Saturday, December 15, 2007

it's been a while since i wrote here. i built myself a diary and i have been keeping it all in there. i am back in tasmania with simon james, i played the "6A, awesome venue, great art!" fundraiser. the microphone zapped my lips and it was because i was playing bare foot in the dirt so i quit it with the microphone and did what i could. i released my first ever e.p. on simon's label today and simon paid me a meal for the "rights" to the record. i'm still exploring all this writing crud, so i thought the new "diary" could help. maybe make me better at telling people stuff, actually explaining things.

andrew harper showed a "experimental film" it was a reel of 8mm film that he had kept in a jar of piss for a year. it looked funny the way it was shaped and people kept yelling cool things like: "fuck andrew go see a doctor!" and "shhhhh! i'm trying to watch the piss!" the first time i met andrew he was shouting at people as they played about how good the last song was compared to the last last song. and simon was trying to tell me to play with phil elverum when i went to america cause he knew phil and could set it up and andrew set into the whole "k records faggot crew". "calvin johnson, what a pants man! more cock than music! fuck calvin johnson!" and tonight i stopped him from beating somebody up and when i said goodbye to him and thanked him for the show he bellowed "jesus, your a bit of nancy faggot, but youve got some fuckin fire in ya! tryin to stop me! heh heh!" i love andrew harper.

after i played people where coming up to talk to me alot, but eventually i got to sink back on this wall and go invisible in the dark and listen and pretend i was alone with the big sky, that was good. emma told me she hates my records because it makes her realise there is a completely secret part of me she can never get a hold of. she said she gets alone in the bush out past everyone is tasmania and it's really nice to hear my voice but it reminds her there is stuff she doesn't know. i wasn't sure what to say, i never know what to say to that stuff.

ghost patrol and miso had their beautiful split exhibition with acorn. acorn mailed ahead these intricate pencil tracings of some work he had done and got ghostpatrol and miso to ink them in, really amazing pictures of fat men with cardigan knit beards and girls riding chinese dragon monsters and witches and kids in christmas sweaters. ghostpatrol and miso's work was beautiful as always, my favourite was a little elephant stuck in a tree trying to get his tiny kite back and a picture of miso with a big stained glass pattern growing out of her back. they hung big fake octopus monsters from the cielings and had like a hundred tags hanging of the monsters and the tags where blank and there where cups of pens so you could draw on them. i drew some doctor doom and diamond pictures. i got drunk outside and got into a "cardboard box but it's really a boat too" race with ollie and andre nickey and sarah. then they trapped me in a box and i drank a bunch of beers in it while they pulled my arms out of the holes and drew all over them. i got ollie and ty into the "fortress of secret-tude" exhibition me and simon are holding in my back yard once he moves in. sarah will be in it too. we are building a fort in my backyard and piunning pictures all over the insides and we are hiding pictures in the trees and if you have the guts to climb the tree and get them then you get to keep them, no cost. otherwise we will be asking for whatever we want to ask for the other prices.

i haven't been able to write people personally lately. this is ok, it feels like i am exploring known facts instead of trying to feel connected with somebody. people always cause me pain. it makes feel tired and hard and dead inside when people i love tell me how they where hurt and it bores me and bothers me when people burn me and expect me to forget about it. i saw on the news bout a ten year old girl who was gang raped somewhere in queensland and the judge let the rapists off with 12 months probation, no jail time. it made me feel a billion years old. makes me wonder when everything will end and i can let it all go and forget about it. on the same night i saw a show about the genocides in darfur, a skinny black man was on the television saying the sudanese killed his wife and kids and they hate him, they want him to hate like they do, they want them to wish anger and death upon others, but he is strong because he will not, he is strong because he forgives them and wants only for it all too stop. i don't know what these things mean, but they are connected and related. they equal something and i don't know what it means, but i am scared and nervous about it.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

it's about one in the morning, simon and i just finished the first brisbane show. we got all messed up on cask wine, vodka and whiskey, we have been that way for about 8 days now, i'm not sure why we are drinking so hard, but it's all working more or less. tonight simon was made to stop early, it's such a damn shame people don't get it or whatever. i know it's beautiful. shirtless and covered in bad wine i drummed my damn face off for girl mountain. i'll do it again until the end of everything.

simon is set to come and live with me, we are getting matching desks and we are going to make "science fiction monster comics" together and do alot of recording. we did a bunch of releasing stuff recently, we were drunk like morons in the labour party office using the free photocopy powers. we made a lyric and silly drawing split book.

now, writing a rough diary entry in front of you, thinking about a girl in tasmania. i was walking back to our house for the evening, holding her warm hand, looking at the grown up mountains and old logs and the way the sun was beginning to peek a bit over everything and i realized my luck of life ive lived and life i could have. some people still want to kill themselves, it comes and goes for me, but i am mostly greatful for everything. for all of it. the opening of mysterious ancient powers to keep me alive somehow.

tonight met three people, late to see me and here to see mostly me, so we took it to the front porch and i gave them some gifts for their effort and played some songs, in the end the boy of the three told me it was this diary here that inspired him to write again. mission accomplished (big muscle arms and pride to hard to explain). that's why i do this. i hope if you read this you live like your already dead. figure it out, you can't fear death, you can't prove life. all other things are silly, everything. from abortion to he-man, silly silly. live in a goofy silly flash, cause it's probably the best you'll get.

the girl who i have written of before, one of the girl's from the three, she said it was so touching when i did write about her, it was hard to keep down how good it all felt, i meant to stand with alot of reason and control, but i ended up screwing up my face and hugging all of them. my dumb ass lyrics and ideas made it through to somebody. that's all that matters.

send me hate mail, beat me up, ruin my shows, it's cool. i already accomplished enough.

Sunday, November 11, 2007

i started to drink again, mom's got the illness, my tour looks cancelled and all kinds of regular bad emotions are coming and going on me. me and shaun and ty and some other kids went down to where the penguins roost by the saint kilda shore line, i had a nine dollar bottle of wine and i would take a sip and wince and the rotten fumes and the smell of it.

goddamn! i thought, this is going to cook my heart and turn me into a skeletor monster!

penguins are shiny animals, they came out from the rocks, they live in the cracks of the rocks the way i understand it, and they shined their white little bellies at us, you could tell they felt proud of them and i looked off at the bellies while we all talked silly dumb stuff. the penguin is a bird that swims, that is the kind of weirdness that only natural evolution would have the guts to try. i tried hard to drink my wine and i thought about natures guts.

rats where beginning to swim up on the dirt shore near us and i suddenly new that it was time to leave. rats always come before trouble. so we took back up towards the lights. lights around the bars, lights on the highway and they looked more like they were trying to fly away than light us up.

meanwhile i discovered that i didn't have much of a choice but to try and drink all my wine in one terrible pull, i put the bottle up and took alot of it on, but it got me in the end and i was bent over on the edge of the big wooden sea peir puking my guts out.

we crossed the street after i cleaned up and i saw a big horrible moving beast with alot of faces and hands, we where going right for it, with no real choice about it. i got into the people and the drinks. i started to steal beers and pizzas from drunks.
i met a hard up drunk in the bathrooms who stopped and asked with a scary lack of control "DO I LOOK DRUNK!?" "YES!" i screamed back, trying to look big and scare him too, then he said "YOU LOOK GOOD! YOU LOOK FAMOUS! LIKE THAT WEEZER GUY! WHO ARE YOU?" "I AM IMPORTANT, THAT'S A SURE THING, MY FLIGHT LEAVES FOR BEIRUT TOMORROW, WE HAVE 70 SHOWS IN 72 DAYS ALL OVER PARTS OF THE WORLD MOST PEOPLE DISMISS AS MYTHS, IF YOU BUY ME A BEER I WILL INTRODUCE YOU TOO MY BAND AND MY DRUG DEALER FRIENDS, THEY HAVE AMAZING WARMTH." i followed this man up the stairs and half way there my stomach shot through with a black hole of some kind. something was beginning to get to me, the kind of thing you keep to yourself because the pain is so heavy and rare that it would burn in a hole in people you thought you where close to. everything about the last few hours of the night was sad and hard and cold. i had "inside alone-ness" and "secret solitude".

i met a black german hip hop dancer who was trying to change the way we see movement and a skinny middle aged italian woman who designed clothes for rich men someplace in venice, i spoke to them and the black hole got bigger, i hid my face for a while in the bathrooms, i was drunk and out of my mind with a pain i couldn't understand. in a certain kind of light everyone becomes like werewolfs and swamp monsters, i could see the fangs and fur everywhere i looked.

i spoke loudly with alot of laughter all night, the laughter was fear and nerves caught up in my belly. i could see around me plain reasons for wanting to be alone, even in my lowest old sadness wanting to be alone was a mystery. but it came to me naturally all night, it came with the black hole and skinned me all over. i'm used to this feeling, i live with it and i don't know why. everytime it feels new but it's as old as hell. i can remember it from when i was a kid. i treat it like new, my pain and confusion needs to feel new and horrifying everytime, i can't lose that, it's too important. all of my best moves are made in pain and confusion. smooshed like a bastard between alone-ness and sadness and mystery i can see one thing for sure. like dare devil who lost his sight, but learned how to kill villians. it's a trade.

me and shaun started to hit on a jock on crack. we would squeeze his butt and he would spin like a mean bull fighter, but when he saw us he would split up in a smile and shuffle a little and put his arms around us. the night was emptying out now and the bouncers where getting violent, me and shaun led our man to the bar and he screamed: " SHOTS AND THEN BEER!" and threw bills at us, we grabbed what we could, hugged him and left like lightning bolts. into the car, into the house, into the bed, into the dream.

awake at six thirty in the morning at lauren's house, i drank a fat cold glass of pop and spoke with a beautiful pale girl named kaz, i wondered where her name came from but i had no time left to ask before i was into the bed and staring out a second story window into the early morning sky. i fell into a dream about being a dinosaur king, lonely and full of good leadership, i was in charge of the whole prehistoric desert, my name was "ODB: a Tribute" like a plastic dinosaur i carry with me from time to time.

i hope somebody knows the answer to these things, i hope the super powers that patrol the sky can see inside the bigger beasts and fools and lonely kids and say with a sureness "i know, i know, i know." because i can't see a damn thing here, i traded my eyes for better powers.

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

i can't speak to anyone tonight. i tried, i felt prehistoric and alone. i should be alone, i want solitude, i don't know what to say about other people. they come and go like thunderbolts and burn everything.

i dont feel like telling anybody anything.

Monday, October 15, 2007

i used to try and write more for words than meaning. both are dumb ideas and now i just write. take out the things you hate and keep moving, always move. standard is for people who slow down long enough to recognise it.

i am creating my own museum, i hate everybodies big history so much i'm going to make my own.

mean cobra museum of curious ideas.

the night is on again and it's time to start standing it, the beasts and bastards get up and they come looking for us, so goodnight and i'll see you when the light breaks, if theres any of you left.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

my head is on fire, the rest of the world is very calm, i hate this tonight, i hate the sad world and what it has done to my small heart. don't answer the phone, don't watch tv, don't trust anybody, learn to live alone and away from everyone and you'll be ok, you'll make it through. through to what? there is no meaning, i'll stay here as long as i can, when i really lose my hold on being alive, i'll let go for good and i won't feel bad or look back at it and think sadly "godamn", when i do it right, i won't say anything. there won't be anything to say, and i will screw up my face in a silly way and i will be so glad to see it all go, so glad to end all of this caring for dumb stuff, be glad to finally let go of this strange hold i have on life.

Monday, September 24, 2007

this is a review i did for my friend richard's music blog, i love richard, one time betony drew a skull on his arm while me and chris ate the rest of their delicious expensive breakfasts.

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I met Grant Jonathon Gronewold in Sydney after he'd been travelling for at least 15 hours in a car with two other pals of mine. He'd consumed and indescribable amount of Coca Cola and was delirious from lack of sleep but he still lit up my living room with his excitable stories, bursting with childlike fervor, telling me about things that I hadn't heard but probably should have. Grant makes music under the name Fulton Girls Club. He also had two of the best ideas I've ever heard, but I can't tell you about them. This is the first of three posts about a few of his favourite songs, at the moment at least.

"Shoot my television walk out doors and explore with the innocence of kids aged four" - Edan

The song starts with a psyche jumble crash sound, like a mix of peddles and old samples and then from someplace mysterious and shadowy there is the "hey joe" bassline, this is the main rhythm keeper throughout the first sequence of the song. under Edan's vocals is a sweet vinyl crackle (snap and pop!) controlling and distorting them are delay and reverb, after the first three word cycles it all melts down slowly with a science fiction sounds flavour (out of the lab and the spaceshuttle and the forests of Shoalin and the dungeon of a mad genius in a rainbow coloured lab coat) and the sound moves in stealthy with a reverse drum beat, a slow build, rewinding a video tape, then DROP! Mr Lif hits it with hard horror images and in the background a crash pop bomb from the 60's (I hope, who can tell from time with all this wonderful chaos going on?), reverse the tape, play straight, keep it moving, Lif, don't touch that, the image is building and like Edan said earlier, it stretches like oxygen and infinity, I close my eyes and see a great kaleidescope vision, constellations, deep quantum theory, eerie calico colour schemes shoot out like laser beams and if you look quick! there is a shadow, like in the Wizard of Oz, and behind all the smoke and colours and mathematics we see the form of a skinny dude and wild hair-do, hands held out in front making complex incomprehensible movements, tying together theories and pictures with a funny concentration, the string is where the genius is though, Edan has a type of impossible string that can tie anything together, these ideas aren't new, these sounds aren't even new, but with Edan and his magnificent string, everything seems re-arranged in a new kind of vision, a new kind of cool. for the Saturday morning kid still yawning shaking off the dreams somebody is gonna try and tell him are stupid later in his life, the dreams about mad science and cartoons and infinity and doing something cause you think it's cool and not because somebody told you too, I wanna thank Edan and his "intense imagination" and his magnificent string.

"When God took a day off I had him laid off" - Mr. Lif