tales from an ordinary world

2000-06-02

Everything I needed to know about life I learnt at the pub, part 5:

So she told me "If anybody asks how many beers you've had, the answer's always four." "Uh, ok." "And if anybody asks you how many people you've slept with, the answers always twelve." "Right..."

2000-06-03

"and everybody knows that this is nowhere
nobody knows that this is nowhere
oh yeah"
Lloyd Cole

Back in the same restaurant we were in a few weekends ago. Just deciding where to eat is a major effort sometimes. Some kid walks past in the rain, barefoot. He returns later, going back the other way with a few friends, eating their pies as they walk.

The smell of muffins. Cooking. When exactly did I lose interest ? I should've done this more often. I'm lacking in simple pleasures these days.

2000-06-05

"Never say too much
never speak my mind"
Joseph Pernice

It's a cold winter's morning. You've been hearing the pain of others so much recently. And so there's nothing quite like hearing Joe Pernice singing "I hate my life" over and over, even if it's a little more direct than most of his work, which simply envelops you in a warm but melancholy feeling. Music to soothe you to sleep, gently weeping.

2000-06-07

"I painted your face
on a twenty dollar bill
but it isn't legal tender
and I think about you still..."
Luna

The quest to find something cool to purchase as my 1000th CD continues. But on the way to the optometrist I got sidetracked at my favourite t-shirt shop, which was having a pre-GST sale, and went on a t-shirt frenzy. It's probably time to start cataloguing t-shirts.

Much of the t-shirts I've been buying lately are "skater" ones - hardly a culture I thought I'd have anything in common with, but the t-shirts have cool designs, so...

On the tram, going down St Kilda Rd, we pass the Shrine of Remembrance. I remember walking around it one lunchtime in mid-1996. My first day at work after a holiday to central Australia. I wanted to keep the momentum of excitement (such as it was) going. But what to do ? Seemingly out of nowhere, I decided to bleach my hair for the first time. It just wasn't me. Everybody knew that. But it was something to do.

I need some kind of amusment in my life. If it's not fun overall, there's no point.

2000-06-09

"If my eyes could talk
they'd let you know"
Pollyanna

Tell me why I'm here. I've got all day.

2000-06-10

"I've heard there was a secret chord
that David played, and it pleased the Lord
but you don't really care for music, do you ?"
Leonard Cohen

Life imitates parody - the ad says that Australia's Funniest Home Videos is having a "falling down" special tonight.

Give me background music over background TV any day. You can't sing along to an old TV show. Unless it's M*A*S*H, perhaps.

The most credible suggestion for what to buy as my 1000th CD has been Never mind the bollocks, here's the Sex Pistols.

Current listening :

• I'm Your Fan - the songs of Leonard Cohen, by various artists.

2000-06-11

And so as I watched another fine performance by Stephen Cummings last night, my eyes strayed up to the TV over the stage. While he sung Taken by surprise, I watched a minor character in some cop show wander through a dark house and get a knife in the back, just as the song finished. I've been inattentive to coincidence lately, so I guess this surprised me a little more than usual.

Nearby, a bored security girl slowly played with her hair as she watched out for drunk patrons. One of them shook her hand as he left the pub and went out into the cold, cold night.

2000-06-12

Another day of quiet software limbo in the office, when everyone else is home. I often look forward to these times - things get done. No distractions. Once in a while I consider working one day a weekend so I can have a weekday off, but invariably end up convincing myself out of it.

This 750g Toblerone is about as wide as my PC's case. But I had to buy it. I couldn't help myself. I had to know if it was for real.

Next door, Serbs gathered to protest outside the American Consulate with banners and megaphones. I wanted to take a photo, but thought better of it. By the time we drove past on our way home, they'd all gone, but in the reflection of the building I noticed they'd cleverly left a flag and a few balloons in a tree, where everybody inside the building would see it the next day.

2000-06-13

A procession of express trains thunder past my platform. We all stand silently and wait, while others make their way home. I can hear their footsteps above me as they negotiate the overpass. I remember the woman smiling to herself on the tram, and ponder what it was that she seemed so happy about.

2000-06-16

"Do you ever wonder where I am right now ?"
Joe Pernice

As the rollercoaster of daily existence suddenly takes a plunge downwards, the radio mockingly plays Frank Sinatra singing That's Life. I have options - the "get out of jail free" card that's been lingering in my pocket for months now - but I haven't dared use it because doing so would seem...disloyal. "Do unto others", et cetera. Which to trust, instinct or guilt ?

I'm searching for answers from the great beyond, but either nobody's talking or I'm still learning to listen properly.

2000-06-17

"A double bed and a stalwart lover for sure
these are the riches of the poor"
The Smiths

I've never been able to hang around in bed like some of my friends seem to manage. Now that I have lounge rooms and other such rooms in which to place most of my stuff, my bedroom reflects this. There isn't even a CD player in there. Maybe now, with the arrival of a bigger bed, these things can change. I have my doubts. I'd love to be able to lose an entire weekend to my bed, waking up, doing nothing, drifting off to sleep again, eating there, lying sideways across it while I envelop myself in some killer CD...

2000-06-18

So when I finally make it out of bed at 2pm, more or less intact, we walk down to the shops in the slightly hungover sunday afternoon sun. It's too late to regain the day but there's still time to make a token effort, as if one were stupidly shaking one's fist at the sky - "I'll get you next time !"

2000-06-19

I step onto the evening tram to find some guy plucking out Paul Kelly's From St Kilda to King's Cross. It isn't a wonderful rendition, but the song itself evokes memories...moments...and to set my conscience clear (if nothing else) I give the guy a buck for bringing back those feelings.

I'm still being seduced by the guilty pleasures of the Pernice Brothers' album. You'll be prying it out of my dead, cold fingers. It's an easy trap to fall into, with this kind of music.

The dark night, the long road. I'm just a speck in the crowd. How do I beat the clock, how do I win this race ? How can I compete when there seems to be such a disparity between the thoughts and feelings in my head, and what comes out when I talk to someone ? I lack the vocabulary to describe myself. The best I can do is to relate certain moments, and hope they make sense in some kind of bigger picture.

2000-06-20

A mix CD for a net friend. It's been ages since I did this, and in my haste I forgot to order it properly - it came out the way the files were sorted on the disk. This isn't the way to do a proper mix CD - the order is important - it should all flow nicely. But now it's done, and all I can do is sit back and hope that they like it. Without much to go on in the way of preferences, I chose quickly and randomly - I had to get on and do this, I'd promised late last year....

"strung out on an empty feeling"

1. Yo La Tengo - Demons.
2. Takako Minekawa - Fantastic Voyage
3. Underground Lovers - Rushall Station
4. Pavement - Shady Lane
5. Mouse on Mars - Saturday night World Cup fieber
6. Stephen Cummings - Don't talk to me about love
7. Pernice Brothers - Clear Spot
8. Muslimgauze - Sarin Odour
9. Tom Waits - Big in Japan
10. The Magnetic Fields - I don't want to get over you
11. Belle and Sebastian - Get me away from here, I'm dying
12. Suede - Electricity
13. GusGus - Polyesterday
14. Meat Beat Manifesto - Transmission

How did I do ?

Last night, the first night I had the new bed to myself. As I drifted off towards the sandman, I wondered if I'd have some kind of odd dream where I'd be trying to swim to the edge of the bed, but never get there. The dream never happened, though.

2000-06-23

A couple of glasses of red in the office after work, and we wander into a bar in southbank - where a friend had been wanting us to meet for drinks. I used to come to the same bar last year, when there wasn't much else to do on a sunny weekend afternoon but relax with a Cointreau and Lime and a good smoke as you watched the world go buy on southbank boulevard. But there's a slightly different vibe at night, with all the mock informational signs (the bar's got a bit of an airport feel to it) and the black illuminated globes for people to spin and look upon the world, as if it was their very own.

Later, we walk back to the car through southbank/south melbourne streets. A whole lotta people living in expensive shoebox apartments, just like the friend we visited last weekend. You get a nice view of the city, though - plenty of scope to bum around on the balcony and ponder what to do next. Still, it'd be wasted on me - Left to my own devices, I get restless at home, and end up wandering out...somewhere...

2000-06-24

And on the 19th day, I finally managed to buy a copy of the new Ed Kuepper CD. There was much rejoicing.

2000-06-25

Across the Westgate Bridge, over a sea of lights from the industrial complexes below, and into Yarraville for another Stephen Cummings gig. We came a different way last time, past the places where they store shipping containers and such, but it didn't seem quite so magical then. Eventually, there's this nice little pub amongst the work-oriented landscape. David checked with the girl at the counter to see if Stephen had put his name down for a free ticket, as he usually does. "Oh, you're the internet guy !" she exclaimed.

There was a moment when I looked away from the band, and I thought I saw a green balloon in the air. I blinked, and there was nothing there but a circular cloud of cigarette smoke, slowly floating toward the ceiling. It must be the closest I've been to giving in to hallucination - I saw that balloon.

Afterwards, David chatted to Stephen for a bit, and we left. On the way out, I grabbed a poster for last week's Blackeyed Susans gig that I'd missed. We drove home, through the dark streets of the western suburbs and back onto the Westgate Freeway where there's no shortage of glowing yellow towers hanging over you. Sodium light, baby.

2000-06-27

Cabin fever in Hong Kong (he said). Bored in Box Hill. Wanderlust (and sore feet) in New York. Grew up in Glen Waverley, suburbia central. Drunk and disorderly in Brisbane, with green hair and a few balloons tied around my neck as I helped a fellow human being find "Rick's Bar and Grill. I hear it's pretty good...". Hunting (and being hunted) in Hawthorn. Nowhere to be seen in Tijuana (but I keep hearing it mentioned lately). A long time ago (15 years ?) in London, where pigeons landed on my arms as I held them out in Trafalgar Square, like a scarecrow...

2000-06-28

"You know I'm fighting to be real."
Matthew Sweet

Traffic everywhere. The turgid miasma of existence. A postcard from the Mother Country, with a sequence of phone booths on it. An email or two from Korea, a friend from times gone by. The wonders of that new-fangled internet !

Looking at other people's pictures of wide open spaces makes me restless, thirsty for that feeling of actually going somewhere, sitting on a train, watching grass and cows and farmhouses go by. I miss the telephone poles, the huge power line towers, lined up across the horizon at dusk. That expectant feeling of driving into a new town, wondering exactly what it has to offer. Moving, always moving. Looking at the map and seeing the endless possibilities. There's always somewhere to go.

So for now, it's time to indulge once more in the guilty pleasures of "downer" music. It hurts so good. Playing that mandolin, all night long...

2000-06-30

It's a nice evening for a walk, after work. Observe panic shoppers in Chapel St. Slow dinner in side-street Vietnamese restaurant. Quiet walk home from Malvern station, a straight line through the park. Listen to new purchases, letting it slowly sink in...