recipe of me

You know how they say you are what you eat? I figure you are what you read, listen to and watch too. All those incidental seemingly frivolous things that we tend to laugh off are the ones that describe us best. Sometimes when I watch tele or read a book or listen to a song there’s a sense of recognition that runs through me that’s like me! Pop culture is part of how we identify ourselves. The things we engage in and consume define us probably better than we care to admit.

So without hesitation – here is the rather patchy and in no way even half complete recipe of me.

I am all about making up stupid dances in order to get my mojo back. A la Wet Hot American Summer

(15 humps of the fridge worth)

Sometimes I like a good gossip fest a la “The Telephone Hour” Bye Bye Birdie

(2 phonecalls and a call wait worth)

Although I am scatterbrained, eternally single and basically a nervous wreck you can bet that underneath there is something a little more interesting going on. A la Selina Kyle in Batman Returns

(13 gallons of spilled coffee and a saved by kitty litter worth)

“I don’t think you have particularly good manners with ladies” said Pippi. then she lifted him high into the air with her strong arms. She carried him to a nearby birch tree, and hung him across a branch. then she took the next boy and hung him on another branch and then she look the next one and sat him on the high gatepost outside the house, and then she took the next one and threw him right over the fence, leaving him sitting in a bed of flowers in the next-door garden. She put the last of the bullies into a little toy cart that stood on the road. Then Pippi and Tommy and Annika and Willie stood looking at the boys a while, and the bullies were quite speechless with astonishment.

Pippi said, “You are cowards! Five of you go after one boy. That’s cowardly. And then you begin to push a little defenceless girl around. Oh, how disgraceful! Nasty!”

I can’t stand any kind of bullying behaviour on ‘underdogs’ – especially from rude boy bullies. I probably will always see myself as your protector (if you’re my friend) even if you are older, wiser, stronger, smarter and totally have *my* back.

(13 kicks to mean boys’ shins)

I have been known to make a wise crack or two. I’m a bit “quirky”. I love my motown – LOVE IT! Sometimes I say ridiculous things. I am passionate when I get riled up and when I’m on fire I can sooooo kick some major arse! a la Murphy Brown. I absolutely idolised this show (and Murph) while growing up!

(1000 decibels of “Why Do Fools Fall In Love”)

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read it. Basically she’s the black sheep of the family who basically learns to depend on herself. I totally identify with Jane Eyre for so many different reasons (or maybe I just identify with the mad woman in the attic – depends on the day I suppose).

(3 encounters with a mean old family member)

Like Janeane’s character in The Truth About Cats and Dogs I have my insecurities too – on radio she can be more herself than what she can in real life – similarly am probably better in blogland than in real life!

(18 times shy worth)

“Why does Marcia get everything?” Yes, why does she?! a la Jan Brady The Brady Bunch

(3 cups of Marcia, Marcia, Marcia)

I won’t hear one bad word against The Golden Girls – it is the absolute shit! I love it! I have had many a conversation with the buds as to who is who on this show. When we proclaimed M as Blanche (because of her vast “experience”) she got very offended and wouldn’t speak to the rest of us for days. E and I had an argument about which one of us was Dorothy once. I insisted that I was, because of the whole sarcastic teacher thing, but she insisted that she was much more bitter and twisted than I could ever be and that I was the apparently the funny old glue that holds everyone together – Sophia. I still think I’m the bitter and twisted Dorothy – plus see that look she’s giving the camera? I can totally do that look and do bring it often! That’s what is known as ‘the teacher look’.
(5 heaped cups of sassy pants)

I don’t want to go on any manhunts with the other girls. I just want to do fun stuff. Is that so hard to understand? a la Gidget.

(1 rather wistful sigh and a crush on the big kahuna worth)

You know the best thing about aeroplanes? Apart from the peanuts in the little silver bags, I mean. It’s looking out of the windows at the clouds, and thinking, maybe I could go walking in there. Maybe it’s a special place where everything’s okay. Sometimes I do go walking in the clouds. But it’s just cold and wet and empty, but when you look out of a plane it’s a special world…

When you say words a lot they don’t mean anything. Or maybe they don’t mean anything anyway, and we just think they do.

I have my weird insular moments that no one else in the whole world understands a la Delirium in The Sandman.

(3 fishes full)

Music freak who makes obsessive lists – a la Rob Gordon High Fidelity

(10 lists written messily and dated)

In school M and I would rather embarrassingly sing showtunes all through class and give impromptu performances (obviously I wasn’t one of the popular girls) a la Connie and Carla

(76 trombones full)

Totally living in my head with the world’s wildest imagination a la Zoe in Cherish. When I saw this movie for the first time I just thought that’s me …right down to the daggy music tastes and singing into the hair dryer while wearing roller skates.

(18 lollypops sucked)

All bravado – no sense. Will only ‘quit it’ when someone stronger than me puts their foot down. A la Calamity Jane.

(45 pistol shots into the air)

Bookworm, eternal librarian, dreamy, ridiculously idealistic, argumentative, funny dance moves, can’t sing for shit but will try anyway – a la Jo Stockton in Funny Face.

(35 meetings with strange men in Paris worth)

Messy handbag – check
Dandruff art – check.
Wearing a fuck load of black – check.
anti-social – sometimes.
Cereal/chip and sugar sandwiches – check.
wacko dancing – check.
A la Allison Reynolds in The Breakfast Club
(1 growl and a strange sound worth)

Underneath I’m a total geek and goody goody. I get into trouble without meaning to. I’m terribly idealistic. I want a break from my old life. I totally blame Phil for alerting me to this one about fifty billion years ago in some entry of mine where he made a comment about my wacko ideas reminding him of Linsday – but yes, I agree. So for all those things I’m Lindsay Weir, from Freaks and Geeks.

(a joint, inhaled but immediately regretted worth).

Purely for the fig tree metaphor. If there is one thing that could typify my rather flawed approach to things it’s the fig tree metaphor in The Bell Jar. Not knowing which one to pick and so they all turn rotten, shrivel and die. How cheery!

(28 figs – sliced)

Maybe I’m a little bit Peppermint Patty every now and again with my frankness, but let’s be honest she’s waaay too sporty to be me – I’m a little more Marcie from Peanuts: I’m crap at sports. I can be a little naive sometimes and need a bit of protecting. I’ll totally help you with your homework if I think you’re a true friend and I have a secret crush on Charlie Brown.

(5 polished pairs of glasses worth)

If you want an instruction manual to me (unlikely) read – Quirkyalone by Sasha Cagen. I identified immediately.

(6 tales of romantic idealism worth)

Hal Hartley’s Trust is one of my all time favourite movies. So yes, Maria – but only after she puts on the uncool dress, trades the contacts in for glasses, starts asking many questions and turns into a total librarian. Need to be saved? Maybe.

(5 exploding grenades worth)

pfeeeeee, of course! I hear you think. But yes – yes I read it, cried, got angry, got really sad and then got even angrier. I identify with much of it and at the same time not all of it speaks to me. A great book for a femmo.

(5 feminists wearing pink shoes worth)

This album doesn’t so much remind me of me – but instead is just a part of me.

(3 rounds of rolling around on the floor worth)

Like Karen Carpenter I hang out with my bro a lot. We get along rather famously these days. Sometimes we’re a team…other times I want to punch his lights out. <3

(2 quaaludes and an hour on the treadmill worth)

Eclectic, a bit weird, sometimes unexpected, soulful, has it’s poignant moments and lots of silly ones, sometimes incredibly sexy, or forward, or confronting – a little tongue in cheek. This album is sooo me.

(having a go at using these broken wings to learn to fly, worth)

Mystery, intrigue, hidden secrets, lots of people admitting to being a lush a la Hollywood Babylon (aka: one of my most favourite books, ever).

I don’t know how I could forget to include her – this little icon of mine. As a kid I was absolutely obsessed with Alice and her trips down the rabbit hole. I used to go looking for rabbit holes that I could dissapear into (hello Freud!). So, for the dumb thoughts, weird dreams, conversations with strange animals, naivety and general ‘I’ve had enough and now I’m going to make you all pay’ attitude a la Alice. I still identify with her even though I’m all grown up. And even though I’m all grown up if I come across an edition of Alice that I don’t own I’ll buy it

I can identify with the feeling of always playing second fiddle, the insecurities, the constant wonderings about people – and there always happens to be an evil Mrs Danvers around, unfortunately. a la Rebecca

And last but not least (cause otherwise I’ll keep finding more and more things to add to the list) – and just because I love this song to bits. A nod to motown, which always gives me a little buck up when I need it.
Reach Out (I’ll be there) – The Four Tops

(played loud and danced to rather embarrassingly until caught by the cute but little bit crazy painter guy, a la Murphy Brown)

Mix until smooth.
Bake in a moderate oven.
Serve hot with a side of crazy cake.

ps: what the hell is going on with blogger lately? Am I going to be forced to relocate to wordpress or diaryland? ugh.

imagine that your little girl just got raped.

When I heard about the Rape DVD I was horrified. When I read about what actually happened I cried my eyes out. There is never an excuse – underage or not. I don’t actually share the ‘lock ‘em up and throw away the key’ attiude that some people have for these kinds of offences. Everyone knows hardcore rapists are back out on the street within a year on good behaviour anyway. My punishment would be much, much harsher. The kind of retribution I would applaud when it comes to dealing with these kinds of men, goes waaay outside the dealings of the “law” (which let’s face it is a JOKE). I do not think that the law is in any way adequate in dealing with crimes of sexual assault. I don’t even think we’re half way to treating victims like ‘humans’ when it comes to rape trials. I know you have to hear both sides of the story but if you think you can’t defend the indefensible then when it comes to rape trials you’re wrong. Truth of the matter though, I doubt there is any punishment that would ever fit the crime.

That is speaking generally – but basically what happened in this particular situation was this: After agreeing to meet someone off MSN a young girl with ‘mild developmental delay’ was set upon by a gang of boys who sexually assulted her, urinated on her, set her on fire, filmed it all and distributed the DVD. It was also shown on YouTube complete with lines like “What the f—, she’s the ugliest thing I have ever seen.”

I know some girls are absolute bitches. I know that there are girls who will kill, lie, cheat, steal, and abuse men. But this kind of shit described above sounds all too common to me on the part of actions from men on women. Tell me you haven’t heard of another case like this one before? It’s a dime a dozen and it’s crap. Rape is a gendered crime – apart from the excpetions to the rule rape is a crime that happens to women perpetrated by men. I honestly don’t want to hear about the arguments where women ‘make shit up’. This is not what I’m talking about. I mean the real deal. How did we get to the stage where men think it’s okay to do this? They thought it would be a good time to target a girl and sexually assault her. I can’t imagine anyone not be horrified by this, but still it happened. It happens everyday. It’s happening right now, somewhere. Why?

This makes me both sad and angry. We basically live in a culture that supports this kind of action. I’m not saying anyone condones it – I’m saying that the culture is RIPE for it. A DVD was made and it was distributed. I mean fuck.

Are we raising boys wrong?
How did it get to this stage?
Why?

Someone explain it to me because:
I
don’t
understand.

flowers and tumbleweeds

Weirdest Aries forecast ever:

They know where you live. They have your phone number. Or, if they haven’t, they will track you down – even if they have to put a tracer on the cornflakes in your shopping trolley. Sooner or later they are going to find you and, when they do, they are going to bore you to tears. The yawn-makers have singled you out for special attention. Their great desire is to bend your ear and warp your mind with a tirade of tedium. Is there no escape? Well, you could try earplugs. Focus on the bright, not the boring.

courtesy of cainer.com

Looks like they got me sooner than later mate. It’s called the weekly staff meeting. Oi vey. I tend to do that thing where I look straight at prin and just nod, as if I’m listening. It’s an important skill to have as a teacher, believe me. In teaching, one is bombarded with more information in one hour than a normal person could handle in a day. We’re talking New York Stock Exchange type stuff. You learn to nod and just tune out (you didn’t hear it from me) in order to get a bit of peace. Anyway, today I was caught out when prin asked me a direct question and I just looked straight at her and nodded – like I do every week. Meanwhile everything went silent except for the crickets singing in the background as everyone waited for what was supposed to be my response. It was only after the tumbleweed had rolled past that I realised that I had fucked up by “pretending to listen” when evidentally it was my turn to actually answer a question for once. Err…um….yeah? Not good. I did it twice actually. What is going on in the world? Usually they leave the art teacher alone with her obviously frazzled art teacher like thoughts.

Project paint the art room real is on in full swing. I have had many people walk past, do a double take and come in and compliment the changes. It’s becoming real. Now if only I wasn’t talking about art room, eh?

Of course since I’m spending a lot of time avoiding the abstract by painting real things I’ve found msyelf with nose in the paint tin lately. Today I got home at the end of the day with a huge white streak of paint in my hair! How could anyone not have told me? I looked like a mad scientist. Some days I come home looking composed and normal, other days I’m looking into the rearview mirror at a girl with art teacher written all over her face.

Except for the nice little flowers stolen from the school gardens by little hands, there is no glamour in this job.
Though, now that I think about it – I like flowers.

just take the lead!!

girl talk

daily perils of being a woman

funny little life.

* I can’t help showing my rather hideous (yet strangely fascinating) hot glue gun damaged blistery hand to everyone. It’s like a strange compulsion I have to interrupt people and just say heeey, look what happened to me, like some derranged lunatic. Maybe I’m a little proud of my battle scars, as if it legitimises my martyr-like suffering as a teacher because it’s visible. You’d think I’d fought in WWII or something.

* This morning I saw the most perfectly matched couple crossing the road at Hoddle/Johnston (that’s right, bogan capital). The girl had dyed got any blacker? hair and was wearing a studded belt and she was holding the leash of the world’s meanest looking dog. Her boyfriend had a Lars Urlich type look about him, but with loooong side burns and was wearing a shirt that said Guns don’t kill people. Bullets do on the back. It was comedy gold. Of course I was sitting at the lights listening to We Built this City by Starship on 39 (yea, we’re talking gangsta level) – so who am I to make fun of others?

* Also this morning as I was driving along Flinders St, I zipped past a homeless man sort of wandering along with his bag and looking like he could use a wash. He looked absolutely miserable. How many homeless people do you think you’d see in a day? Do you think about them at all? Is it easier not to? I spend a lot of my week living in my suburban bubble teaching art to the kids. I’m not really confronted by images of people who have nowhere to live and no food to eat. I don’t hear of many people who are born and die homeless – but I do hear about people who become homeless through a series of circumstances. Homeless is something someone becomes.

I used to read a blog written by a woman in England who was homeless. She lived in her car and washed wherever she could (hospitals, gym etc) – and updated her journal from the local library. Apparently now she has a book deal – not surprised her blog was amazing. A year or so before becoming homeless she was holding down a top job and living a lifestyle most people would feel envious about. I don’t know if these things are true or not – who can tell in blogland anyway? But it’s become apparent to me that very little in life is absolute. Shit happens, so to speak. How certain are you about your life path? Are you paving or are you just walking? Have you ever thought about being homeless (or been homeless)?

* Oh, and Dawson found the movie. It was scrambled and in a temp file so some of the quality was lost, but still – phew!

Summer too early

It’s been hot today. 37 degrees hot. Parents are picking their kids up from school wearing their bathers under their clothes. They’ve just come from the pool, or the spa and have relaxed smiles on their faces. Everyone is thinking about a cold beer, or a drink with ice in it. I’m hanging up artwork with two blisters on my hand the size of 5 cent pieces -hot glue gun burn- trying to hold back the tears because it stings like fire. The corridor doesn’t have any air conditioning and the little bodies spilling out from the classrooms only adds to the heat.

It’s been an uncomfortable sort of day – watching the cloudless sky become deeper in colour as the day went on, through the art room window. Uncomfortable for it’s injuries and frustration. One particular class I just don’t seem to gel with, no matter what I’ve tried. It’s too late now, I’m at a loss. How do you get back what you’ve lost anyway? Is there ever a chance to unpick bad stitches or is that too messy? I find myself detatching from everything they do and say. I don’t care about their artwork and I don’t want to care about them. But I always catch myself wanting to make it better. It only leads to dissapointment though and I curse myself for caring..again. So dumb.

The new furniture was delivered most quietly and left outside the artroom as a pleasant surprise. Another surprise came in the form of a group of boys who volunteered to help move all the old tables out and bring the new ones in. A job I couldn’t do alone. A job that would be impossible with my hand hurting the way it did. We had fun ripping the plastic from the table tops and unravelling the shiny newness underneath. The boys love unwrapping things as much as I do – even Dawson, who is trying to get back into my good graces by helping out. Give me any present wrapped in layers and layers of tape and bubble wrap and I’m happy. It feels like christmas day.

I come home to another present. Not a good one – from the Victoria Police. Isn’t there a mafia crime ring that deserves their attention rather than picking on the broken girl? Not a word of a lie; I never went through that red light. Karma is trying to tell me something but all I can think about is a nice cold beer.

the art of looking sideways

It’s only Tuesday and I already feel absolutely exhausted. I haven’t been sleeping well (that is, I fall asleep at some embarrassingly early hour and then wake up around 2am and stare at the walls until I fall asleep again at 5.30am before being disturbed again by the alarm a half hour later – fun). I need to learn the ’stay asleep’ technique. How do people *do* that?

Monday I finally gave in and started my unit of clay with the preps. Good christ, I know now why I’ve been avoiding it for so long citing ‘they’re not ready’ as the reason. Actually, the truth is, *I’m* not ready. I think I spent about 5 minutes talking about how eating clay is bad, very bad, VERY, VERY BAD KIDS – NEVER EAT CLAY. Until they were all looking at me like I’d eaten the crazy cake (again). They loved it though. Kids love clay (and no it wasn’t raku gold this time Phil, it was just normal white earthenware clay).

They love poking it, rolling it, banging it and throwing it – wait..no they get in trouble when they throw it – anyway, they love it. I was a bit of a nazi about them cleaning up (did a good job considering they are 5 years old). I let them all take a piece home to play with. Today I had grade 3s and 4s all day and one of them found a bit of clay wrapped in foil that someone must have left behind from the prep class – and she begged me until I let her have it. I guess EVERYONE loves clay. If I ever have my little sperm doner baby I will definitely invest in a 7 buck bag of clay and have much fun making little garden ornaments. Despite all the fun and games and me having done clay with all the grades now, I still have no idea what I’m doing! I was reading up on it right before the class and getting all nervous about fucking up in front of the 5 year olds and ruining clay forever for them. How ridiculous – kids are pretty accepting when you fuck up. They’re always doing it so it’s like you’re one of them. I remember when in the classroom doing modelled journal writing I used to make mistakes on purpose so they wouldn’t feel so bad about making mistakes themselves. Of course then they’d point out all the mistakes I made when I wasn’t trying to make them and embarrass me. Bloody cheek!

Anyway, there really should have be nothing to worry about re: the clay class – but there I was anyway, trying desperately to remember all the little things I wanted them to do, failing miserably and just winging it. It’s amazing how much ‘winging it’ I do in the art role. Sure, despite comicbookgrl evidence to the contrary I can sketch okay, but apart from that I’m reading books and trying to sound knowledgable when actually I’m the world’s biggest fraud. I’m amazed that the kids’ artwork comes out as good as it does. Nothing to do with me, let me tells ya.

I had a phone call the other day from an art teacher from another school asking for help with some art issues she’s having. I was a bit taken aback because what do I know? But she insisted that I was a lot of help with her issue. I mentioned this garden project that’s happening at the school and she offered to help me plan the pathway that we’re making and give me all sorts of tips about how to get it done. She has done a similar project at her school.

If there’s one thing I’ve discovered from being the art teacher it’s that fellow art teachers are so much more helpful than classroom teachers. Classroom teachers have a point to prove – they have parents to impress and at the end of the year it’s a badge of honour to have parents ask to be in your grade the next year. While there is a lot of teamwork going on, there’s also an added dimension of competition between classes and between schools. The art role is lovely and different. Firstly, I’m the one and only, absolute head honcho of art. There’s noone to compete against and you teach all the kids regardless of whether parents want you to or not, so actually I don’t care about impressing them (quite refreshing). Secondly, art is HUGE, there is so much to organise and get done and noone understands this but other art teachers. I think everyone else thinks it’s al fun and games. Since art teachers understand eachother so well they’re always willing to help out with ideas and truly don’t mind if you steal them and use them in your own program. The teacher who rang me told me about all the difficult things she’s been through as an art teacher that noone else understood about. We bonded instantly through shared experience. I feel really lucky that I’ve seen both sides of the coin in teaching.

One day when I’m prin of my own little community school filled with children who are creative thinkers and parents who don’t care so much about standarised testing I’ll look back with fond memories on this time (or perhaps I’ll be in a mental institute by then). But for now, there’s a lot of shit to clean up.

ps: Here’s a couple of limited edition photos of the garden stakes I was making with the grade 1s and 2s at the school. I apologise for the crappy quality of photos but my camera was playing up. The good photos are on the camera at school. If I can be bothered I’ll post some of them when I get to school.

I’m afraid I can’t help it

Last week I featured Queen. Queen subsequently introduced me to David Bowie – through the track Under Pressure. I’ll get back to that later. I love the incestual world of music. All of the good ones have been in the preverbial bed together at some point. I read so many music magazines as a teen and young adult (I pretty much bought as many of them as I could afford each month) that it was impossible for me not to pick up on the influences of my favourite artists. It stands to reason that if you like a particular artist chances are that you’ll like their influences too.

The point is, Nine Inch Nails. I admit I didn’t really want to like them, but it just happened. When Closer first came out in the mid 90s and they reached a wide target audience I was already yawning my head off. Of course all the dickhead boys at school thought the song was wonderful because it had the word FUCK in it, and that put me right off. Then the goths came out with their pleather and black lipstick and I thought it was all a little ridiculous. Even Trent Reznor himself taped up in black electrical tape looked relatively normal in relation to the goths. I took great pleasure in the spoof Closer to Hogs by the Nine Inch Richards (quite disturbing really). But, having said that I had loved Head Like a Hole, which Triple J had been playing for a while before Closer.

Towards the end of high school and early uni I got into The Smiths, The Cure, The Clash, The Pixies (if it had “The” in the band name then you know I was into it), Sonic Youth etc. I came across NIN again in a tribute on cable TV and sat down to watch it – I was a bit more ready for them. In the tribute Trent Reznor performed Get Down Make Love, which is a Queen song. You know how I feel about Queen. IMO the performance of that song was better than the original. A big call, I know. Later I found out that Queen and Kiss were huge influences on Trent Reznor. He also cited The Cure and Bowie as influences too. I love Bowie. I love The Cure. Meanwhile, I was already obsessed with Tori Amos, so I knew of the lyric “made my own, pretty hate machine” from her song Caught a Lite Sneeze and I knew that Trent had already collaborated with her on her song Past the Mission. Sometimes the music world has a bit of 6 degrees of separation going on. I checked out some of NIN’s stuff and liked it but I was apparently small fry. Only a couple of days later I happened to be chatting online about music (what else? err), when my fellow chatter insisted that I go buy Pretty Hate Machine and basically berated me until I promised that I would.

So anyway, I went out and bought PHM on my next pay day. On my first listen I was a bit confused. I liked it, but I didn’t. The sound was very indicative of the early 90s – which is of course when it was released. In the 7 or so years that had passed, music technology had changed a lot. There’s not a lot you can change in the sound of a guitar. A riff is a riff and that hasn’t changed all that much in… forever. Electronic/Industrial music however changes as technology changes and PHM sounded dated. After a few listens though it became one of those albums that always seemed to be in the player. It took me a while to appreciate but I think it’s one of the best albums of our time. It’s definitely a “I’ve cut my chest open and here’s my heart”, type album. Terrible Lie is still one of my all time favourite songs ever. I went out and bought The Downward Spiral and then when The Fragile came out I bought that too. I had somehow become a fan without really meaning to. I joined a prominent NIN forum where I discovered that I would never be quite as obsessed with them as the rest of the freaks. I was never a goth and I didn’t really care if people called NIN industrial or not (apparently not, if you know what’s good for you). I also discovered that NIN fans fall into three categories:
1) cross over Tori freaks.
2) Obnoxious freaks from planet goth who made trips to New Orleans to stand outside his house and lick his door knob.
3) Apple Mac/Gamer/remix/Anne Rice freaks.

I was category 1 – though I did have a bit of a vampire fetish. I never really got into any of the remix albums though (which apparently doesn’t make you a real fan but anyway). I am more of a purist, I like the originals. Therefore my pick for today’s MM goes against my dislike of remixes.

Back to Bowie (it’s relevant). Bowie is truly one of my favourites as well. He’s full of soul, I think. Immensely talented. Sublime. I went through a stage where I listened to nothing but Space Oddity and Ashes to Ashes along with many others, over and over and over. I’m not ashamed to admit that I also have a rather disturbing fetish for Suffragette City (all time favourites category). That’s the old school stuff.

When I heard I’m Afraid of Americans I was literally floored. This is a song where the remix is better than the original and the remix honours go to Trent Reznor – who collaborated with Bowie here. Bowie has always been way ahead of his time. Just when you’d get used to one image he’d hit you with another, and different sound to go with it. So while Reznor and Bowie may at first seem like strange bed fellows, they really aren’t. They’ve both always been one step ahead of their time. The song is bloody fantastic – but I admit you’ll either love it or hate it. It’s not ‘typical Bowie’ (if there is such a thing) nor is it ‘typically NIN’. Besides isn’t everyone fucking terrified of Americans?

I’m Afraid of Americans – David Bowie and Trent Reznor