.

(Remember “Kiwi Flatmates”? We prefer not to.)

Thank you, thank you.

Published
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Robyn
on April 28, 2003
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I dreamed last night that Martin Scorcese wanted me to be his girlfriend. I was like, “but dude, you have a wife.” And he was like, “that doesn’t matter.” I wasn’t particularly attracted to him, yet I was thrilled by the idea that this excellent film director would want me to be his girlfriend. But then I kept getting him confused with Francis Ford Copolla and then I woke up. That’ll teach me to not fall asleep with my electric blanket on.

Progress has been made in the content manager search. I want something that will let me easily update my web site. I could use something like Blogger, but most blogging things create annoying URLs like www.secret-passage.com/2003/03/28/ or even worse PHP urls like www.secret-passage.com/secret.php?new.template. That’s horrible. I don’t want question marks in URLs.

So I was originally going to write something in PHP. “PHP is easy! It’s really easy!” all the geek boys said. But then I tried to start doing stuff with it and realised that it was a meaningless, confusing, brain-hurting mess. So then Dylzno said he was writing something for his site that I could also use, but he hasn’t done that. Now he’s going to be adapting a previously written blog thing that should work nicely and not have any bullshit URLs.

The church building across the street is (I think) for sale. The church has run out of money and is going to sell it and have the new owner remove it. Then a new building with shops on the street and a church at the back will be built. The local residents association got all pissy about it. Someone seriously suggested that the church convert the building into a cafe. Yes, because what Mt Eden needs now is another latte factory.

Apparently the church is lovely on the inside, but on the outside it’s white and nondescript and pretty boring. It doesn’t really add anything to the area. The really excellent part is that most of the people complaining about the church being removed aren’t regular church-goers. They just like the idea of having this eye candy of an old building down their street.

A good show

Published
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Robyn
on April 27, 2003
in LJ and Music
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The WBC played at Cafe 223 tonight. It was a bloody good show for three particular reasons.

1. The venue was comfortably full.
Cafe 223’s upstairs room is smaller than the King’s Arse, but bigger than the Temple. By the time the WBC started playing the room had filled with a selection of punk arses, rock boys and girls, and a few old drunks who’d wandered in off the street. It’s really cool that the WBC is getting so popular that it can be the only band playing and get an audience that size.

2. Good sound.
Really nice and clear. The mix was good, and vocals were clear. It was maybe a little bit too loud, but the clarity made up for that. I think the new stage at the King’s Arse and also Aqua Velvet (in Raggiz) are the only other venues where I’ve experienced such excellent sound.

3. New songs.
Yes, finally, teh w00da have added two new songs to their set list. They dropped the usual intro and started right with a song. The first new song, which I think was called “Uncle Benny” was slower, but I liked it. The other one, which I think was “Trial and Error” should have been faster. It had a middle section that seemed a bit empty, but there’s great potential for a really kick-arse song. “A Message To You Rudie” was there, along with all the usual songs. I really liked “Substance” tonight. St00 says he turned up the volume of the distortion on his guitar, and I think it worked because the song had an extra kick to it. It went off, mate.

I was in Magazino today and I noticed that Bust, my favourite magazine in the whole world, was in the gay section. Ok, Bust is more lesbian/bi friendly than your average women’s magazine, but it’s not a gay themed magazine. In every issue there’s a porno story called the “One Handed Read” (ha ha). I doubt a lesbian magazine would have “the hard ridge of his penis” in an erotic story, y’know. But there Bust was, sitting next to all the couple of lesbian magazine, and the many gay men’s magazines. It’s got a little in common with both of those types of publications, but more in common with such women’s magazines as Jane, which was sitting in the women’s magazine section on the side wall.

I was looking through some ICQ logs and discovered that a few weeks ago I’d used the word “riddum” in serious conversation. Ok, cool.

Flashback

Published
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Robyn
on April 26, 2003
in Film & TV and Observatory
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To commemorate Anzac Day, I ate Anzac biscuits on Anzac Ave.

After that I wandered down the hill and up the other side to the museum. I think Anzac day is the only day the museum’s compulsory donation is waived, so, woohoo, I saved $5. I spent most of my time there looking around on the third floor.

The Colonial Auckland display has always been once of my favourites. When I was little I used to go into the haberdashery and pretend that I was a 1860s lady buying several yards of the purple fabric with flowers on it, then, OMG, suddenly I was transported forward in time to the 1980s and was very confused and lost. Like “Freaky Friday”, but nowhere near as cool.

I know a fellow who claims to have had a root in Colonial Auckland.

Then I wandered through the Scars On The Heart section. The bits that always get me are the holocaust gallery, the quote from the man who says that when he returned from the war no one ever asked him what it was like, and the walls of names. So many names.

There’s also the spectacular wall in the World War 2 section that has a giant swastika painted on it. It’s such a powerful image. It’s just so full of energy and strength. I felt oppressed standing next to it. The giant sun of the Japanese flag felt more embracing and warm.

I also like how the memorial alcove for the New Zealand Wars has had the metal letters that formerly said “MAORI WARS” changed to “NEW ZEALAND WARS”. It feels like a bit of denial of history. The new letters are a little wobbly, and the marks in the marble where the old letters were attached are still visible.

I had a look around the cenotaph in front of the museum. There was a selection of flowers and wreaths from various organisations and countries. St John’s Ambulance had a card with their flowers that just had their logo and slogan “The first to care”. It seemed quite inappropriate, almost offensive at that time. Surely the family and friends of the soldiers are the first to care - because they are always caring?

Later Dylzno rang me up. He was in town, bored, so I recommended that he see “The Good Girl”. A couple of hours later he rang back saying that I should have warned him about Tim Blake Nelson’s penis. Ah ha ha.

Mew

Published
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Robyn
on April 25, 2003
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I saw “The Good Girl” at the movies. Right in the row in front of me was what I think was a grandmother and some of her grandchildren. Ok, so looking after the grandkids during the school holidays is cool, but when you take a bunch of little kids to see a movie (and these were little kids - I reckon the youngest would have been about 4, the oldest 8), pick a kids movie. Pick one with a G rating. Pick a fun cartoon or a sassy kids adventure movie. Don’t take your grandkids to a dark, adult comedy. Maybe the gran was thinking that a movie called “The Good Girl” would be about a well-behaved female child. Ha!

The kids spent most of the movie twisting in their seats, bored. The dark adult humour of the film didn’t get anywhere near them. The grandmother spent most of the movie with her neck turned towards the kids, getting them to sit down, handing them popcorn and generally not watching the movie.

But the best bit came during the scene in the movie when Tim Blake Nelson’s character comes out of his house with just a quilt wrapped around him. His dog bites the quilt and pulls it away and there’s a brief glimpse of his donger. As soon as the penis appeared, the grandmother quickly reached over and put her hand over the eyes of the kid in the seat next to her. She loudly whispered to the others “don’t look! Don’t look!”, but by then the next scene had come and the penis was but a funny memory.

John C. Riley was in it. Dylzno has a theory that all movies John C. Riley is in are good. (Ditto for Edward Norton.) I’d go for a lower hit rate, but this was one was good. This, along with “Chicago” and “The Hours” rounds out his lousy-husband trilogy. In this one he was a goofy, pot-smoking husband.

I should also mention Jake Gyllenhaal. I was totally in love with him after seeing “Donny Darko”, but I’m out of love with him after “The Good Girl”. His character is excellent. He’s what a cinematic troubled, rebellious loner teen would be like in real life. i.e. a pretentious dickhead. He’s endlessly cute on the outside, but once Jennifer Aniston’s character (and the audience) get to know him, the crazy, mixed-up ugliness is becomes apparent. And we welcome the real world, where the heroine picks the pot-smoking husband over the cute badboy.

Oh, I just gave away the ending. Or did I?

Because a film isn’t about plot, it’s about how the plot is executed.

—

Oh yes, on the bus there’s now a magazine for people to read on the bus. It is called “Ticket”. I felt alienated soon after I opened it and read the the magazine was “to read as you get yourself to work”. Not school, not the shops, not uni, not the movies, not a sports even, no, just work. “Ticket” is really boring. It’s filled with boring articles on boring subjects. Boring reviews of things that describe it, but barely express an opinion on it. An unfunny humour column (but isn’t describing something as being funny almost a guarantee that it won’t be?), and that old, old trick of having an article about a subject that is later advertised in the magazine. The editorial urges readers to “stop staring out the window” and read the magazine, but quite frankly, looking out the window is way more interesting than reading boring articles.

Yeah, because if you want something to read on the bus, it’s ok for it to be light and disposable, but make it interesting. I mean, you wouldn’t want to fall asleep and miss your stop.

Vamos

Published
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Robyn
on April 24, 2003
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I had early morning (i.e. 10am) coffee with a few members of the MCC. It was good socialising with them, because there never seemed to be much time to do at during the course. On the last day of the course I gave everyone a copy of my zine, so there was a bit of feedback on that. I like how everyone who’s read it and talked to be about it seems to like different things. One of the MCC fellows liked the backwards writing because he’s dyslexic and it somehow makes it easy for him to read.

After that I wandered into the city and ended up running into Murray, so I had lunch with him. I forgot how much fun he is. Actually, I feel the need to note the the chicken in the chicken and vegetables I got from the Chinese place reminded me of the flesh gun in “Existenz”. Ya, so Murray revealed that Ryan was in town and was possibly having a shindig tonight.

After lunch I wandered along Queen Street and had a ramble through Smith and Caughey. The ladies toilets have been magnificently revamped. It’s very, very classy now. The eating establishment on the second floor is now a restaurant. It was previously a cafe, and prior to that, tearooms. I like the tearooms style the best because it had this really cool late ’60s decor, including a really neat booth design (excellent for evesdropping, according to my mum who, it should be added, has stolen teaspoons from the S&C tearooms). Then in the late ’80s (I think) all the booths were ripped out and replaced with lots of tables. Increased seating, I’m sure, but diminished atmosphere. Now it’s all very dark and stylish. But I didn’t eat there, it just didn’t seem nice.

I amused myself by checking the Armani section. I found a leather jacket that cost about as much as I paid for my car. That’s all very well, but I think my car is more useful and I’d have much more fun in my car than in a diarrhoea-brown leather jacket.

So indeed young Ryan was having a shindig. I showed up to that cafe place on High Street and there was a big old table full of various assorted people. Dylz was there, and so was his new girlfriend, who he met on a dating web site. At one stage Dylz was getting very excited describing one of those vegetable cutting demonstrations at the Easter show, and how it made him want to buy one. I asked him if he was gay, because surely a real man would have a hearty knife set (right, DRZA?). Then this lead to a hysterical sequence of such scenarios as a macho aggro bloke coming home from the pub and being like “julienne me some carrots, bitch.”

Places

Published
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Robyn
on April 23, 2003
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While I was waiting for my laundry to be done I wandered down to the Dominion Road shops. I think that area’s specifically called Eden Valley, but it’s the Dominion Road shops, ok? It’s an interesting neighbourhood with cool secondhand shops mingling with new Asian-themed shops.

I bought “Lovage - Music to Make Love to Your Old Lady By”. It’s a kind of cynical love album, like it Barry White had been dicked over by a few too many devil women. It’s also very fine. Oh so very fine, etc.

Having previously moved in with his girlfriend, my old flatmate has now moved into his own bachelor pad. His entire flat costs $10 a week less than mine, but it’s about the same size as my lounge. Because of its tininess, I went over and helped him sort through his crap.

If you move around a bit, like he has, and like I have, you end up with boxes filled with inessential stuff that never gets unpacked. From flat to flat the boxes are schlepped around and never opened, never unpacked. Before I went to Melbourne I went on a ruthless culling spree through all my stuff. I threw out so much stuff that I just had no use for. Now I don’t have any unopened boxes. Everything is unpacked.

So I helped Teh Matt sort through print outs of web pages, university notes, old computer disks and manuals, bad poetry, scraps of paper with phone numbers and a flowery yet touching break-up note from an old girlfriend, written in the way that only 17 year old girls write. It’s nice when everything figures out a place to go.

Holy

Published
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Robyn
on April 21, 2003
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The bad arse rock boys came over last night. Hodad, Throb and (oh, what nickname can I pull out of my arse in a hurry?) How arrived and laid into the hardcore drugs. Ok, Red Bull syrup isn’t a banned substance, but y’know, if I drank a bottle of it I wouldn’t have had any sleep last night.

Throb started looking at my CD collection. This made me feel very nervous and exposed. Despite the frequent culling, there’s still enough stuff in there to reveal almost every side of my personality. He found the Rubicon CD. “I DIDN’T BUY THAT!” I yelled. No one believed me. Then he got really excited. He had found my David Hasselhoff “Close to Heaven” CD. He put it on and the boys mercilessly mocked it. It was great.

Then we all piled in a taxi (yes, one piles in to a taxi) and it was off to the St James for Sly and Robbie. Ok, this is what it comes down to: there was a moment when I realised that I didn’t know who was Sly and who was Robbie, but then I realised that it didn’t matter. What mattered is that there was some really excellent music being played and that I was really enjoying it and having a bloody good time.

This is how mighty the show was: at one stage the PA cut out, but the on-stage sound was so loud that the music could still be heard, and the energy and the vibe in the audience didn’t really drop much. Fortunately the sound soon kicked back in and the mighty, glorious beats returned to the St James. We pity the fools who went to the Audioslave concert instead.

Back at my whare, the absence of M2 was felt. It just seems right that when you come home from a gig that watching music videos is the right thing to do. But “Jackie Brown” was on. There were a few scenes that involved two people talking, and the camera would cut between each person. It seems very much like each actor had filmed their lines separately and then the conversation was edited together. There was no flow, it was slow and unnaturally paced. So, the question is, is “Kill Bill” going to be a magnificent return to form, or will Mr Tarantino reveal himself to be a two-trick pony (albeit an inspiring and highly influential one)?

Oh, but I digress. The bad-arse rock boys settled down for the night and were very well-behaved. In fact, I almost wish they had fucked shit up a bit, then I’d have an interesting tale to tell. Instead I could relate tales like my friend who’s about my age and he’s wooing a girl ten years younger who lives in another town, or my friend who’s 16 manho and is doing rude things with creme eggs. I’m such a nun.

Grindcore

Published
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Robyn
on April 19, 2003
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I saw “Roger Dodger”. Here’s what other people thought of it as they left the theatre:

The guy walking in front of me: “Like Tarantino used to do.”
The woman walking behind me: “Horrible. Really, really bad.”

It was neither. It was about a fellow whose nephew shows up and asks him to help him be a hit with the ladies. But while it was about the art (or science) of seduction, it’s also about ree-lay-shon-ships. This lady sitting a few seats down from me laughed a lot at stuff that wasn’t remotely funny. Like, there’d be a cut to a new scene and she’d laugh.

Tomorrow night I will have houseguests:

man, its going to be farken choice. you are farkrn choice for putting us up for the night. perhaps you are innocent and naive and have never hosted dodgy rock n roll musicians in your innocent unspotlt flat before? yes, that’ll be it. if thats the case, apologies in advance. but hey, you might get a nice article for your zine out of it.

Oh my!

st00 came over and we watched the Brit Awards. J. Timberlake sang a medley of songs then Kylie came out and they performed “Rapture” and Justin grabbed her arse and it was magnificent. st00 accused me of liking Robbie Williams, and I was going to get all defensive and be like “I DO NOT LIKE HIM!!!!”, but then I realised that actually if I was in his rockstar manor with cocaine and champagne all that shit, I wouldn’t be complaining. Well, something like that, anyway.