a freckle on the nose of life’s complexion

I have always used music as an escape, or as a friend. I think music sneaks in where nothing else can or does – including other humans. You don’t have to worry about music dumping you, rejecting you for being too ‘difficult’, criticising you or having too many expectations. Music is whatever you want it to be. But there is probably one type of music that I have used an escape more than any other and that is musical theatre. I know it’s dorkish but I’ve never come across any genre of music that has as much soul, pain, happiness, excitement and storyline as the humble musical does (except maybe country). I can’t think of any kind of music that embraces the “different” and “downtrodden” and “dreamers” like musical theatre does.

Any emotion ANY SITUATION, you can guarantee that there is a whole story set to music on or off broadway that will feature it. Any problem you have, anything you can leave it backstage, you can mask it, you can cover it over for 2 hours while the leading lady sings because the show must always go on. Musicals are like that – why do you think so many fucked up people take refuge in them? If you think the punk rockers with their heroin overdoses are tragic you have another thing coming – they fall apart on the front cover of New Idea while they ‘live it up’ with money and groupies – but a fucked up star of musical theatre really does it in true tragic style – they know how to mask their pain and just get on with things – never mind the scratching growling monster in the closet. I admire it – I can identify with it.

You can put people who love musicals into three categories

1) those who know pain and want to forget about it.
2) those who are different from the mainstream.
3) those who want to be a star.

Usually there is a crossover – but not always.

I’m a big fan of so many other kinds of music but sometimes I don’t want to take refuge in those unreachable images of girls/boys who are too beautiful or who are carbon copies of each other or are so far removed from reality to truly be human. Musical girls are funny looking, usually gawky, have gone through shit and then triumph brilliantly. They are utterly human even if the situation is extraordinary.

Calamity Jane, impossible right? Nein, she was real but more importantly who the hell hasn’t gone through feeling like they’re just a clumsy unattractive friend when surely it was meant to be love? Sally Bowles in Cabaret – another impossibility right? Well, she’s fucked up, lonely and falls for a gay boy – sounds like an everyday occurrence to me. Fraulein Maria? from The Sound of Music She was real, but again you don’t have to be a nun to know what it’s like to feel inadequate and nervous and be scared of love (and Nazis for that matter). Take any girl in any musical and you know the core is real. That is something I can access. What better way to forget you’re in the shit when you can share the pain with someone who is going through it too?

My #1 choice of song to play today is “Maybe this Time” by Liza Minelli from Cabaret. When I first heard it I felt like someone had put me into a song. It’s also beautifully sung with just the right amount of desperation from Liza (what a voice!). Of course, castpost is still on the blink so I can’t upload it from my collection and I can’t find it on radio blog club (very infuriating). Look it up, it’s a great song. The next choice was “Don’t Rain on My Parade” by Barbara Streisand from Funny Girl, for the opposite reason. Another favourite – which I couldn’t access either. My third choice is “And I am Telling You, I’m not Going” by Jennifer Holliday from Dreamgirls. This was the grammy winning version from the original broadway cast performance of Dreamgirls. Talk about desperation – if this song doesn’t strike any kind of chord with you I’m sorry but there must just be something wrong with you.

And I Am Telling you I am Not Going – Jennifer Holliday

And for something more traditionally “musical theatre” – extremely amusing, strong, sexy, catchy and glamorous.

Mein Herr – Liza Minelli (Cabaret)

our home is girt by sea

The thing about Australia Day is that I’m always left wondering what it means to be ‘really Australian’ – and if there really is such a definition. Do we look to our international perception? Kangaroo pet keeping, ‘this is a knife’ quoting, beach going, blond/e, always tanned, ocker colloquialism saying, unable to speak or understand other languages, beer guzzling, cricket loving, laid back rednecks who surf. This may or may not be true, in fact as I was writing it I recognised that despite the fact that I don’t know anyone who owns a kangaroo every other stereotype is more or less true – …and also more or less false. We all know some people who are like that and also people who defy that stereotype while still maintaining their Australianess.

How do you pigeon hole a nation that is always completely at odds with itself? A nation that is always trying so hard to define what it is, and always trying to set boundaries and limits as to what it means to be Australian and un-Australian but always falling short?

Maybe we should define ourselves not by how other see us but how we see ourselves – meat eating, good wine drinking, educated, good humoured, in many cases bi-lingual, sun-kissed beach going, animal loving, accepting, politically aware and continental. But that too is problematic – not all of us see ourselves that way and many of us reject many of those things as unAustralian.

Is it about the piece of paper or passport that proves you are Australian? Or is it knowing the words to the national anthem (does anyone know the second verse?)? Or is it a feeling? A pedigree? A skin colour? All of those things? None of them?

As part of our celebrations of Australia Day Tim Flannery was awarded “Australian Of the Year”. I’m reading his book “We are the Weather Makers” at the moment and wondering about our Australianess. Maybe it doesn’t matter how we see ourselves or how others see us but where we are going in the future? What will Australia be like in the future? Already we’re seeing how irresponsible we have been regarding environmental factors – will our whole culture and society change in order to facilitate change for the better or will things get worse? In 50 years are our ‘young and free’ children going to be able to get a suntan, while BBQing fresh meat on the beach as they’re taking in the backdrop of our abundant and strange flora and fauna – or are these the things we’re taking for granted that will be around forever? Does Australianess depend on Australia; the land itself? If the land is deteriorating then what will our culture be like in the future?

But it’s not all bad yet, is it? There will be much consumption of good food, and good laughs shall be had today as we take in the rays as we celebrate ourselves.

What is your impression of Australia?

I fell in love with you before the second show

I’ve been skirting around this one for too long and so it’s time to come clean. I am a Carpenters fan.

A big one.

Last week I wrote about Janis Joplin and my friend M who introduced me to her. Around the same time M and I were both introduced to The Carpenters via our Human Development (the wankiest subject since Home Ec. I would have taken anything over maths!) teacher Mrs H. Mrs H was most probably the slackest teacher I’ve ever had in my life. By slack – I mean she set work at the beginning of the lesson and then spent the rest just sort of talking to us about our dates or boyfriends or whatever. Um, I didn’t learn very much BUT I did discover The Carpenters.

The topic we were learning about was Eating disorders. I already knew a shitload about eating disorders – I had read everything I could get my hands on by the time I was 15. I knew about 6 close friends who had either anorexia or bulimia. That’s just off the top of my head. I think most people know at least one girl who has had an eating disorder of some kind in their life. Or if not they know someone who has starved themselves in the short term in order to lose weight. It’s an epidemic.

Anyway, we didn’t really get any literature about Eating Disorders to read from Mrs H – instead she showed us the movie The Karen Carpenter Story 3 times. Not exactly too informative about the disorder itself but if the exam had been about Karen and Richard we would have aced that shit! To be fair, she only meant to show it once but the class (17 girls and 2 boys) begged her until she showed it again and again (the boys were in agony – it was hilarious). The entire class, geek, dork, slut, cool, goth whatever – all pretty much became fans of The Carpenters. We all sang along with the songs while swaying to the music.

M and I really took the fandom to dizzying heights though. I can’t believe I’m admitting this but once the movie was on at midday on a school day and I wagged the day off school just so I could tape it! Some kids wag and go for a smoke in the city while playing video games in Russel Street – not me – I wagged for The Carpenters. I’m so glad I don’t know any of you in real life. The shame would be too great for me to actually look any of you in the eye.

There was no turning back. I bought a CD of their greatest hits and I played it so many times that I knew every word of every song within a couple of days. E found a tape of The Carpenters in her garage during a clean out and she gave it to me so I could dub it. Then her younger sister (who, I think must have idolised me a bit – god knows why) got into them as well and compliments of compliments used to scratch I <3 The Carpenters into the desks at school and then would tell me about the graffiti. Take into account that this was in the mid 90s when grunge and brit pop was all the rage. I was so proud!

Why do I like The Carpenters? Firstly, I was interested in Karen Carpenter and her struggle with Anorexia and how her relationship with her family influenced that. Secondly, I like the brother and sister duo thing. Thirdly(and most importantly), her voice is simply beautiful, smooth, soulful and sad. It takes me somewhere else – a nice place.

There were so many songs I wanted to share here. Castpost isn’t working and I couldn’t find the songs I wanted to share from radioblogclub. If things had gone to plan I would have added Superstar, Eve, A Song for You and We’ve Only Just Begun but in the same year that I discovered The Carpenters my dad died. There was only one song that I could listen to for a while:

Rainy Days and Mondays – The Carpenters

Also, for those who can’t quite stand the sound of The Carpenters, just to prove to you that really cool bands love them too: A compilation album came out about 12 or so years ago called If I Were A Carpenter. On it bands like Sonic Youth, Babes in Toyland, Redd Kross, Cracker, Grant Lee Buffalo do covers of their favourite Carpenters songs. I love Babes In Toyland’s cover of Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft but for my money you can’t go past:

Superstar – Sonic Youth

always about the rain

You can’t figure out whether it’s the gentle whir of the fan in the room or patter of the rain outside that wakes you up. You lay there for a moment waiting for the grogginess of sleep to wear away while you make up your mind about it. Rain, definitely. The pillows are a little too warm and the room a stuffy reminder of the summer that has so far been just a little too uncomfortable. The fan air swirls over your body but it does little to refresh.

You gather yourself and pad along barefoot to the back door and press your forehead against the screen door watching the light shower outside wash away the stifling sunburn of the past few days. But it’s still warm and there’s already a film of dew over your shoulders. Coffee, you think would wake you up – give the neurons something to shout about. You drink it while watching the grey clouds drop their precious load over the city. As a child you remember despairing if it rained on the summer holidays but these are desperate times. Now you’re smiling over the top of your cup as the morning air plays with the ends of your thin pajama bottoms. Rain on a Friday morning – it’s been a while since that happened. It’s going to be a good day.

one of these mornings, you’re going to rise up singing

There’s something about her that either promotes ear blocking or swaying while in a zombie like trance. I’m of the latter persuasion.

Janis Joplin, unconventional, controversial, bluesy, emotional, heart-wrenchingly troubled Janis. Often criticised for not being feminine enough, for having a voice that wasn’t sweet like honey bees, for not having silky coiffed hair, for not being what a woman ’should’ be but that just make me like her all the more. Girls, we are all too willing to sit in the box and happily request the lid goes on tight – then when someone who doesn’t fit the image comes along we ridicule her for being too…something (anything, it doesn’t even matter what!). Sometimes I despair about us..

Any really great woman has felt the sting of criticism for not being womanly enough. Quite frankly folks, if people are going to be uncomfortable about a certain type of women because she unwillingly (or unwittingly) challenges the notion of femininity then that’s a certain type of woman I want to get to know. It means she’s dangerous – and that’s important in this day and age of the plastic fantastic.

But I digress, Janis. My friend M actually introduced me to Janis’ music – when we were both in year 11 and obsessed with The Carpenters (another MM I bet you can’t wait! ha). I hadn’t heard much about Janis beyond the typical and so M used to do impressions of her in class for me – funny since M was nothing like Janis; blonde, cute, radiating sweetness but also… hilarious, in a physical comedy, complete dag, not afraid to look stupid kind of way. I love people who are surprising.

Not long after that I saw the Woodstock movie and was totally enchanted. That was it for me. God love her.

Probably one of my favourite renditions of one of my all time favourite songs is one done by Janis of Summertime (yes the Gershwin song from Porgy and Bess). I’ve heard many a version of the song. The Sarah Vaughan version is magnificent, Nina Simone’s is thoughtful and the Fantasia Barrino (from American Idol) version is beautiful and there are so many more renditions of it floating around. That’s the mark of a good song – when it can be covered beautifully so many times. But the mark of a good artist is one that respects the dynamic of the song while making it their own. For me, Janis Joplin’s Summertime is a masterpiece. She put something in there that made it heartbreaking to listen to and somehow both fragile and strong at the same time. Maybe not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it’s glorious.

Summertime – Janis Joplin

the wrap up

I went. I saw. I’m back.

While gone, I was a bit afraid of missing my little blanky (this journal) and all the loveliness that goes with it (you guys) and I did. I’ve always been able to at least check email if “away” in the past and not being able to do that was like losing my right leg. But you know, in between the wine, the sun, the waves, the afternoon snoozes and the vodka, I survived. I feel – refreshed and ….excited. I don’t really know what about – but there’s this little tingle in my belly somewhere (let’s hope it’s not gastro).

While away I kept a little mini journal of my own. I shall share with you some excerpts (crap excuse for an entry I’m know).

Friday

Elated when I realise that I can take a shower outside in amongst the native grasses and serene surroundings of a landscaped garden. I immediately indulge myself while looking over my shoulder for the cheeky neighbourhood boys looking over the fence. No one is looking though. hmph!

Later, went for a leisurely walk down at the local beach (local for surfies, that is). I stood at the peak of the hill and looked down at the waves thrashing against the shore before making my way down. It’s a little difficult navigating the sand dunes and grasses. Down below I watch the surfers from a closer vantage point and take a little stroll (read: stumbling near the shoreline, sinking into sand while waves crash against skirt getting it wet). The sea is truly a majestic beast – it fills my ears and my heart. I love this.

Three quarters of an hour later I hate this. I am strongly considering stabbing myself in the heart just so I don’t have to face the pain of making it back to the car. My trek back consists of me clutching at the whethered fence posts every 3 meters like they are life preservers while I curse the Gods and breathe out the stitch in my side. Who knew walking up sandy hills could be so difficult? I consider crawling back to the car but that would be too embarrassing, besides there is a now a crowd gathering in the parking lot looking down in my general direction. I think one of them is pointing at me – oh god. I now know how Burke and Wills felt while on their epic journey. Maybe I could just live here..right here, on the shore. I’m sure I could build myself a little hut out of…um. hm. After what seems like forever I make it back to the car and sit (standing is too difficult) there a while looking down at the waves again. It couldn’t have been more than a km up and back. I suck.

I have dinner at 11pm, after I realise that no, the stove doesn’t work unless I actually turn it on first. I’m famished.

Sunday

It’s cold. I knew one cardy wouldn’t cut it. Curse you four damn toiletry bags, when ideally I should have brought a winter coat instead!

Outside it is raining and torrential winds are blowing. I hope the house doesn’t get blown down. How would I explain that? Obviously it’s going to be an inside playtime. I examine the CDs left here for my use. The Ambient Sounds of Panpipes… Fuck me. I put the ipod on and listen to The Village People. Luckily some of us have taste!

For the first time in as long as I can remember my soul smiles – this is good. I feel…content.

Monday

Another school anxiety dream – something about problems with staff relations. It’s 8.30am, I roll over and sleep ’till ten. Then a bath with face scrubs, face masks and other related relaxing things. Afterwards my skin feels smooth. I know it has little to do with the products and more to do with being totally relaxed.

I turn on the news and laugh at Tigger punching someone’s lights out at Disneyland. Finally the Disney animals fight back. I groan, hearing of the news about a possible reconciliation between Shane and Simone Warne. Woman, have a little self respect – you should be putting prawns in his curtain rods not offering him any chances. This guy is a Loser with a capital L.

Outside the sun is playing hide and seek behind the clouds. I bring a soft blanket outside and arrange it on the ground so that lying down I can’t even see the house. It feels like I’ve left civilisation behind. In a way I have. It would be night to get a slight tan but the sun keeps disappearing every 2 minutes. I guess not.

Two hours later I’m staring at a human impression of a beetroot in the bathroom mirror. I am actually generating my own heat. I could service a small third world village withe the amount of heat coming off my shoulders. I locate the vitamin E cream and use practically a whole tube on my shoulders alone. Sleeping will be an issue.

Tuesday

Time to explore beyond the beaches. I go to a local landmark. I survey the gentle sloping boardwalk from the top of the hill to the crashing waves below. Sure, there are a few stairs but I look around me and see a few older people comfortably laughing and carrying on while they make their journey down. Piece of cake.

Few stairs? Hundreds of stairs – maybe even thousands. I was lapped by an 80 year old and her husband (I think he had an iron lung too). Bastards.

Wednesday

There’s a mouse! I think it might be trying to kill me with it’s beady little eyes and twitchy paws. I saw it while I was eating dinner and it saw me at the same time – we stared at each other before I squealed and jumped on the chair I was sitting on. Meanwhile he gave me that “I kill you! I kill you and you whole family!” look (in my imagination the mouse has a Mexican accent). I retaliated in true menacing style by doing an ‘ewwwww ohmygodohmygodohmygod dance’ while balancing on the chair. Then it disappeared into the bushes – no doubt to gather an army of little foreign mice that will kill me while I sleep. I threw a chip into the bushes after it, in hopes of placating it. Please don’t kill me Mr Mouse! I will pay you in homemade chips if you just leave me alone!

I just thought of something. Where there’s mice, there’s…..snakes! OH FUCK!

Thursday

This morning I fell asleep in the sun while reading. Somehow, when I was asleep I must have bowed my chin downwards towards my chest. Now I have a delightfully sun kissed face, rosy shoulders, rosy umm..stuff and a TOTALLY WHITE NECK! I look like a zebra. I am so embarrassed. I’m going to have to walk around with my head bowed forward like some slave girl. Oh horror. I’ve heard of red necks but for fucks sake does shit like this happen to anyone else?

At least when the redness dies down I’m going to have a tiny bit of a tan though. This is good.

Friday

I wake up today and look in the bathroom mirror. A tiny bit of tan indeed…

I look like fucking George (LEATHER FACE) Hamilton!

And there you have the holiday.

if you took a holiday

up up and away in my beautiful balloon

I haven’t finished packing yet but I do have four toiletry bags all ready and raring to go. Not one: FOUR. Plus, my unfinished packing has already proven my bag to be heavier than when I went to Europe about a million years ago. Far out – who knew that someone who has spend the better part of the last couple of weeks in nothing but pajamas and bare feet be so meticulous when packing for a week “escape”! I’m sure the outfit I haven’t worn since 1991 I packed will come in handy where I’m going. You never know when shoulder pads will come back in style. One doesn’t want to be caught out.

But FOUR toiletry bags seems a little off, even for me – I do want to do the pamper spa thing so maybe that’s it – but I don’t know, maybe it’s just that a family of traveling gypsies has stowed away in there? Maybe I’m crazy and insecure? At this point anything is possible.

Apart from the pamper spa thing I also hope to do the alcohol thing, the learning how to use the camera thing, the getting back to sketching and painting thing, the reading thing, the listening to music thing, the watching movies I haven’t watched in a while thing, the getting out in the sun thing, the writing thing, the thinking thing and the looking at scenery and pondering my life while I visualise Mr Darcy coming out of the lake thing Is that too much to ask for a week away?

Maybe I should work on the ‘getting back to normal’ thing instead.

Anyway, see you in a week – don’t have parties without me!

How Now Brown Cow

Australian Princess

Guys, I *know* this show is the lowest of the low but christ, it’s like street crack and I’m addicted.

This is the low down – take a bunch of low class, crass, bogan, maneating girls who don’t really know how to dress and put them through the royal ringer (elocution classes, how to behave in public classes, charm school) and then make fun of them when they fuck up. Eliminate the ones that are total ogres (ie: normal) and then take the remaining few to England where they have to keep doing it all in front of real royalty. I’m not sure what the prize is at the end but I think it might be a sash. Along the way they are judged by a group of arse lickers who are nothing more than common plebs with posh accents and faux credentials, which are at best inadequate to judge such a spectacle.

Sounds pretty cool, huh? The umbrella premise of the show is that women have no intrinsic value to the world unless they are pretty (and malleable) airheads who amuse men with their many feminine “qualities”. The funny thing is, I’m picking these kinds of vibes up in one or two blogs written by men lately as well. Good to know that “art” imitates reality then!

Probably the most entertaining person on the show (besides the pig farmer) is the bitchiest man to grace our televisions since Just Jack from Will and Grace – Royal Butler to Diana: Princess of Wales Paul Burrell. Yes, this is the guy who found himself with no job after Diana died and so he decided to dedicate himself to whoring himself in any way he could – and now here is being patronising to young girls even though he is a ..what? oh that’s right FUCKING BUTLER!! Okay, Mr Belvedere – since when does being able to Mr Sheen the shit out of a dining table give you the credentials to make fun of anyone..and I mean ANYONE? You suck (keep the bitch inside alive)!

So yes, while I have found it rather hard to get out of bed lately, I’m realising that crap reality television is giving me my mojo back. If they were showing Dr Phil on daytime tele instead of the worlds most BORING sport (cricket) then you know I’d be back to 100% normal me by now (ie: from all that bile and anger I’d spew forth because Dr Phil is so infuriatingly STUPID – and yet, like crack and Australian Princess: addictive). But since they insist on killing us slowly with countless hours of unfit men wearing zinc on their noses and white pants from K-mart then we’ll have to wait and see if this series of Australian Princess can cure my blues. Ooooo wait Cheaters is on tonight! Another bout of tele therapy – free of charge!