Robyn's Secret Passage

The first episode of “Australian Idol” was on TV tonight. In some ways it’s going to be like all the other Idols around the world, and didn’t let me down by having plenty of hopefuls doing the “woo-oooh” emotional warble. But on the other hand, it did have a unique Australian flavour. At one point the two hosts were singing an altered version of “Asshole” with some of the unsuccessful auditionees.

As usual there were the really good singers and the really awful singers. At one point a chubby, pierced neo-punk chick auditioned. She sang horribly, and I assumed she was just having a bit of a laugh, sticking it to corporate exploitation television. But then the mean judge told her she was terrible and she got all teary-eyed. Oops.

I’m impressed by the judges, particularly Marcia Hines. She doesn’t suffer from the terminal niceness that Paula Abdul is plagued with. One auditionee was singing so badly (and so earnestly) that Dicko the evil judge burst out laughing, and Marcia soon followed. But not only is she not afraid to tell it like it is, she can also sing. At the end a losing group of hopefuls asked her to sing and she sounded so amazing that she made people cry.

This is good reality TV. It’s fun to watch and it gets really exciting when it gets down to the final ten. The very first Popstars show, from which the Idol shows evolved from, came from New Zealand (yes, we all remember TrueBliss). So why can’t something cool like this happen in New Zealand now, instead of this sort of boring shit?

There’s an infomercial on and one of the pieces of shit being advertised is a juicer. The hyperactive chef demonstrates how you can put an apple in, juice it, then pour the juice back into the hollowed out apple and drink from it.

That got me thinking: In what situation would it actually be possible to drink apple juice from a hollowed out apple and not feel like a complete asshat?

After much contemplating and extensive scientific research, I have concluded that it would only be possible to drink apple juice out of an apple if the apple also contained either a) vodka or b) tequila. And preferably more booze than apple juice.

That turns it from fruity into fruit-o-licious.

a) Reality TV is a crutch for people who can’t handle reality.

Cameron is the winner of UK Big Brother. Hooray! Unlike the Australian BB where one housemate was voted out each week until there were only two housemates left, the UK BB ended with five housemates. Oh, but Cameron is so nice. He deserved to win.

I was watching TV earlier and a teaser came on for “Australian Idol”. OMG yes! They’re doing it just like all the other Idols. Two nice judges, one blunt judge, hilarious auditions, and enthusiastic singers who denote emotion by going “woah-oh-oh”. Actually, I’m just guessing the last item, but I bet it’ll be like that.

b) Shitomart.

Today was the big public opening of the Britomart Transport Centre. I’m not sure exactly what was being opened because it’s not even close to being finished. It’s not like when the [entertainment complex that houses Village Queen Street cinemas] opened and they were still glueing down tiles and putting in a few remaining rows of cinema seats. There’s so much work to still be done at Britomart.

All around is blank concrete areas, sheets of wood covering holes, duct tape holding stuff together. The interior of the old post office has a very nice ceiling, and the stained glass dome looks pretty, but it’s just a big empty space with nothing actually built in it. Tomorrow it’ll probably be closed off again to the public until it’s properly finished.

The event was allegedly a festival. In true crap festival spirit, there was a sausage sizzle and face painting for the kids. Tired looking parents navigated bored looking kids around. But rather than it being an exciting new place for children to explore, parents were having to keep their kids away from all the unfinished areas. But I suppose even that can be an educational experience. “Look at the dusty glass slats, Ella!” “Look Josh, see how they’ve disguised the raw concrete with rented pot plants!”

It was hard to get excited about it because it wasn’t like, “Wow, what a great new transport centre!” It was more like walking around a building site where all the builders had been hurried away. I’m not even going to start to get excited until they bloody well finish the place. Until then I will fondly call it Shitomart.

One year Dylzno scammed a press pass to the comedy festival, so we went to a whole lot of shows. I always made him sit in the front show, and he usually ended up being picked on by the comedians. But then during Brendhan Lovegrove’s show the bald gap-toothed comedian somehow ended up sitting in an empty seat next to me and turned to me and said, “you’re rool pretty.” Oh, how I blushed and/or scowled.

I often think back to that evening and wonder what comedic endeavour Mr Lovegrove is up to now. My question was answered as I was browsing The Guardian’s web site. Brendhan Lovegrove is the comedy writing partner of Aaron Barschak, the “unfunny comedy terrorist” who gatecrashed Prince William’s 21st dressed as Osama bin Laden.

Brendhan – who befriended Barschak before the royal hoo-ha – is helping him flesh out his 15 minute show into an hour-long show for the Edinburgh festival.

Aaron and Brendhan work off each other for a while. Aaron has rewritten the words to Ballroom Blitz, by the Sweet, and they debate whether to include it in the show: “And Aaron Barschak says Comedy Hijack./It’ll turn into a Windsor Blitz./And the It-Girl in the corner says,/’Boy I got to warn ya,/It’ll turn into a Windsor Blitz./Windsor Blitz.’ ”

Brendhan laughs and claps his hands in delight. “It’s brilliant,” he says.

If only I were in Scotland.

I was heading down Queen Street to catch a bus home when I stumbled across the official opening ceremony of the Britomart centre. There was a rented tent with a bunch of men in suits milling about under it. One of those bango/double bass/trumpet bands (what’s that genre called?) were standing about 30 metres away from the tent and playing music.

Further behind them was a temporary fence keeping the general public away from the un-festive festivities. It had the strange effect of making the tent o’ suits look like some sort of strange anthropological exhibit.

The WBC had their video launch gig at their old stomping ground, the Safari Lounge. The crowd there was (and this is based on my highly unscientific calculations) was about one third rugbyhead (watching a game on the TVs, one third drunken hobag/munter regulars and one third w00da fans.

It was their first show with their new trumpet player. He’s cool and has some wikkid punk stylez. The best moment was during “Thick ‘n’ Thin” when the microphone cut out during the chorus, so no one could hear Matiu sing it. But it didn’t matter because all around me I heard people singing along. After the gig I was talking to st00 about it and he said it was like being in U2. Except without the whole saving the world bit, I’d imagine.

Tired/drunk/v. relaxed

I dug out my old card from when I went to the gym two years ago. On some equipment I was lifting 100 lbs more than I’m doing now. I had no idea I was that strong back then.

I saw “View From The Top”, the Gwyneth comedy about an air hostess. It was silly and funny and also had a nice kind of “go for your dreams!!!” message, but then at the end it got all romantic and ended on a very unsatisfying note.

At the end of the film there were amusing outtakes, including one curious scene were Ms Paltrow and Mike Myers were instead of saying “bullshit” (which is how the dialogue appeared in the proper film), they both said “bull s”. Why? Was there some sort of niceness clause in someone’s contract? Were the curse words dubbed in later? Hmmm…

Two trailers before the film got me excited. The first was for “Down with Love”. I saw it on the plane from London to Bangkok (I think… It’s all a blur). Even though it was on the crappy inflight video screen, with people continually walking in front of it, and even though it was the lite airline edit of the film, I still really enjoyed it. Really cool, witty, stylish romantic comedies are rare.

The other trailer was for “Freaky Friday”. OMG yes, it’s been remade. Jamie Lee Curtis is the mom and some red head girl is Annabel. This excites me because when I was ten years old the 1976 “Freaky Friday” was my favourite movie in the world, ever. Jodie Foster was so incredibly cool as Annabel and Barbara Harris kicked arse as Mrs Andrews. One of my prized possession is a paperback copy of the book, complete with Ms Foster on the cover. The book is better than the movie (no dorky Disney ending), and I have the first paragraph permanently seared in my memory.

The new “Freaky Friday” looks like it’s a totally new story. Rather than the mind swap just happening of its own accord, instead it’s the result of some magical fortune cookie or something dumb like that. The 2003 Annabel looks like Avril Lavigne and she’s in a rock band. The mom is divorced and is going to marry some guy that Annabel doesn’t like. Damn, I liked it better when the mom was a velvet pants suit wearing housewife. But I’m excited. Obviously, it will be nowhere near as cool as the original “Freaky Friday” was for me when I was ten, but I’ll see it anyway.

My pectoral muscles hurt. It’s strange sensation because I don’t normally think of there being any muscles on my chest.

Yesterday I went to my old gym for the first time in two years. Since I left they moved into a new building. The old one had treadmills, bikes etc, circuit weight machines and various other weights. The new one has all that plus a pool, sauna, hot pool, steam room and an exercise room for stuff like Pilates. Thankfully there are no TVs or the kind of freaky maniacal aerobics classes that places like Les Mills have.

A friend of mine also went to the same gym as me. We used to email each other with the membership numbers of famous people whose workout cards we’d found in the card boxes. I was pleased that I was on heavier weights than a popular newsreader. Our former boss also went to that gym and my friend added a note on his hard under the injuries section saying that he’d suffered a rectal strain.

Ah, those were the good old days. Of course now my strength and fitness ain’t what it used to be. I want to be a lean, mean, LiveJournalling machine. Actually, I’d settle for human rather than machine.

Oh, it was horrible last night. The power supply for my computer stopped working! Arrgh! So once the battery was used up I didn’t know what to do with my evening. I watched TV but it felt so empty.

That reminds me, I should write something about “Extreme Makeover” which is now my new favourite TV show.

The grand finale of Big Brother was a little anti-climactical. I mean, Regina was a massive favourite right from the beginning. She was always the most popular housemate on the weekly online polls. The only thing resembling a shock eviction was yesterday when Daniel was evicted ahead of Chrissie. But Regina won, totally breaking the Australian BB trend where the most boring, nicest male wins.

Someone one asked me why I never write about politics. It’s basically because I don’t particularly care about politics. I don’t even know if I’m left wing or right wing. All I know is I’m not bloody centre and parties like United Future make me feel ill with their caring niceness.

But then I was thinking about the times when I am interested in politics and I realised that it’s when there’s an upcoming election. Then I thought about why politics is interesting then and I realised that it’s the same thrill that a reality show like Big Brother or American Idol gives. You’ve got a bunch of people who are competing for a highly sought after position. They have to win the public over with their skills, talents and basic personality. The public then gets to vote for who they want to win.

Watching the live results coming in on election night is as thrilling as watching the final of Big Brother or American Idol. But because the government of this country sees fit to only hold an election once every three years, my yearning for such televisual thrills is filled with reality shows.

What happened to the remix? I remember back in the day when a remix just meant a regular song with different music or beats. But now remixes are almost different songs all together. Like, why do a cover of an old Phil Collins song when you can rewrite one of your own songs a couple of months after it’s first released.

Fo’ example. R. Kelly has this song called “Ignition” which is a slow R&B jam using the car as a metaphor for sexual activity, but at the same time describing sexual activity in a car. At the end of this song is a preview of the alleged remix, which was in turn released as a single which everyone knows and loves. It’s the freakin’ weekend and everyone’s forgotten about Mr Kelly’s underage misadventures.

Which leads me (via the remix route, not the underage route) to the Aaliyah song “Miss You”, a slow soul ballad about missing someone who’s gone away (Or is dead, maybe. Possibly Tupac. Maybe she’s missing herself from beyond the grave. I dunno, I can’t be bothered looking up the lyrics). Anyway, there’s a remix of it with Jay Z rapping all around it and in one point he gives a shout out to what sounds like “soldiers and soul jets”. It took me a while before I realised that it was soldiette, i.e. a lady soldier. It’s cool when rappers talk about “niggers and niggettes”, but when a girl has a gun, cutesyfying her role with an -ette is possibly not a wise move.

The Face magazine continues to freak me out. I’d just picked up the August edition (air freighted, from Magazzino, v. good) and was reading the editorial. Editor Neil Stevenson had made a list of “my favourite people this month”. In the middle of it I was shocked to read:

Les Mills
The former New Zealand shot putter who invented Body Pump.

A quick look at the Les Mills web site reveals that it was his son Phillip Mills (OMG, Phil Mills) whose work lead to the creation of Body Pump (quick, put his picture on a dollar note). Les Mills is the man who, as mayor of Dorkland, started what was to become the Britomart fiasco, which in turn lead to the people’s transport centre that is nearing completion. Can we blame him for the ’70s gay disco interior?

Ah, but Orlando Bloom was on the cover, so really, all is forgiven.

I was at St Lukes today and so were about a million other people. I heard a mother calling after her small daughter, “Choose! Choose!” It seemed like a really strange thing for a parent to yell at their kid. “Choose! Tuesday! Come here, Tuesday!”. Oh yes, a parent who’d named their kid Tuesday, or Tues for short.

She shares this name with actress Tuesday Weld (real name Susan) and Tuesday Roberts-Warner, the lovechild of Carmen and Guy on Shortland Street. Lucky her – at school she’ll be surrounded by dozens of Madisons, Tylers, Rubys and Connors, but I bet she’ll be the only Tuesday.