tales from an ordinary world

2000-01-01

"Every time I hit your crystal city
you know you're gonna make a wreck out of me"
Gram Parsons.

Yes, at midnight I did the appropriate thing and made sure we were locked in an embrace, with a kiss that went on for the longest time...

...what else would I do ?

My first film of the year was Chungking Express on video, which wasn't what I expected (I must admit that I'd forgotten what the cover said by the time we got home yesterday), but was nevertheless enjoyable, with a few nice little bits in it once I got a better grip on what was going on. The expiry date and aircraft concepts both had a certain appeal. I'll never understand though, how anyone can eat that much pineapple at once and still be sentient afterwards.

2000-01-03

Berocca mornings
I read my mail in the warm, dry air
waiting for you to show up
sounds of playstation in the background
and the constant hum of technology.

2000-01-04

The first day back at work is like you're in some sort of sit-com. You can almost faintly hear the canned applause as each of your office cohorts strolls in at the usual time. You catch up on how you spent new year's even and stuff. Or, in one guy's case, you ask him what the hell he's doing carrying some huge plastic box with his briefcase inside - you know, the typical "strange guy" character that each tv show has...

By afternoon though, things have settled into their usual routine, and you're thinking about how it's the start of the year and you really shouldn't be feeling this tired already.

It's only later on in the evening, when I caught up with an old friend for dinner and he asked me what my plans were this year, that I thought to myself "hmm. I've really no idea. I hadn't even really given it much thought yet." It seems that I've managed to get by so far (even more so in recent months) by simply going with the flow, rather than fighting it. My lack of activity bothers me insofar as I feel guilty for not being more active about it all, but on the other hand...well...

2000-01-06

"...but I can only make you cry with these words..."
Belle & Sebastian

You are in a maze of twisty little dialog boxes, all alike.

% quit

A dialog box appears.

"Are you sure you want to quit ? (yes/no/cancel)"

You are in a maze of twisty little dialog boxes, all alike.

% _

This is your brain : @.

This is my brain : _.

I need to reinvent myself.

But what am I now ?

Transition.

Magenta. Purple was never quite my colour, honest.

Tired.

...and dream of sheep.

Transmission.

I miss my short-wave radio, and the nights spent with it.

A sight gag :

Radio is not a visual medium. Repeat 500 times.

"Get a dog up ya" (sic).

2000-01-09

Platform 5, Flinders St station. Another excuse to play with my new toy, but hey. I like railway stations. And airports. All those people going somewhere...anywhere. I remember times spent long, long ago on platform 4 and 5 waiting for the Glen Waverley line train to arrive and take me home with my new purchases. I was almost surgically attached to my walkman back then (I'm slightly better now, honest).

I remember one Saturday morning during my mid-high-school years when a group of us went into the city. We were coming up the escalators at what was then Museum station. My friend Scott exclaimed "my god, I'm wearing odd shoes !". We all looked down and noticed that yes, indeed, he was wearing two different sneakers...

2000-01-10

"Mechanical bird of prey, sing for your emperor..."
The Church.

We ate Mexican food, and you went to the toilet and someone complimented you on your hair (newly dyed bright red - I guess I'm a bad influence sometimes...). A small sign above the kitchen shouted "Tequila !" but no, not tonight.

In some other mythical world, people bring home the bacon with butterfly nets. Celebrities do voice-overs for train and plane arrivals. Nobody needs to sleep, but they still dream...

2000-01-11

It was a hot day at the airport - the kind of weather that reminds me of when I'd go gliding with my father up at the Bacchus Marsh airfield. I sat in his car and watch the planes take off with a glider in tow and later on, the gliders would silently land again. It was always fairly warm, sunny and windy when we went (this makes good gliding weather).

Once in a while, I'd get to ride in the Zephyrus with somebody. At Bacchus Marsh, another plane would tow you up (other places used winches, but I forget if I ever went in a glider there). After being towed for a while, and you were in a reasonable position, you'd disconnect the glider from the tow cable. With a slight jerk, you were suddenly free - floating in space (or air, at least). You'd wander around for a while, looking at all the creeks and roads and houses, four or five thousand feet below. Afterwards, we'd drive home at night, often getting fish and chips on the way.

Inside the airport, it's hard to tell what time it is (unless you turn up at midnight and discover that nobody's home, but I'll leave that story for another time). People rush around with trolleys and children, others look but don't buy in the duty-free gift shops, while the rest munch on various fast foods and point out the windows at passing aircraft.

I had a nagging urge to press this Big Red Button. I don't know why.

Upon my return from the airport, a few of us from work went to the Gin Palace, upon recommendation from one of our brethren. It was a wonderfully plush environment, very dark, lots of comfy chairs, with old movie stars up on the wall, a shelf about 2 or 3 metres wide full of different brands of gin to choose from, and james bond music in the background. I had a gin martini (with a twist of lemon - I loathe olives), and watched my friends through the distortion of the angular glass. It was a good night.

Note to self : buy some martini glasses...

2000-01-12

...The smell of metal on my hands from gripping the handrail in the hot tram all the way home, mixed with the lingering spiralling thoughts of despair about a particular aspect of my current working situation - perhaps I should have chosen a different path towards the same goal.

I numb my senses with a glass of Cointreau, to the sounds of My Bloody Valentine.

Take me back to the airport. I want to go somewhere far away...

2000-01-14

"I miss your broken china voice..."
Tom Waits

Suddenly I'm living in oddly depressing times, like someone pulled the rug out from under me. Things will get better...eventually...but for the time being I feel...somewhat limited in my actions. Not that it's really anyone else's fault - I should be better prepared for such things - I should be better at organizing that kind of stuff in my life by now - I'm nearly 27 after all...And at the same time there're a few confusing opportunities : some of which I'm unable to pursue, and others that I could take up, but at a price...I feel like someone, somewhere is trying to teach me some sort of lesson. Maybe I was too complacent for a while, there ? Did I think the wrong thoughts about someone ? Or did I say something wrong somewhere ?

I just want to sleep until it's all over. But as they say, there's no rest for the wicked...

2000-01-15

Nothing to report...just a quiet day spent in the local area, and mostly in the house. But it's certainly calming.

Now it's 2am and I'm still watching all these old Countdown re-runs on Rage, reminiscing with Lee about all the music back then in the early 80's. And all the things you never really noticed at the time, especially the drugs half the stars look like they were taking just before they appeared live on the show - Iggy Pop was a wonderful example of this, with Molly having great trouble trying to get a coherent interview out of him. Nevertheless, Countdown was a huge musical influence on my life back then. There's never been anything quite like it since then...

2000-01-17

Long, long ago (7 and a half years, maybe ?) My sister bought the latest Stephen Cummings album, and it came with a little ep she gave me, called If I had some money, I'd go away tonight. The songs I'd all heard before, but the title's something I've always had a certain fondness for...

...right now, though, I'm thinking "If I had some money, I'd go to New York next month". I've never been there (nor to the rest of the USA), and last week a friend asked me if I wanted to come along, because (in her words) "You're one of the only people I know with a disposable income :)". Had the timing been better, I probably could've gone. But never mind. I'm still trying to get my passport done on the off-chance that I can suddenly afford the trip, although I don't quite expect the winds to be in my favour by then...

Travel. Either I have The Bug, or it's bothering me that I Can't Have It. I suspect it's more likely to be both. As I've said countless times before, I want to go overseas and stuff, but I know I wouldn't be motivated to work. And now that I'm Contractor Scum, I can't afford a long holiday 'cause I don't get paid while I'm off work. I'm not sure of a good solution to this, apart from making myself stop spending so much money on...well...my lifestyle. Or whatever it is. But that's no fun - I mean, is it really worth denying yourself for 99% of the time just so you can enjoy yourself the other 1% of the time ? I really don't know.

It's a lonely world in Melbourne Town tonight. Not sad lonely, just...lonely. Maybe bored lonely ? All this waiting is making me ache...

2000-01-18

I must apologize - I finally gave in. I've just this very moment started a mailing list called grime, so I can get my friends to talk about...well...whatever really. What you're listening to this week and what's cool about it. Or what you've been reading. Or watching. Or doing. I'm interested. Maybe you are too. Join up if you feel like it, and send a little hello message to let us know you've arrived.

I had to return a stuffed CD yesterday (Good Morning Spider by Sparklehorse, unfortunately), so I took it back and they let me choose another one. I ended up picking up one by some band called Karamasov (called on arrival), out of vague interest - mainly, I must admit, because it had a nice cover - a landing plane flying low over some Chinese city...

2000-01-19

"and you may ask yourself 'how did I get here ?'"
Talking Heads

...The light from tiny dead stars that were bottled up and assembled in Hungary shines over my shoulder and make me feel slightly less alone. Why do I have so many things ? What do they all mean ? Cameras and discmen and walkmen and radios and speakers and CD jukeboxes and too many CDs and books and clothes and lava lamps and laser printers and video tapes I've never properly watched. What did I really want with all these things in the first place ? When will it end ?

Of course, even if I was to say "right, I'm going to get rid of some stuff", I wouldn't know where to start throwing things away. Each object has an imprint, an associated memory attached. 2 years ago, when I moved to my current place of residence, I took 2 days off to try and throw stuff out. I ended up starting a "memory" drawer in my desk (which overflowed into a second one), of Old Stuff :

• Lots of letters and birthday cards from old friends. Sometimes when I'm feeling really intensely lonely I'll go back and read them and remind myself that people do (or did) appreciate me. Shamefully, I've been rather pitiful at keeping up with most of these people in recent times.

• Old business cards from restaurants and cafes and shops and people. If I sat down and really concentrated, I'd probably be able to remember when I picked up some of these.

• One of my first reasonably "real" pay cheques. To remind me that it did all happen.

• My old notebooks (I think I mentioned these here sometime last year). These are a double-edged sword - they remind me of what I once was, but they also remind me of what I once was...

• Old party invitations, mostly from one particular friend who always goes to a reasonable effort with his parties.

• Lots of free postcards, with odd advertising on them. I always pick up a couple of each one I get, in case I ever decide to do something with them (whatever that might be...I'm unsure of the details).

• Lurking on a shelf somewhere is my old filofax-like-thing that I used for a year or two somewhere back around my uni days.

• Photos. I don't have too many photos, not having ever owned a camera until just recently. Most of them are from the Central Australia holiday back in mid-1996, when I borrowed a friend's camera for the trip.

Not being able to buy CDs is beginning to hurt. I'm flailing about on the 200-CD changer at home, putting it on random, and after hearing a track start I'll invariably hit "next" because I don't feel like hearing that track right now thank you very much. Still, it's picked a few tracks from an old Curve CD that I hadn't heard in a while, and that seems to have a fairly good balance of noise versus...well...something else. It's not quite the kind of night where I need to indulge in a Country Music fetish, yanking out the Hank Williams and Gram Parsons CDs for a good workout. I'm not even sure what kind of music really suits the current mood I'm in.

Lost lost lost. Waving my arms around in the darkness. Waiting for...well...something...lots of things...to happen. So many things at the moment seem unfinished, or otherwise Not Quite There Yet.

If all goes well, I'll be spending my birthday in New York this year, but I've no idea what I'll do on the day. Still, I don't feel required to do anything in particular. I'll make it up as I go along...

2000-01-21

Dream : model railways as some sort of performance art ? A friend and I were apparently gonna display some little model people (model railway people ?), but I think I'd only just found out, and hadn't had any time to prepare (or maybe I was just slack ?), so I just grabbed some old ones I'd done as a kid and hoped that'd do. Maybe that was what they wanted anyway ? And there was some guy, in a control room just next to us, controlling these model trains on a table in front of us - he'd use an engine to push a carriage (or whatever) off the end of the rails, but by doing it just right, it might come back on some other bit of track. Or not. But it was still pretty cool at the time, in its own little way. Later, some train drivers were talking - "...yeah, but the (...some random drug...amyls ?...) make me feel weird if I take them too often...". Someone with me (Mum ? not sure) says "did you hear that ?" I guess they thought it was newsworthy...

Another dream, also last night - I'm walking through some big maze of those gray metal tubes they make kid's playground equipment from. Lots of kids. I'm having to follow one in particular (why ? Trying to get somewhere ? See something ?). I think "why don't I just step through the bars to catch up ?" but somehow the thought of doing so seems wrong...

2000-01-22

"Back in Metropolis, circuses and elephants
where the oranges grew...

...and it's only a day away
we could leave tonight
you could sleep along the way
dream in black and white"
The Church.

Sometimes when I've got the 200-CD changer on "shuffle", it comes up with the most wonderful gems that I haven't heard in ages, like the above - The Church's Metropolis. It's definitely one of those songs that feels right, or good, or whatever. In a similar fashion, but less so, the mechanical repetition of Autechre seems to be more enjoyable than usual this afternoon.

More or less before I was paying any attention, I was in the city - I'd hopped on the tram, and was busy leafing through my newly purchased Lonely Planet guide to New York City with my headphones on. I relived some of my old rituals - Saturday brunch at Tonkatsu Joshu, then coffee around the corner at Degraves Espresso. Then the rain came, and after standing around for a while deciding what to do I figured it best to go home and avoid spending any money. It also didn't help that I just couldn't think of where to go. Everywhere I could think of going I'd been a million times before.

The guidebook tells me that New Yorkers can tell a tourist by the fact that they look up at the buildings. Oddly enough, I'm guilty of doing that here in Melbourne. Once or twice I've seen some odd little sign on a high up window, where nobody looks.

Is a good piece of graffiti worth a thousand pictures ? I'm not sure if this one counts, but I've seen this appear on Dandenong Road near Chapel St since the new year started - "HEY PEOPE NOW WHAT ?" (sic). Sometimes it's hard to tell whether these really are profound, or if they're just trying to be. I was rather fond of "sack yr shrink, hire an artist" that I saw down in St Kilda last year, but wonder the same thing about it.

2000-01-23

So after 2 years of living here, I only just noticed the writing on the wall. What does it mean ? Which of the previous tenants felt the need to write down their calculations for 22 x 9 and various others ? Perhaps they were playing some kind of game, and needed to keep score ?

2000-01-25

I've got a list of people I should send postcards to, and it's getting bigger by the day. All these people who sent me postcards when they went somewhere. The last time I made a supreme postcard-posting effort was when I was in Central Australia, mid 1996 : I remember we made it to Alice Springs, and I went totally beserk with stamps and postcards, having had days and days stuck in a car with not much else to do but look at the scenery and remember all those friends who wanted postcards...I hope I can manage to do it all again this time...

2000-01-26

Happy Australia Day. My peculiar sense of catholic guilt dictated that, since I'm taking most of February off for this New York thing, I should go into work today and try and get a few things done. And so I did. At 9:30 in the morning, St Kilda Rd was eerily devoid of people, apart from passing traffic. It was like an old sci-fi film where most of the people had suddenly gone one morning, and the others just weren't telling.

The postcard list is still growing...

2000-01-27

I feel caged. Tense. All this waiting, for things that even now seem uncertain still. The general circumstances could definitely be better, but on the other hand I feel painfully aware of how fortunate I should consider myself. It seems like I'm on the verge leaping into an abyss. There's so much left to do, and there are so many things I'm waiting on to happen. The wheels are moving too slowly.

At the same time though, I can't help feeling like I'm ignoring someone or something. Like there's something else I ought to be doing instead of worrying about my personal situation. Perhaps it's the Catholic Guilt talking, I'm not sure.

I wish I could sleep, and wake up there.

2000-01-28

"They came dancing across the water
with their galleons and guns..."
Neil Young

Having got a few more things out the way I'm feeling a lot less stressed this evening, and so I'm indulging in some heavy musical therapy while Lee plays Everquest.

I'm still a bit unsure as to why I'm enjoying playing Unreal Tournament so much - I'm never one for spending much time on games, but I've been quite enjoying the odd deathmatch or three as a form of stress relief. Doubtless, the time to repent is just around the corner, but in the meantime I'll just give in and play the damn game.

The bottle of Ribena that I'd bought the other week for Mavis has an exciting new "non-drip lid". I was so enthralled by it, trying to catch it out, that I'd filled half my glass with Ribena before I knew what I was doing. All that sticky Vitamin C goodness. More than oranges, they reckon. Nevertheless, there's still something rather sentimental about orange juice. The way you desperately fill yourself with it as if it's some sort of magic purgative-like agent, the Morning After. But after a Berocca, mind you. I wonder, though - does Evan Dando really like Ribena that much ?

Today's listening included :

• The Marshall Suite, by The Fall.

• Electr-o-pura, by Yo La Tengo.

• Iaora Tahiti, by Mouse on Mars.

• A box of birds, by The Church.

• Shaken and Stirred, by the David Arnold James Bond Project.

2000-01-29

Melbourne. Cold and windy one moment, warm and sunny the next. I seem to be giving it up for this. I dug out my old beanie, bought a scarf, gloves, stuff like that. If I remember correctly, I haven't been in snow since Christmas 1978. Possibly 1984, but I think not...

I went over to visit an old friend, who'd been wanting to catch up to show me her new puppy and to tell me all about her older sister's engagement. Most of the engagements I've heard about lately aren't particularly surprising, but this threw me a little - not really the engagement in itself, but when I saw some emailed photos of this engagement party, it was apparent how much she'd really changed. Apart from a tell-tale grin in one photo, I wouldn't have known it was her. Gone was the difficult daughter who went through so much while she was at uni here. The friend I got stoned with and, once, force-fed chocolate mousse to. The friend who asked me to try and help pull out her nose stud so she could change it with another...and who nearly missed her plane home 'cause she had to go and get her lip-ring removed on the way. All seemingly gone. It's a bit like in the Lloyd Cole song, Love Ruins Everything - leaving behind your drunken friends and getting on with your life. Sometimes I look upon these sorts of phenomena - friends getting engaged, married, having kids, whatever, as a kind of blessing - they can all go on and be responsible for me, in a way. I just don't feel ready for all that adult stuff yet, but at the same time I'm happy to see others getting on and doing it all.

Back in the city, I wandered around a little, poked about in a few shops looking for a better scarf. I even picked up one of those things you tie around your waist inside your shirt and put your passport in, and stuff. It seems a bit too "paranoid tourist" for me, but I'll see how I go.

On the tram home from the city, 3 girls giggled as a mother sat down near them and held her baby up to face them. I sat up the back of the tram, tapping out a Superchunk song on the window-sill as we rolled through cosmopolitan Balaclava, with its Chinese grocery shops, Russian delicatessens, Vegetarian pizza place, "Kosher Express" and Box Noodle shops. It was a nice day to be out.

The town hall up the road is no longer just Caulfield Town Hall, it now has a large sign over one entrance proudly proclaiming it to be the "Glen Eira service centre". For such a nice old building, it seems a bit buzzwordy to me.

Today's listening included :

• Come Pick Me Up, by Superchunk.

• Falling Swinger, by Stephen Cummings.

2000-01-30

Sunday afternoon in Acland street :

An old man wanders the street preaching loudly, telling us we need to be born again.

As I sit outside Big Mouth with my coffee, three guys (one of whom wears a tshirt proclaiming "I am not a role model") walk past, laughing about the preacher man.

A skanky oldish guy dressed in black with mirrorshades bums a cigarette off me. I'm always happy to give smokes to people, it's no big deal...

Some passers-by make a big show of running into some friends who are sitting at a nearby table - "Oh, hi, how are you ?", etc...

Another middle-aged guy walks past with a straw hat and a NIDA tshirt - maybe he fancies himself as a talent scout or something ?

Inside, a woman leans right across the table on one shoulder and talks to her Nike cap-wearing man. They get up and go, leaving a re-folded paper napkin placed carefully in the middle of her half of the table.

I've been so caught up in my observations, my coffee's gone lukewarm...

The guy I gave a smoke to walks back again, going the other way. He smiles, gives me the thumbs-up and pats me on the shoulder, saying "good man !" as he walks by.

Blond dreadlock-boy - tall, thin, brown-chequed shirt and motorbike boots.

A young couple, who I don't actually see, but I hear the guy saying "yeah, this is the better part of Acland St" while his girlfriend adoringly says "oh, wow".

The tram goes through Balaclava again, and at the Suntan Lounge, over top of some special deal painted in garish fluoro colours on the window, someone's written "get a real tan !" in black texta.

I bought a new issue of The Wire to read on the plane on thursday. I'm desperately trying not to read it beforehand, even if it does have an interview with Ryuichi Sakamoto (whose website now seems to reproducibly crash Netscape for me. Yay).

2000-01-31

My life is an open book, the world is my oyster. Set me free...