Ladies, consider this. A flute player spends a lot of his time learning and mastering his tongueing and fingering technique. He really does. He can perform these techniques for three sets of forty minutes each night. He can maintain his artistic expression and efficiency through long and difficult passages, often with little chance to take a breath.
Now think on this. The flute player spends his time listening to the world, not talking about himself. When he does express himself it comes from his heart, rhythmic. soulful. He can be sweet and melodic or raw and aggressive.
The flute player aims for harmony with others while celebrating his individuality. His instrument is traditional but he can adapt to the new.
You can send your flute player off to work knowing that girls will only approach him to obtain the guitarist's phone number. He will always come home to you. He is easy to catch. Just tell him you found his use of whole tone sounds in an unusual context very exciting, smile at him and he's yours. He may be more tira misu than beefcake but there is something to be said for sweet liqueur and cream without calories.
All you gotta' do now is find a heterosexual one and your love life is made. My e mail address is on this page.
Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com
Warm Up, solo, improvised flute track, available for download at iTunes, all the other sites.
Friday, 30 April 2010
The Misfortune Of Others, Always Funny.
Before I headed out tonight I flicked the teev on as I was cleaning my teeth. The first thing I saw was a chubby hand held camera operator who had fallen in some mud. He was holding the camera up in the air, making it near impossible for him to stand up again. The host tried to give him a hand up, they both fell down, rotund cameraman atop the host. The sound guy and some other crew helped them both up. It was all relatively funny. The host waited for the optimum moment, then pushed the full figured camera operator just as he was off balance. The stout fellow pirouetted gracelessly then fell heavily back into the mud, again with the fragile equipment held valiantly aloft. It was always going to happen, which is what made it so funny. It's going to happen, it's going to happen, there you go, it happened. It was the view of the banana skin, the view of the serious looking man approaching the banana skin, the slipping over. It's always funny.
I don't usually laugh out loud so much. I try to do it less when I have a mouth full of frothy toothpaste. It was a strange battle to fully enjoy the moment whilst avoiding spilling a nasty, hard to explain white stain on my couch. My own predicament was an extension of the original gag, which made me laugh more. Small things amuse this little mind. On occasion it is sweet to know the same things make me laugh now that made me laugh when I was a young boy.
Sophistication can be overrated.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
I don't usually laugh out loud so much. I try to do it less when I have a mouth full of frothy toothpaste. It was a strange battle to fully enjoy the moment whilst avoiding spilling a nasty, hard to explain white stain on my couch. My own predicament was an extension of the original gag, which made me laugh more. Small things amuse this little mind. On occasion it is sweet to know the same things make me laugh now that made me laugh when I was a young boy.
Sophistication can be overrated.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Five Reasons The Aliens Haven't Visited.
Physicists seem to agree that considering the infinite nature of space, how long it has been in existence, the diversity of the matter within it, it is probable that intelligent life has developed and evolved somewhere beyond this planet. It is more than likely that at least one alien culture has evolved to the point it can analyse and visit us at will. I have to wonder why these aliens have chosen to analyse us, but not visit us. Here are the first five reasonss that came off the top of my head. I have a feeling this may be an ongoing series. I do hope you'll contribute either via my e mail address or by commenting.
Five Reasons The Aliens Haven't Visited.
1. Conflict. From petty domestic to carpet bombing conflict is distasteful. No refined alien culture would choose to surround themselves with the amount of constant conflict they would have noticed amongst humans.
2. Celebrity. The aliens have noticed we worship celebrity, from the giant heads of dictators to Paris Hilton. They could only assume we are primitives.
3. Weather. It's never quite right, is it?
4. Heroin Users. Any species that contains the pathetic, snivelling drug addict and can't find a solution to the problem isn't worth dropping in on.
5. ABBA. No matter which radio broadcast the aliens analyse, anywhere on the planet, they will find some ABBA content. I wouldn't visit your home if I thought there was even a small risk you'd play ABBA at me.
Parkstreet.
Travel Books
Five Reasons The Aliens Haven't Visited.
1. Conflict. From petty domestic to carpet bombing conflict is distasteful. No refined alien culture would choose to surround themselves with the amount of constant conflict they would have noticed amongst humans.
2. Celebrity. The aliens have noticed we worship celebrity, from the giant heads of dictators to Paris Hilton. They could only assume we are primitives.
3. Weather. It's never quite right, is it?
4. Heroin Users. Any species that contains the pathetic, snivelling drug addict and can't find a solution to the problem isn't worth dropping in on.
5. ABBA. No matter which radio broadcast the aliens analyse, anywhere on the planet, they will find some ABBA content. I wouldn't visit your home if I thought there was even a small risk you'd play ABBA at me.
Parkstreet.
Travel Books
The Girl In My Local Pizza Joint.
I'm not desperately in love with the girl who works in my local pizza joint just because of the way she looks. It's not her infectious smile, that every time she directs it at me I turn into a goofy grinned cartoon character. It's not that her tight white pants are a little see through, that I can see the outline of her little underpants, not that I want to pay twice because when she bends over the till I can have a quick look without being caught. It's not even that she is sweet and gracious and charming to me and to everyone else who entyers the shop, no matter how weird, cranky or drunk they are.
I'm in love with the girl who works in my local pizza joint because she spreads my olives evenly, uses a real fresh tomato sauce and a properly cooked pastry. A woman who cooks beautifully is more exciting than a beautiful woman.
Parkstreet.
CHEFS Sale
I'm in love with the girl who works in my local pizza joint because she spreads my olives evenly, uses a real fresh tomato sauce and a properly cooked pastry. A woman who cooks beautifully is more exciting than a beautiful woman.
Parkstreet.
CHEFS Sale
The Moon's Full And High.
Our moon is a floating rock, orbiting our planet due to our monstrous gravity. There is no man living up there, no cheese.
A very strange set of circumstances has set up a situation where my species has developed to the point that I live in an eleventh floor, east facing apartment with one all glass wall, just as unlikely and strange is the fact that one piece of earth split off billions of years ago, just the right size to be caught in orbit. What are the chances? A full moon rises low in the east, shines directly into my apartment, like I could reach out and take it in my hand.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I have my dark days. Dark days indeed. In the two years I've lived in this apartment those dark days have coincided with a full moon. The full moon has made me happier, less alone. I remember these coincidences. I don't believe for a moment there is any connection between me and the moon and my mood and feeling better. Me and the moon have simply arrived at the same point in the space/time continuum. I like it, but there is nothing magical about it.
Maybe because it is all a combination of evolution, mechanics, the human eye for beauty, maybe there is magic in that combination. All I know is that tonight the moon shone into my apartment just when I needed it to.
Parkstreet.
A very strange set of circumstances has set up a situation where my species has developed to the point that I live in an eleventh floor, east facing apartment with one all glass wall, just as unlikely and strange is the fact that one piece of earth split off billions of years ago, just the right size to be caught in orbit. What are the chances? A full moon rises low in the east, shines directly into my apartment, like I could reach out and take it in my hand.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I have my dark days. Dark days indeed. In the two years I've lived in this apartment those dark days have coincided with a full moon. The full moon has made me happier, less alone. I remember these coincidences. I don't believe for a moment there is any connection between me and the moon and my mood and feeling better. Me and the moon have simply arrived at the same point in the space/time continuum. I like it, but there is nothing magical about it.
Maybe because it is all a combination of evolution, mechanics, the human eye for beauty, maybe there is magic in that combination. All I know is that tonight the moon shone into my apartment just when I needed it to.
Parkstreet.
Wednesday, 28 April 2010
Cigarette Smoke And Mirrors.
Two and a half years into it's three year tenure the government of my country has screwed everything it has touched. I'm embarrassed by the idiocy of the people we elected to serve and govern us.
Today these idiot fools announced, proudly, that cigarettes will be taxed a further 25%. The cost of an average package of twenty five cigarettes will now rise from $12 to $15. Those of you reading this in other countries ill be stunned, but here we are used to this nonsense. This is on top of all the cigarette specific taxes and a 10% general sales tax.
I don't smoke any more, no conflict of interest here, but all I see is a government so deeply in debt, so short of ideas, that flogging a wheezing horse is all they've got. Fuckwits. They claim it is in the interests of health, they are enforcing new laws on plain packaging at the same time. We all know it is a tax grab and won't stop an addicted smoker from buying the legal product they need.
The well educated and wealthy will find an extra $21 per week for their pack a day habit. Smoking politicians will be o.k. Those who can't afford it will sacrifice the quality of food they eat rather than give up. The very poor, the mentally ill, those who smoke the most, will have to increase the level of crime they commit to maintain a more and more expensive habit.
We all know smoking is bad for us, rates of smoking are gradually decreasing in Australia as less young people take it up. Education works. Taxes don't. Our allegedly socialist leaning government has simply taxed the poor, the people they claim to represent, to pay for their grandiose schemes. Grandiose schemes that have failed one by one.
With obesity overtaking smoking as the great health problem of our era we don't see a government with the courage to tax junk food, or dictate packaging on products containing trans fats. Smokers are an easy target, demonized for so long that no one sees them as addicts.
Our Prime Minister, quite possibly the world's squarest man, tells us,"smoking isn't cool." We know what isn't cool.
Parkstreet.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers - BK Life - 20% Off All Books & Links
Today these idiot fools announced, proudly, that cigarettes will be taxed a further 25%. The cost of an average package of twenty five cigarettes will now rise from $12 to $15. Those of you reading this in other countries ill be stunned, but here we are used to this nonsense. This is on top of all the cigarette specific taxes and a 10% general sales tax.
I don't smoke any more, no conflict of interest here, but all I see is a government so deeply in debt, so short of ideas, that flogging a wheezing horse is all they've got. Fuckwits. They claim it is in the interests of health, they are enforcing new laws on plain packaging at the same time. We all know it is a tax grab and won't stop an addicted smoker from buying the legal product they need.
The well educated and wealthy will find an extra $21 per week for their pack a day habit. Smoking politicians will be o.k. Those who can't afford it will sacrifice the quality of food they eat rather than give up. The very poor, the mentally ill, those who smoke the most, will have to increase the level of crime they commit to maintain a more and more expensive habit.
We all know smoking is bad for us, rates of smoking are gradually decreasing in Australia as less young people take it up. Education works. Taxes don't. Our allegedly socialist leaning government has simply taxed the poor, the people they claim to represent, to pay for their grandiose schemes. Grandiose schemes that have failed one by one.
With obesity overtaking smoking as the great health problem of our era we don't see a government with the courage to tax junk food, or dictate packaging on products containing trans fats. Smokers are an easy target, demonized for so long that no one sees them as addicts.
Our Prime Minister, quite possibly the world's squarest man, tells us,"smoking isn't cool." We know what isn't cool.
Parkstreet.
Berrett-Koehler Publishers - BK Life - 20% Off All Books & Links
A.N.Z.A.C. #3.
War, what is it good for? It is good for settling disputes over trade and ideology. It is good for developing new technology. It is good for giving a culture a shared experience that makes that culture stronger.
World War One, The Great War, the war to end all wars, was a dispute between trade cartels that got out of hand. Those who thought they were in charge had lost touch with the technology of the day, what should have been a skirmish became four years of industrial oneupmanship.
The amphibious assault at Gallipoli, Turkey, was the first military action that Australian troops undertook under the name of their own country. It is seen as the birth of a modern nation. Fifteen years earlier Australia had become an independent country but going to war in support of Great Britain was our first action, our first international baby steps.
The campaign itself was a disaster, by all reports the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was courageous and resourceful in circumstances that were managed appallingly by English brass. It is common belief that the A.N.Z.A.C.s were used uncaringly by officers who saw them as unimportant, less important than British troops. This belief reinforced the decision to cut ties with Britain, a job we need to finish by cutting ties with the monarchy eventually.
Australians came home from war wiser than when they left. They appreciated the new country they lived in, free of age old hatreds and stupidities. They understood that their culture was classless for a reason, that it was right. They came home with grand plans, new knowledge of mechanics, a new belief in their physical prowess under pressure.
The Great War was good for Australia, if we discount the death, insanity, physical destruction. So much suffering by so many, there had to be some pay off.
Parkstreet.
Biographies & Autobiographies
World War One, The Great War, the war to end all wars, was a dispute between trade cartels that got out of hand. Those who thought they were in charge had lost touch with the technology of the day, what should have been a skirmish became four years of industrial oneupmanship.
The amphibious assault at Gallipoli, Turkey, was the first military action that Australian troops undertook under the name of their own country. It is seen as the birth of a modern nation. Fifteen years earlier Australia had become an independent country but going to war in support of Great Britain was our first action, our first international baby steps.
The campaign itself was a disaster, by all reports the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps was courageous and resourceful in circumstances that were managed appallingly by English brass. It is common belief that the A.N.Z.A.C.s were used uncaringly by officers who saw them as unimportant, less important than British troops. This belief reinforced the decision to cut ties with Britain, a job we need to finish by cutting ties with the monarchy eventually.
Australians came home from war wiser than when they left. They appreciated the new country they lived in, free of age old hatreds and stupidities. They understood that their culture was classless for a reason, that it was right. They came home with grand plans, new knowledge of mechanics, a new belief in their physical prowess under pressure.
The Great War was good for Australia, if we discount the death, insanity, physical destruction. So much suffering by so many, there had to be some pay off.
Parkstreet.
Biographies & Autobiographies
Tuesday, 27 April 2010
Zimmerman's On A Tuesday Night, from www.parkstreetcafeblog.blogspot.com
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Zimmerman's On A Tuesday Night.
So I'm hanging at Zimmerman's, all the hip young musicians are here, showing off for each other. Johann Sebastian just won't shut up. Wanker. He's claiming all music should be a tribute to the grandeur of god. Give me a break. Who does he think he is? Thinks he's a big deal, no one will even know his name in twenty years from now. I'm not one to gossip, but I've heard he's in trouble with the Lutheran elders again. For some reason he seems to think it is the musicain's right to deflower the daughters of the wealthy and pretentious. His organ lessons have taken on the obvious double entendre. And those bloody flattened fifths, I've told him a hundred times that theyll never catch on and they'll just upset the elders. He won't listen. And that ridiculous new cantata, all about coffee and sex. Just because coffee is new and hip now, it's not as if it will be popular forever. Can you imagine people in three hundred years from now sitting around coffeehouses and talking about music and playing each other their latest tunes and claiming coffee is essential to life, that the first cup each day is better than sex? Can you imagine that? Nonsense. It will never happen.
A tribute to the grandeur of god, who does he think he is?
Parkstreet.
the naive e.p., recorded live in a Sydney cafe, solo, acoustic, available on itunes and via this link to cdbaby.
Zimmerman's On A Tuesday Night.
So I'm hanging at Zimmerman's, all the hip young musicians are here, showing off for each other. Johann Sebastian just won't shut up. Wanker. He's claiming all music should be a tribute to the grandeur of god. Give me a break. Who does he think he is? Thinks he's a big deal, no one will even know his name in twenty years from now. I'm not one to gossip, but I've heard he's in trouble with the Lutheran elders again. For some reason he seems to think it is the musicain's right to deflower the daughters of the wealthy and pretentious. His organ lessons have taken on the obvious double entendre. And those bloody flattened fifths, I've told him a hundred times that theyll never catch on and they'll just upset the elders. He won't listen. And that ridiculous new cantata, all about coffee and sex. Just because coffee is new and hip now, it's not as if it will be popular forever. Can you imagine people in three hundred years from now sitting around coffeehouses and talking about music and playing each other their latest tunes and claiming coffee is essential to life, that the first cup each day is better than sex? Can you imagine that? Nonsense. It will never happen.
A tribute to the grandeur of god, who does he think he is?
Parkstreet.
the naive e.p., recorded live in a Sydney cafe, solo, acoustic, available on itunes and via this link to cdbaby.
The Night Miles Davis Died.
I made myself so drunk that I couldn't find my way home on the night Miles Davis died.
I heard the news in the afternoon. It was a Monday in Melbourne Australia. My favourite local band, Onaje, was playing at the Limerick Arms in South Melbourne and all the jazzheads gathered, just to be together. No one knew what to say or do so we all got drunk. Seriously drunk.
Adrian Rawlins was there, dilletente and jazz poet. it was the first time I'd met the great lunatic. We drank my wine. When the pub closed a taxi or two full of us made it to the apartment of some girl who called herself Chanel. I remember she had a tattoo that wouldn't have been visible had she not shaved her pubic hair. It was the sort of night that inhibition washes it's hands of.
When it became clear that the girl who called herself Chanel wasn't going to give me the sort of solace I was seeking I decided to leave. I hugged Adrian, he told me that Miles played his spirit and that was more than enough for any man and that if I loved Miles I would go on to play my own spirit.
The apartment of the girl who called herself Chanel was only about twenty minutes walk from mine. I walked aimlessly for the last hour before sunrise, then staggered home. My flatmate was awake, worried. I couldn't explain why I was so upset. Miles was old, he'd done his thing, he'd died, it shouldn't have been such a big deal.
Dr. Seuss had died the same week. Maybe I felt the first whisper of mortality, two men who'd informed my view of art and life had departed. Until then nothing real had changed in my life.
I think I'm finally at a point in my life where I understand the idea of playing my spirit. Playing, living spiritually is suddenly real to me, not just a drunken memory. I think this is the reason the night Miles Davis died is on my mind. I hope his spirit, the spirit of the wondrous doctor, and the spirit of one other girl I once knew will all be part of this way of playing and living. I think this is what Adrian meant.
Parkstreet.
Save up to 80% on Former Bestsellers, Books for Kids, B&N Classics, and More in our bargain book sec
I heard the news in the afternoon. It was a Monday in Melbourne Australia. My favourite local band, Onaje, was playing at the Limerick Arms in South Melbourne and all the jazzheads gathered, just to be together. No one knew what to say or do so we all got drunk. Seriously drunk.
Adrian Rawlins was there, dilletente and jazz poet. it was the first time I'd met the great lunatic. We drank my wine. When the pub closed a taxi or two full of us made it to the apartment of some girl who called herself Chanel. I remember she had a tattoo that wouldn't have been visible had she not shaved her pubic hair. It was the sort of night that inhibition washes it's hands of.
When it became clear that the girl who called herself Chanel wasn't going to give me the sort of solace I was seeking I decided to leave. I hugged Adrian, he told me that Miles played his spirit and that was more than enough for any man and that if I loved Miles I would go on to play my own spirit.
The apartment of the girl who called herself Chanel was only about twenty minutes walk from mine. I walked aimlessly for the last hour before sunrise, then staggered home. My flatmate was awake, worried. I couldn't explain why I was so upset. Miles was old, he'd done his thing, he'd died, it shouldn't have been such a big deal.
Dr. Seuss had died the same week. Maybe I felt the first whisper of mortality, two men who'd informed my view of art and life had departed. Until then nothing real had changed in my life.
I think I'm finally at a point in my life where I understand the idea of playing my spirit. Playing, living spiritually is suddenly real to me, not just a drunken memory. I think this is the reason the night Miles Davis died is on my mind. I hope his spirit, the spirit of the wondrous doctor, and the spirit of one other girl I once knew will all be part of this way of playing and living. I think this is what Adrian meant.
Parkstreet.
Save up to 80% on Former Bestsellers, Books for Kids, B&N Classics, and More in our bargain book sec
Monday, 26 April 2010
Noah And The Platypus.
A bunch of deranged evangalist Christians have claimed they have found Noah's Ark. No they haven't. They haven't because the ark doesn't, and never did exist. The ark was a character in a story, a myth, the same flood myth that occurs in just about every culture on earth.
Why do Christians believe their myths are so special?
Any Australian will tell you the taking of two of every animal onto a craft never occured. There were no platypus on that side of the earth, yet they have been on this continent for tens of thousands of years. They evolved, yes, fucking evolved here. Noah was alleged to have set sail about five thousand years ago. Australian cave paintings from thousands of years before that time show many animals that never lived in the Middle East. No one had even imagined such a fantastic creature, not even the myth writers. If they didn't make it onto the ark and the whole earth was flooded, well, why do I even bother making the argument?
Psychopaths searching for physical proof of a beautiful and worthy story cheapen that story, mock it. They haven't found Noah's Ark. It doesn't exist.
Parkstreet.
Travel Books
Why do Christians believe their myths are so special?
Any Australian will tell you the taking of two of every animal onto a craft never occured. There were no platypus on that side of the earth, yet they have been on this continent for tens of thousands of years. They evolved, yes, fucking evolved here. Noah was alleged to have set sail about five thousand years ago. Australian cave paintings from thousands of years before that time show many animals that never lived in the Middle East. No one had even imagined such a fantastic creature, not even the myth writers. If they didn't make it onto the ark and the whole earth was flooded, well, why do I even bother making the argument?
Psychopaths searching for physical proof of a beautiful and worthy story cheapen that story, mock it. They haven't found Noah's Ark. It doesn't exist.
Parkstreet.
Travel Books
The Fauxhemians, revisited.
A few years ago I dated a girl who was surrounded by fauxhemian wankers, pseudo creative types who never actually created, who lacked the courage to give up the security of a regular wage to pursue a passion. Spending time with her friends became more and more difficult, I could only take so much knowledge about art. They knew everything about art. Everything.
One friend of a friend had a lounge room full of objet d'art, including not one but two buddha statues. Of course you are familiar with the buddhist teaching that more is more. Everyone admired the objects and talked about them. They said stuff about Dresden and Tuscany and other places that were good. This bloke wrote advertising shite and ran art shows where he'd get other fauxhemians over excited so they'd spend like drunken sailors on decorative paintings. I admired his gall. The girl I was dating ended up screwing him instead of me. I was too poor because I was trying to make stuff. He was rich because he made nothing, just sold derivative nonsense constructed of stuff other people made.
The fauxhemians homes are always full of the right stuff. Their hearts aren't.
Parkstreet.
Shop www.ChefGiant.com: Free Shipping on Brand Name Kitchen Electrics, Cookware, Barware & More!
One friend of a friend had a lounge room full of objet d'art, including not one but two buddha statues. Of course you are familiar with the buddhist teaching that more is more. Everyone admired the objects and talked about them. They said stuff about Dresden and Tuscany and other places that were good. This bloke wrote advertising shite and ran art shows where he'd get other fauxhemians over excited so they'd spend like drunken sailors on decorative paintings. I admired his gall. The girl I was dating ended up screwing him instead of me. I was too poor because I was trying to make stuff. He was rich because he made nothing, just sold derivative nonsense constructed of stuff other people made.
The fauxhemians homes are always full of the right stuff. Their hearts aren't.
Parkstreet.
Shop www.ChefGiant.com: Free Shipping on Brand Name Kitchen Electrics, Cookware, Barware & More!
I Disagree, Mr. Hawking.
Stephen Hawking has stated that it is logical that there is most likely intelligent life out there, but that we shouldn't try to attract it's attention in case it wants to come here and rape our resources. I disagree. I can't imagine what sort of technology could pillage the earth faster than we are doing it ourselves. Here in Australia we have conveyor belts running coal from the mine to the power plant, we can't dig it up or burn it fast enough. We can't fill up the Chinese bulk carriers fast enough to stop them lining up outside our ports. Any alien intelligence that is smart enough to find ways to rip up and consume resources faster than we do must surely be smart enough to have found us by now, and to have evolved past the need to use everything in can get it's hands, claws, antennae, suckers, whatever on.
I can't see any threat scarier than us humans coming from space.
And I just love the idea of disagreeing with Mr. Hawking, it makes me feel like a big man.
Parkstreet.
I can't see any threat scarier than us humans coming from space.
And I just love the idea of disagreeing with Mr. Hawking, it makes me feel like a big man.
Parkstreet.
Rock Star Schmock Star.
Right now in Sydney the news media is reporting the arrival of a teenage pop star and the reaction of his teenage fans. Firstly, who gives a fat rat's arse about a teenage pop star, and secondly, isn't the real story about his parents allowing and encouraging this kid to be become an internet rock star sham?
A pop or rock star is not a thing to be. Smoke and mirrors, autotune and bullshit. Has anyone ever questioned why old pop stars kill themselves, why they need all the drugs? Paul McCartney and that repressed homosexual face lift freak from Summer Holiday are exceptions, but the majority of old pop stars don't get so old. The reason is that they know their lives are a sham, a joke. They know they really created nothing, did nothing, made nothing happen.
What parent would want this for their child? This Jusrin Whatsit is a child. A trained monkey, a product of shit parenting. The fact that thousands of teenage girls were allowed to sleep in the middle of a large city to be in line to see this freak show isn't a surprise, shit parents are everywhere. I'm surprised that no one can see the pattern of child star, pop star, drug addict, early death. How shit can parents be?
I shouldn't be adding to the attention this child has been given.
Parkstreet.
A pop or rock star is not a thing to be. Smoke and mirrors, autotune and bullshit. Has anyone ever questioned why old pop stars kill themselves, why they need all the drugs? Paul McCartney and that repressed homosexual face lift freak from Summer Holiday are exceptions, but the majority of old pop stars don't get so old. The reason is that they know their lives are a sham, a joke. They know they really created nothing, did nothing, made nothing happen.
What parent would want this for their child? This Jusrin Whatsit is a child. A trained monkey, a product of shit parenting. The fact that thousands of teenage girls were allowed to sleep in the middle of a large city to be in line to see this freak show isn't a surprise, shit parents are everywhere. I'm surprised that no one can see the pattern of child star, pop star, drug addict, early death. How shit can parents be?
I shouldn't be adding to the attention this child has been given.
Parkstreet.
Sunday, 25 April 2010
The Chase, from www.parkstreetcafeblog.blogspot.com
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The Chase.
Outside the Piccolo Bar Cafe this evening, a young man running full tilt down the street, pursued by two large and frightening looking men. He dodges across the road right in front of us, tries to change direction but instead slips and falls. He uses his face to slow his momentum, the crunch as it hits the back of a car is awful to behold. The chase never ends this way in the movies.
"Get down on the ground, get down on the ground, stay down, stay down."
Turns out the big ugly men are under cover cops. I've seen them in action around here before, this guy must have done something pretty dire to make them run after him. They don't like to run. There is enough crime around here that they can let one runner go and pick up someone slower. The young man with the freshly shaped face must have seriously pissed them off.
Listening to the conversations all around, everyone has an opinion on what really happened even though none of us know. We are all writing our own reality and will take home our version as the facts, remember exactly how it went down. Ideas range from police brutality to criminals who run get what they deserve. The view of what happened is judged purely on the previous experience and social leaning of the observer. Actual observation has nothing to do with it.
My coffee isn't disturbed. A young man has a story to tell his mates. His face will heal. The onlookers have the buzz of vicarious excitement without having to spend a night in the cells. The truth is a casualty but the truth is used to it by now.
Parkstreet.
The Chase.
Outside the Piccolo Bar Cafe this evening, a young man running full tilt down the street, pursued by two large and frightening looking men. He dodges across the road right in front of us, tries to change direction but instead slips and falls. He uses his face to slow his momentum, the crunch as it hits the back of a car is awful to behold. The chase never ends this way in the movies.
"Get down on the ground, get down on the ground, stay down, stay down."
Turns out the big ugly men are under cover cops. I've seen them in action around here before, this guy must have done something pretty dire to make them run after him. They don't like to run. There is enough crime around here that they can let one runner go and pick up someone slower. The young man with the freshly shaped face must have seriously pissed them off.
Listening to the conversations all around, everyone has an opinion on what really happened even though none of us know. We are all writing our own reality and will take home our version as the facts, remember exactly how it went down. Ideas range from police brutality to criminals who run get what they deserve. The view of what happened is judged purely on the previous experience and social leaning of the observer. Actual observation has nothing to do with it.
My coffee isn't disturbed. A young man has a story to tell his mates. His face will heal. The onlookers have the buzz of vicarious excitement without having to spend a night in the cells. The truth is a casualty but the truth is used to it by now.
Parkstreet.
Happy Hubble Day.
The Hubble Space Telescope turns twenty years old today. Once the corrective lenses were applied we have received truly amazing information and images back from this technological masterpiece.
The thing that impresses me about Hubble is that it marked the time when humans started thinking about space as part of our domain, not a foreign territory. It was designed to be tended from earth, for reusable space craft to repair and fuel it. This way of thinking has lead to the international space station being built and growing year by year.
In another twenty years, when we have permanent stations on our moon, maybe Mars, when us humans have become the spreading cancer of space we are destined to be, we'll see Hubble as day one.
Parkstreet.
Find high quality plants and bulbs for the Fall planting season at White Flower Farm. Click Here!
The thing that impresses me about Hubble is that it marked the time when humans started thinking about space as part of our domain, not a foreign territory. It was designed to be tended from earth, for reusable space craft to repair and fuel it. This way of thinking has lead to the international space station being built and growing year by year.
In another twenty years, when we have permanent stations on our moon, maybe Mars, when us humans have become the spreading cancer of space we are destined to be, we'll see Hubble as day one.
Parkstreet.
Find high quality plants and bulbs for the Fall planting season at White Flower Farm. Click Here!
Saturday, 24 April 2010
A.N.Z.A.C. #2
Around this time of year in 1996 I was arguing with a Frenchman at an outside cafe in Paris. He was justifying recent atomic weapons tests in the Pacific Ocean, I was asking him why the tests weren't conducted in Brittany if they were so fucking safe.
I liked this guy, he was a charming and thoughtful man but on this occasion he irritated me. He condescendingly explained that I had to understand that France had been invaded twice in a century and that maintaining military superiority was essential to national pride and feeling of security. I tried to tell him that my grandfather and plenty of other Australians and New Zealanders had spent years of their lives surrounded by mud, smoke, death, gas, their own shit while they fought in the trenches of France helping to free his country. My ancestor lost three years of his life, dragging ammunition up and down on the back of a mule, risked his life, returned home a different man.
In the second great war Australians and New Zealanders fought in France while Frenchmen were collaborating. Those men could have been cleaning up the Japanese in the Paciic, but instead they were saving France. There are villages in France where an Australian still can't buy a drink, where the locals remember what was done for them by another country on the other side of the world, but in well healed, well educated Paris the wars are seen in a different, more French friendly light.
The history and politics of both world wars is a subject for greater scholars than me. The facts are that A.N.Z.A.C.s fought courageously on the other side of the world. On this day we remember those who didn't return, we celebrate everything we have as a result. We don't need pseudo intellectuals from Paris to understand it.
Lest we forget.
Parkstreet.
I liked this guy, he was a charming and thoughtful man but on this occasion he irritated me. He condescendingly explained that I had to understand that France had been invaded twice in a century and that maintaining military superiority was essential to national pride and feeling of security. I tried to tell him that my grandfather and plenty of other Australians and New Zealanders had spent years of their lives surrounded by mud, smoke, death, gas, their own shit while they fought in the trenches of France helping to free his country. My ancestor lost three years of his life, dragging ammunition up and down on the back of a mule, risked his life, returned home a different man.
In the second great war Australians and New Zealanders fought in France while Frenchmen were collaborating. Those men could have been cleaning up the Japanese in the Paciic, but instead they were saving France. There are villages in France where an Australian still can't buy a drink, where the locals remember what was done for them by another country on the other side of the world, but in well healed, well educated Paris the wars are seen in a different, more French friendly light.
The history and politics of both world wars is a subject for greater scholars than me. The facts are that A.N.Z.A.C.s fought courageously on the other side of the world. On this day we remember those who didn't return, we celebrate everything we have as a result. We don't need pseudo intellectuals from Paris to understand it.
Lest we forget.
Parkstreet.
Friday, 23 April 2010
A.N.Z.A.C. #1.
Today I heard the best rendition of the Australian national anthem I've ever heard. It was sung by a sailor, Leading Seaman Tracy Kennedy I believe, and she nailed it.
Her version of this difficult song worked because she served the song rather than the other way around. She sang one note for each syllable in the lyric, she sang it in tune, she sang it with a natural Australian accent. She didn't add purposeless flourishes to stamp her personality on the performance, just smiled proudly and naturally once she'd finished.
The occasion was an A.N.Z.A.C. Day celebration at an Australian Rules Football game. I could imagine Miss Kennedy's Mum and Dad watching her on television and crying.
To serve the music rather than have it serve you is an old fashioned idea. I like the idea.
Parkstreet.
Her version of this difficult song worked because she served the song rather than the other way around. She sang one note for each syllable in the lyric, she sang it in tune, she sang it with a natural Australian accent. She didn't add purposeless flourishes to stamp her personality on the performance, just smiled proudly and naturally once she'd finished.
The occasion was an A.N.Z.A.C. Day celebration at an Australian Rules Football game. I could imagine Miss Kennedy's Mum and Dad watching her on television and crying.
To serve the music rather than have it serve you is an old fashioned idea. I like the idea.
Parkstreet.
The Fauxhemians.
One night you are sitting at your local cafe, the conversation at the table next door is of marble kitchen benches and television cooking shows, you realize your neighbourhood has been bought out by the Fauxhemians.
The Fauxhemians are attracted to the ragged, the sharp edged, they find the idea of living amongst it exciting, but as soon as they do live amongst it they start sanding back the very sharp bits, then don't stop until they have created the perfect, you guessed it, square. They know enough art buzz words to appear interesting at dinner parties but prefer the art they grew up with, the comfort of parental approval. Actual artists are seen as charming, like hamsters, quite cute.
Bohemians create work, they make things, ideas, art, businesses, they create momentum that carries others along. They don't try to be diferent or interesting, they just can't see the point in social rules if they prevent them living fully. The Fauxhemians create nothing, they talk a lot, they suck the life out of all around.
Once your home is infected there is no remedy. If one can find a way to move away from plague one does, staying to fight is foolishness. The appalling, culturally barren shiny people who are slowly killing the real thing will follow wherever we go. The Fauxhemians are the future.
Parkstreet.
Psychology & Psychiatry
The Fauxhemians are attracted to the ragged, the sharp edged, they find the idea of living amongst it exciting, but as soon as they do live amongst it they start sanding back the very sharp bits, then don't stop until they have created the perfect, you guessed it, square. They know enough art buzz words to appear interesting at dinner parties but prefer the art they grew up with, the comfort of parental approval. Actual artists are seen as charming, like hamsters, quite cute.
Bohemians create work, they make things, ideas, art, businesses, they create momentum that carries others along. They don't try to be diferent or interesting, they just can't see the point in social rules if they prevent them living fully. The Fauxhemians create nothing, they talk a lot, they suck the life out of all around.
Once your home is infected there is no remedy. If one can find a way to move away from plague one does, staying to fight is foolishness. The appalling, culturally barren shiny people who are slowly killing the real thing will follow wherever we go. The Fauxhemians are the future.
Parkstreet.
Psychology & Psychiatry
Thursday, 22 April 2010
The Space/Time Continuum Is Pissing Me Off.
Intellectually I can comprehend the idea that space and time are connected, of the same nature. I still don't really get it.
The way it has been explained to me is via the medium of PacMan. If you've played the game you'll know that the protaginists can only move in two dimensions on the screen, left and right, up and down. The idea of lifting up off the screen hasn't occured to PacMan or the pursuing ghost, it isn't in their mindset. In the same way us humans work in three dimensions but it isn't in our natural thoughts to imagine time as part of those dimensions, or as a fourth dimension.
As modern physics becomes more and more perverse in relation to our traditional ways of thinking there will be more and more ideas we will have to accept with our brains but not really feel, not totally get. Maybe this will be the next stage of evolution? In the past anyone who said that time and space are the same thing was considered mad. Maybe those with that sort of understanding of the universe, probably the multiverse, will be the minds that lead our species forward?
Isaac Newton claimed he was standing on the shoulders of giants, the scientists who went before him, so he could see a long way. The physicists who are showing us the future now are giants indeed, I can only wonder at who will stand on their shoulders in the next generation.
It doesn't matter so much that I can't get a firm hold on the nature of time. It irritates me beyond words, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that us bears of very little brain allow those who appear a little mad, those who can see other dimensions, those who can stand on shoulders and see further than us, that we allow these people to flourish and explain to us as best they can.
Parkstreet.
The way it has been explained to me is via the medium of PacMan. If you've played the game you'll know that the protaginists can only move in two dimensions on the screen, left and right, up and down. The idea of lifting up off the screen hasn't occured to PacMan or the pursuing ghost, it isn't in their mindset. In the same way us humans work in three dimensions but it isn't in our natural thoughts to imagine time as part of those dimensions, or as a fourth dimension.
As modern physics becomes more and more perverse in relation to our traditional ways of thinking there will be more and more ideas we will have to accept with our brains but not really feel, not totally get. Maybe this will be the next stage of evolution? In the past anyone who said that time and space are the same thing was considered mad. Maybe those with that sort of understanding of the universe, probably the multiverse, will be the minds that lead our species forward?
Isaac Newton claimed he was standing on the shoulders of giants, the scientists who went before him, so he could see a long way. The physicists who are showing us the future now are giants indeed, I can only wonder at who will stand on their shoulders in the next generation.
It doesn't matter so much that I can't get a firm hold on the nature of time. It irritates me beyond words, but it doesn't matter. What matters is that us bears of very little brain allow those who appear a little mad, those who can see other dimensions, those who can stand on shoulders and see further than us, that we allow these people to flourish and explain to us as best they can.
Parkstreet.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Freedom.
What we are fighting for, every day, is not wealth, power, sex, love, none of these things, we are fighting for the freedom to be ourselves. We believe we will find that freedom in those other things, but freedom is in us. We are afraid to be ourselves, we fight ourselves. When we stop fighting ourselves freedom will reign.
Parkstreet.
Parkstreet.
Bosses And Workers.
I've just now walked away from an argument with a friend. he claimed that Bach was great because he had a boss mentality, he believed he was a big man. I stated that without the worker ants, those who learn to play musical instruments and play Bach's work, then Bach would be nothing. He claimed these players have a slave mentality, I say that Bach owes them everything.
We can't all be the boss. I don't believe that being the boss is the only path to self expression. I hope not, Ninety percent of people aren't bosses. maybe ninety percent of people are unfulfilled, unhappy, not completely themselves? Can that be true?
I'm at a point where I want to be a boss for a while, I have imagined the band I want and I'm about to make it happen. There will be other times when I will work for other people. If John Coltrane could play for Miles Davis then there is certainly no shame in playing for someone else.
I have struggled to find musical satisfaction in many situations in the past. I think it was because I was being sensible, trying to fulfill the requirements of the job, not expressing myself as a musician. I've had to pay the rent too. There is a crunch point between financial reality and creative essence and I've gone beyond it, hurt myself on too many occasions. Now is the time to leave fear behind, be prepared to sleep on the street if the playing is right, be the boss of my own musical output.
What is the worst thing that can happen?
Parkstreet.
We can't all be the boss. I don't believe that being the boss is the only path to self expression. I hope not, Ninety percent of people aren't bosses. maybe ninety percent of people are unfulfilled, unhappy, not completely themselves? Can that be true?
I'm at a point where I want to be a boss for a while, I have imagined the band I want and I'm about to make it happen. There will be other times when I will work for other people. If John Coltrane could play for Miles Davis then there is certainly no shame in playing for someone else.
I have struggled to find musical satisfaction in many situations in the past. I think it was because I was being sensible, trying to fulfill the requirements of the job, not expressing myself as a musician. I've had to pay the rent too. There is a crunch point between financial reality and creative essence and I've gone beyond it, hurt myself on too many occasions. Now is the time to leave fear behind, be prepared to sleep on the street if the playing is right, be the boss of my own musical output.
What is the worst thing that can happen?
Parkstreet.
Kylie Minogue's Bottom And God.
Pop star Kylie Minogue possesses a bottom so close to perfect that it leads a man to ponder the spiritual. Ideal in size, shape, height, pertness, context, Kylie's arse must be the work of some power greater than just Mr. and Mrs. Minogue.
Some would say that god created the functional anatomy but the devil made it alluring. Others would say it is all the work of god but that the devil has distorted our minds, turned a thing of beauty into an object of lust. Worshippers of the feminine source of everything would see it as evidence for their faith, some men might suggest that god is a bloke, he created a tush from heaven so we could watch Kylie on television with our girlfriends and not mind how crud the music is.
I like the way sex and desire and religion have become so confused over the centuries, I find it hilarious. Does any god care what we find attractive, how we act upon that attraction? Some religious laws were cultural, designed to prevent inbreeding and to maintain social strength through monoculture. Those rules are now connected with god. In some cultures Kylie could be stoned to death for parading about in her underwear. Can you believe that? Any god that wants to hide Kylie's arse from view is a no fun god with no tastee. Other gods appear to be enamoured of images of bottoms, breasts and penises.
The spirit and sexual ecstacy are sonehow connected. Desire is life. Physical beauty is a great joy and of the divine. I don't think any god minds so much if I fancy Kylie and her fine butt. I know I wouldn't mind if she fancied mine.
Parkstreet.
Some would say that god created the functional anatomy but the devil made it alluring. Others would say it is all the work of god but that the devil has distorted our minds, turned a thing of beauty into an object of lust. Worshippers of the feminine source of everything would see it as evidence for their faith, some men might suggest that god is a bloke, he created a tush from heaven so we could watch Kylie on television with our girlfriends and not mind how crud the music is.
I like the way sex and desire and religion have become so confused over the centuries, I find it hilarious. Does any god care what we find attractive, how we act upon that attraction? Some religious laws were cultural, designed to prevent inbreeding and to maintain social strength through monoculture. Those rules are now connected with god. In some cultures Kylie could be stoned to death for parading about in her underwear. Can you believe that? Any god that wants to hide Kylie's arse from view is a no fun god with no tastee. Other gods appear to be enamoured of images of bottoms, breasts and penises.
The spirit and sexual ecstacy are sonehow connected. Desire is life. Physical beauty is a great joy and of the divine. I don't think any god minds so much if I fancy Kylie and her fine butt. I know I wouldn't mind if she fancied mine.
Parkstreet.
Tuesday, 20 April 2010
Welfare For Politicians And Shareholders.
As I write this there are giant machines digging up large chunks of Australia and selling these chunks to other countries. Iron ore, uranium, coal, anything valuable is being sold faster than the bulk carrier ships can take it away.
Some royalties are charged to the companies who are thriving from this business, and they pay fairly large taxes, but it is our land they are digging up, every Australian should be receiving a cut. Shareholders are swimming in pools of cash. The country should have the best hospitals, schools, infrastructure in the world. Our politicians have mismanaged, at best, this mining boom. The good times will pass without the average Australian recieving the benefits.
Mining companies have to pay huge wages to lure workers out to the truly crap parts of the country where these minerals lie. They struggle to find people with the specialist skills they require. A silly right wing politician has recently suggested that welfare payments should be stopped for some young people in order to force them out to the mines. this from a politician, a man so securely attached to the taxpayers milky teat that he can't imagine what living on welfare is really like. People like this will never cease welfare payments because they are afraid that without it unemployed people will enter their homes and remove their unsecured valuables.
A politician costs the taxpayer $1,000,000 per year, before we take into account their staff and infrastructure requirements. An unemployed welfare recipient costs the taxpayer around $15,000 per year. The olives and wine in the politician's office bar fridge would cost more than $15,000 per year. How dare these politicians judge who is bludging and who isn't?
If they allow private companies to plunder the wealth that rightly belongs to all of us then they should expect those companies to educate a work force, pay them enougn to make living in the desert away from theirr families and friends worthwhile.
The Rich Boys Club makes decisions that affect all our lives. Most of us grudgingly accept this but we don't have to ignore their hypocrisy and condescension, their disregard for the people they claim to represent and serve.
Parkstreet.
Value Mags:Time Magazine 1 year/56 issues only $39.95
Some royalties are charged to the companies who are thriving from this business, and they pay fairly large taxes, but it is our land they are digging up, every Australian should be receiving a cut. Shareholders are swimming in pools of cash. The country should have the best hospitals, schools, infrastructure in the world. Our politicians have mismanaged, at best, this mining boom. The good times will pass without the average Australian recieving the benefits.
Mining companies have to pay huge wages to lure workers out to the truly crap parts of the country where these minerals lie. They struggle to find people with the specialist skills they require. A silly right wing politician has recently suggested that welfare payments should be stopped for some young people in order to force them out to the mines. this from a politician, a man so securely attached to the taxpayers milky teat that he can't imagine what living on welfare is really like. People like this will never cease welfare payments because they are afraid that without it unemployed people will enter their homes and remove their unsecured valuables.
A politician costs the taxpayer $1,000,000 per year, before we take into account their staff and infrastructure requirements. An unemployed welfare recipient costs the taxpayer around $15,000 per year. The olives and wine in the politician's office bar fridge would cost more than $15,000 per year. How dare these politicians judge who is bludging and who isn't?
If they allow private companies to plunder the wealth that rightly belongs to all of us then they should expect those companies to educate a work force, pay them enougn to make living in the desert away from theirr families and friends worthwhile.
The Rich Boys Club makes decisions that affect all our lives. Most of us grudgingly accept this but we don't have to ignore their hypocrisy and condescension, their disregard for the people they claim to represent and serve.
Parkstreet.
Value Mags:Time Magazine 1 year/56 issues only $39.95
Room 309.
The ghosts of rock stars past lurk behind me, follow me along the 1960's shag pile that's still inches deep along the walls, they look over my shoulder as I reach the door of room 309, look to see if Jacqueline is staying over, they have no interest in me these seedy old band dogs. The hum of bass lines from the stage downstairs will cease in an hour or so, the lullaby of this rock and roll hotel.
The ghosts will guard my door from drunken wanderers, send them shaky and freaked out back to their square friends in the bars below. The players, the real players, the believers, the lovers of the groove, the creators of the new, these men are a brotherhood. Those who continue the work in good faith have nothing to fear from those who have passed. Those who are all hat and no grunt aren't welcome here.
When daylight comes the ghosts will sleep, I will rise and hit the pavements seeking the gigs that pay the rent for this hotel room.
Parkstreet.
The ghosts will guard my door from drunken wanderers, send them shaky and freaked out back to their square friends in the bars below. The players, the real players, the believers, the lovers of the groove, the creators of the new, these men are a brotherhood. Those who continue the work in good faith have nothing to fear from those who have passed. Those who are all hat and no grunt aren't welcome here.
When daylight comes the ghosts will sleep, I will rise and hit the pavements seeking the gigs that pay the rent for this hotel room.
Parkstreet.
Monday, 19 April 2010
Glamour.
I just ran into the manager of a very dodgy hotel I used to live in. He was watching some repairs being done to a small key cutting and shoe repair shop that backs onto the hotel.
We shot the breeze, the days when I was the only sane occupant of a delerious hotel, what we were both up to personally. Ron is involved in an amateur opera company. We talked. He told me the little shop was originally squeezed into this gap at the back of the hotel to disguise a secret entrance to an illegal casino. Those were the days. Back when breaking the law was fun, ducking, diving, dodging, weaving, making a living despite the man.
Today we have a legal casino, just the one, the state runs the only game in town. Attempts to make this plastic gambling house glamorous and chic have repeatedly failed. The joint just doesn't have it. A pub with carpet and too many poker machines will never be as exciting as sneaking throughb a secret door at the back of a hotel.
Maybe it's just me. I like that I've lived in dodgy hotels, that I have a right to sing the blues. I'm attracted to the seedy, the earthy, the dark glamour of real life. I like knowing where the secret doors are.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
We shot the breeze, the days when I was the only sane occupant of a delerious hotel, what we were both up to personally. Ron is involved in an amateur opera company. We talked. He told me the little shop was originally squeezed into this gap at the back of the hotel to disguise a secret entrance to an illegal casino. Those were the days. Back when breaking the law was fun, ducking, diving, dodging, weaving, making a living despite the man.
Today we have a legal casino, just the one, the state runs the only game in town. Attempts to make this plastic gambling house glamorous and chic have repeatedly failed. The joint just doesn't have it. A pub with carpet and too many poker machines will never be as exciting as sneaking throughb a secret door at the back of a hotel.
Maybe it's just me. I like that I've lived in dodgy hotels, that I have a right to sing the blues. I'm attracted to the seedy, the earthy, the dark glamour of real life. I like knowing where the secret doors are.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
Ceasing The Flagellation Of The Deceased Equine.
I love the term "flogging a dead horse", I like the way it presents an unpleasant image to remind me how foolish it is to expect a dead animal to carry me anywhere. Liking the term, understanding it, doesn't mean I'm always aware that I have the whip in my hand.
Repeating an action, hoping for a different result, it is something all humans do sometimes. While there is life there is hope, which is why the concept of a dead horse works so well. Accepting that the dream, the love affair, the time and place are over, letting it die, grieving, moving on to the next, these things are the opposite of flogging a dead horse. If the horse was a champion bury it standing up, if the horse was a lying cheating bitch then send it to the dog food factory.
The right words can help me see the truth. Listening to the words, ceasing stupid actions, this is up to me.
Parkstreet.
Nashville
Repeating an action, hoping for a different result, it is something all humans do sometimes. While there is life there is hope, which is why the concept of a dead horse works so well. Accepting that the dream, the love affair, the time and place are over, letting it die, grieving, moving on to the next, these things are the opposite of flogging a dead horse. If the horse was a champion bury it standing up, if the horse was a lying cheating bitch then send it to the dog food factory.
The right words can help me see the truth. Listening to the words, ceasing stupid actions, this is up to me.
Parkstreet.
Nashville
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Doctor Who's Assistants.
I've been in love with every one of Doctor Who's assistants since I was seven years old. That is thirty five years of being smitten with fictional women. I just saw the new Doctor's assistant. The shape of those eyes, the shape of that face, the shape of those lips, the shape of that there body. Goddamn, goddamn, I'm in love again. Another fictional space and time traveller has freaked me out.
The one thing all these women have in common is a sense of adventure. Maybe there is one more thing, they can all put up with a man who appears scattered and a little ego maniac. It all makes sense now.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
The one thing all these women have in common is a sense of adventure. Maybe there is one more thing, they can all put up with a man who appears scattered and a little ego maniac. It all makes sense now.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
Never Mind The Pollocks.
In the early 1970's one million dollars was considered a large sum of money. It was certainly a large amount to spend on one painting. The corporate world hadn't distorted and inflated the value of famous works back then. For the federal government of Australia to spend more than one million dollars on an abstract expressionist piece that no one could understand was truly astonishing.
Blue Poles, by Jackson Pollock hangs in the National Gallery in Canberra and despite the fact that no one understands it still, it is now worth tens of millions of dollars. There has been a very popular exhibition of French masterpieces in the same gallery recently so Blue Poles has come to public attention again. It has been largely forgotten for forty years. Suddenly the chattering classes are discussing the energy of this painting.
Pollock painted Blue Poles on a vast canvas which lay on the floor. Fundamentally he dripped paint in a style that has been described as like a mad woman's shit. He even left a foot print on it, in the top right corner. sloppy work or the pure energy and honesty of the artist? Pollock was pre punk, post jazz, he was everything I hold dear. he wound it up and let it go. He threw himself head first into the work, I love him and everything he stood for like a brother but I still don't have any feeling about Blue Poles. I've never seen it in real life. I'm ashamed of myself.
I believe a trip to Canberra is in order. Blue Poles is a part of my Australian heritage, the history of my country in my lifetime. It is also part of the tradition of art that informs the work I hope to achieve in the next few years.
Before I leap off the deep end, leave my foot print on street corners around the world, before I take a saxophone and blow it long and hard wherever I go, before all that I must take a four hour train trip and see Blue Poles.
Parkstreet.
Travel Books
Blue Poles, by Jackson Pollock hangs in the National Gallery in Canberra and despite the fact that no one understands it still, it is now worth tens of millions of dollars. There has been a very popular exhibition of French masterpieces in the same gallery recently so Blue Poles has come to public attention again. It has been largely forgotten for forty years. Suddenly the chattering classes are discussing the energy of this painting.
Pollock painted Blue Poles on a vast canvas which lay on the floor. Fundamentally he dripped paint in a style that has been described as like a mad woman's shit. He even left a foot print on it, in the top right corner. sloppy work or the pure energy and honesty of the artist? Pollock was pre punk, post jazz, he was everything I hold dear. he wound it up and let it go. He threw himself head first into the work, I love him and everything he stood for like a brother but I still don't have any feeling about Blue Poles. I've never seen it in real life. I'm ashamed of myself.
I believe a trip to Canberra is in order. Blue Poles is a part of my Australian heritage, the history of my country in my lifetime. It is also part of the tradition of art that informs the work I hope to achieve in the next few years.
Before I leap off the deep end, leave my foot print on street corners around the world, before I take a saxophone and blow it long and hard wherever I go, before all that I must take a four hour train trip and see Blue Poles.
Parkstreet.
Travel Books
Saturday, 17 April 2010
Me As God.
In the past canny despots would claim a descendance from a god to support their claim to rule over others. The man who calls himself emperor in Japan still spins this crud, and still gets away with it. In this modern world we know it isn't true. Don't we?
In this post modern world we know that how we perceive ourselves affects how the world perceives us. We write our own myth, we teach the world how to treat us. thinking of ourselves as directly related to the god of our choice isn't so foolish if it fills us with a feeling of divinity if it lifts our eyes, lifts our desires, lifts our expectations of ourselves. Pick a god, any god, make one up, call yourself the son or daughter of that god.
Take a moment to remember that if you can be the offspring of a deity then so can everybody else. Even if you are atheist the idea that we are all the children of the gods and all worthy of the lives due to those with high ancestry can only be a good idea. If nobody claims it for themselves alone I can't see any reason we can't all live with a feeling of importance, and respect for the importance of all others.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
In this post modern world we know that how we perceive ourselves affects how the world perceives us. We write our own myth, we teach the world how to treat us. thinking of ourselves as directly related to the god of our choice isn't so foolish if it fills us with a feeling of divinity if it lifts our eyes, lifts our desires, lifts our expectations of ourselves. Pick a god, any god, make one up, call yourself the son or daughter of that god.
Take a moment to remember that if you can be the offspring of a deity then so can everybody else. Even if you are atheist the idea that we are all the children of the gods and all worthy of the lives due to those with high ancestry can only be a good idea. If nobody claims it for themselves alone I can't see any reason we can't all live with a feeling of importance, and respect for the importance of all others.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
Monks Are Excellent.
After the recent earthquake in China monks from monasteries in surrounding areas came to feed people and dig for survivors. What extraordinarily useful humans monks are. Living seperate but in close communication with communities they are available for the spiritual and physical needs of the common man any time.
Had I been born in a different culture I believe I may have been a monk. Had I entered a monastery as a teenager I may have spared myself nearly two decades of heavy drinking. I believe that would have been a good thing. I may have come into contact with mature, sensitive, practical men who may have set me on a productive path, if I remained in the monastery or not.
I can't see anything wrong with a life of hard, productive toil. Repetition combined with deep thought can lead to peace. Peace can be difficult to find in the modern world. I'd like to find a way to be all the things a monk is, productive, useful, peaceful, powerful, smart, yet still enjoy the freedoms of the modern world, have my rice cake and eat it too. I'm not certain it is possible. Is being seperate from the community an essential element in finding peace?
In some ways the current technology helps. Maybe I can live a life of quiet observation, take my earthly sustenace via Paypal, only communicate with the hurried nonsense when I have to? I can take my flute to the stage on occasion, play my spiritual heart out, retreat to the motel room of solitude?
I can hear the question you are asking. "What about sex?" You are shouting this question at me, and I don't have a good answer. Right now I feel like I may as well be a monk for all the action I'm getting, but what of sex, what of romantic love? Is serenity more important than getting it on? Can a man do both, be involved with a woman as well as being calm and pure in thought and deed? If such a thing as a pure, honest love exists, if there is a love of pure devotion and deep care without the petty, small emotions of jealousy and possession, then maybe the man can be lover and monk.
Parkstreet.
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Had I been born in a different culture I believe I may have been a monk. Had I entered a monastery as a teenager I may have spared myself nearly two decades of heavy drinking. I believe that would have been a good thing. I may have come into contact with mature, sensitive, practical men who may have set me on a productive path, if I remained in the monastery or not.
I can't see anything wrong with a life of hard, productive toil. Repetition combined with deep thought can lead to peace. Peace can be difficult to find in the modern world. I'd like to find a way to be all the things a monk is, productive, useful, peaceful, powerful, smart, yet still enjoy the freedoms of the modern world, have my rice cake and eat it too. I'm not certain it is possible. Is being seperate from the community an essential element in finding peace?
In some ways the current technology helps. Maybe I can live a life of quiet observation, take my earthly sustenace via Paypal, only communicate with the hurried nonsense when I have to? I can take my flute to the stage on occasion, play my spiritual heart out, retreat to the motel room of solitude?
I can hear the question you are asking. "What about sex?" You are shouting this question at me, and I don't have a good answer. Right now I feel like I may as well be a monk for all the action I'm getting, but what of sex, what of romantic love? Is serenity more important than getting it on? Can a man do both, be involved with a woman as well as being calm and pure in thought and deed? If such a thing as a pure, honest love exists, if there is a love of pure devotion and deep care without the petty, small emotions of jealousy and possession, then maybe the man can be lover and monk.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
Friday, 16 April 2010
Help?
From July this year I'll be in the U.S.A. I'm looking for a writing job in San Francisco or Portland Oregon, on the road, anywhere really. I'm up for blogging and copywriting but ideally I'd like to write a regular column, a view of American life from the outside, written by someone from a similar but different culture.
If anyone has any brilliant ideas about where to go, who to talk to, I'd appreciate the advice.
Here's a sample of a longer piece.
Portland Oregon, as published in Reviewer Magazine.
Not An Englishman In New York, An Australian In Portland.
By Kent Parkstreet.
About seventeen years ago I was at a soundcheck at The Punter's Club, a groovy inner city music pub in Melbourne Australia. To get away from the noise I slipped next door to the public bar. It was unusually quiet. I looked up to see The Simpsons was on the television. The cult was just taking on, but the debate as to which U.S. state Springfield is in had started. Someone suggested that the show's creator, Matt someoneorother, was from Portland Oregon, so it must be there.
Portland Oregon. Something in my imagination told me I'd go there some day. It took sixteen years, but last Spring I made it, and returned this summer. I figure that if Matt Groening spent an entire episode taking the piss out of my country I have the right to jot down a few of my impressions of his hometown.
I'm in a seedy late night bar, the kind where dreams go to die. On one side is a young, pale skinny celery stalk of a guy, on the other a truly vast bearded fellow. One has hitchhiked from his priviliged east coast home to live an alternative lifestyle, the other has taken a few days off from cutting down trees for a living to go on a bender. I feel like the filling in a collateral damage sandwich. They are drinking in rounds, the greeny manfully matching the logger beer for beer, chaser for chaser. Their differences are ignored as they share their love of drinking heavily and singing along with Springsteen.
I'm at Tiny's Coffeehouse. Twenty people inside, a dozen bicycles parked outside. It's April but there is late snow. The discussion is of how snow makes it difficult to see when riding, the physics of prisms and how they distort light. No one mentions that snow is cold and wet and a fine reason to take the car. Pushbikes are a cult. I see a cyclist moving a small wardrobe on a front end trailer. Old enough to walk is old enough to ride on the road. I hear a band made up of upturned bikes fitted with contact microphones, the wheels are spun and the spokes feathered with found objects, creating dinosaur moans of music. Many things that are accepted as art in Portland may not be accepted as art in other towns.
The well oiled pushbike and the electric car are the enemy of the blind man who wants to cross the road.
There is a pair of dainty red pumps on the side walk, one in front of the other, as if the owner simply walked out of them. The next day the shoes are neatly paired together, a tiny silk dress folded perfectly beside them. The day after a vintage mirror and comb join the impromptu pretty girl installation. Then it is gone.
A dozen pairs of old sneakers suspended from a power line. I take eight attempts to add my walked out Converse to the collection. It's harder than it looks.
Crossing the road a car on a sidestreet pulls back a yard or so to give me room. I'm utterly freaked out and wave a thank you. Motorists in Sydney will run you down rather than give an inch. This yard of grace is offered every time I cross a road, every time. All day I'm blessed with thank you, you're welcome, wishes for a good day. A fellow down on his luck is unsure of the time, he lost track after what he describes as a black scorpion blackout due to whisky. his cigarettes disappeared in the overnight cell. For two cigarettes he wishes me a great day and night.
A local newspaper bemoans the lack of extravagant civic architecture. I walk through Ladd's Addition, possibly the posh part of town when it was built. The homes, the gardens are perfect. There are no driveways or garages to distract the eye. Take away the power lines, add a horse or two and it could be 1909. Who needs pointy needles or scarlett bridges, the definition of civic is "of the people", and the people live in timber castles with floral moats.
An elegant slender arm delivers my steelhead trout. A velvet bell of a voice announces it. The voice doesn't match the tattoo sleeves on the young waitress. When I was growing up criminals and bikers wore tattoos. Tattoos were to be feared because of the fearsome men they appeared on. My brain has trouble interpreting them as sexy, but the evidence is all around. Pretty young girls in sundresses and dragons. I show my age by worrying what monsters will be born when that svelte figured lass is the size of her mother. I'm the only person I know here without a tattoo. I hope it somehow makes me interesting.
The Lloyd Center Mall is a time machine. I'm returned to suburban Melbourne in the 1970's. I shudder at the thought. Two generous contributors to the obesity cause sneak out of Victoria's Secret. I shudder at the thought. Two ladieswholunch stand in front of the mall map. They've run out of ideas on where to spend their money and it will be hours before they can ask a television. Shudder like Sideshow Bob. The Church's "Under The Milky Way" comes on the Sear's sound system just as the clerk asks me about Australian music. He doesn't believe that song is from Australia because he has heard it before.
So I say tomarto instead of tomayto, is it that amusing? Just make the sandwich. No, I won't say "crikey", not even for money.
He's wearing jeans, braces and a checked shirt, the classic logger's outfit from the movies. I've never seen it in real life so I'm checking it out. Next thing I'm being hit on by a gay logger. I feel I have a certain Oregon cred now.
I've never seen snow falling before so I'm in the back yard trying to catch it on my tongue. The fellows fixing the roof across the road are cursing the sudden drop. One of them says,"it's like that dude has never seen snow before."
A park? This isn't a park it's a bloody forest. For sins in a past life I am the son of a property developer. All this land, so close to downtown, potential profit, potential profit, potential profit. Washington Park is just a beautiful, green, not for profit gem.
I'm crossing N.E. Flanders St. Simpsons reminders wherever I go, I'm taken back seventeen years. I'm taken back to the airport on the lightrail for two bucks, not the usual tourist fine for coming and going. The flight home is too damn long, I won't be back soon, but I'll be back.
Parkstreet.
If anyone has any brilliant ideas about where to go, who to talk to, I'd appreciate the advice.
Here's a sample of a longer piece.
Portland Oregon, as published in Reviewer Magazine.
Not An Englishman In New York, An Australian In Portland.
By Kent Parkstreet.
About seventeen years ago I was at a soundcheck at The Punter's Club, a groovy inner city music pub in Melbourne Australia. To get away from the noise I slipped next door to the public bar. It was unusually quiet. I looked up to see The Simpsons was on the television. The cult was just taking on, but the debate as to which U.S. state Springfield is in had started. Someone suggested that the show's creator, Matt someoneorother, was from Portland Oregon, so it must be there.
Portland Oregon. Something in my imagination told me I'd go there some day. It took sixteen years, but last Spring I made it, and returned this summer. I figure that if Matt Groening spent an entire episode taking the piss out of my country I have the right to jot down a few of my impressions of his hometown.
I'm in a seedy late night bar, the kind where dreams go to die. On one side is a young, pale skinny celery stalk of a guy, on the other a truly vast bearded fellow. One has hitchhiked from his priviliged east coast home to live an alternative lifestyle, the other has taken a few days off from cutting down trees for a living to go on a bender. I feel like the filling in a collateral damage sandwich. They are drinking in rounds, the greeny manfully matching the logger beer for beer, chaser for chaser. Their differences are ignored as they share their love of drinking heavily and singing along with Springsteen.
I'm at Tiny's Coffeehouse. Twenty people inside, a dozen bicycles parked outside. It's April but there is late snow. The discussion is of how snow makes it difficult to see when riding, the physics of prisms and how they distort light. No one mentions that snow is cold and wet and a fine reason to take the car. Pushbikes are a cult. I see a cyclist moving a small wardrobe on a front end trailer. Old enough to walk is old enough to ride on the road. I hear a band made up of upturned bikes fitted with contact microphones, the wheels are spun and the spokes feathered with found objects, creating dinosaur moans of music. Many things that are accepted as art in Portland may not be accepted as art in other towns.
The well oiled pushbike and the electric car are the enemy of the blind man who wants to cross the road.
There is a pair of dainty red pumps on the side walk, one in front of the other, as if the owner simply walked out of them. The next day the shoes are neatly paired together, a tiny silk dress folded perfectly beside them. The day after a vintage mirror and comb join the impromptu pretty girl installation. Then it is gone.
A dozen pairs of old sneakers suspended from a power line. I take eight attempts to add my walked out Converse to the collection. It's harder than it looks.
Crossing the road a car on a sidestreet pulls back a yard or so to give me room. I'm utterly freaked out and wave a thank you. Motorists in Sydney will run you down rather than give an inch. This yard of grace is offered every time I cross a road, every time. All day I'm blessed with thank you, you're welcome, wishes for a good day. A fellow down on his luck is unsure of the time, he lost track after what he describes as a black scorpion blackout due to whisky. his cigarettes disappeared in the overnight cell. For two cigarettes he wishes me a great day and night.
A local newspaper bemoans the lack of extravagant civic architecture. I walk through Ladd's Addition, possibly the posh part of town when it was built. The homes, the gardens are perfect. There are no driveways or garages to distract the eye. Take away the power lines, add a horse or two and it could be 1909. Who needs pointy needles or scarlett bridges, the definition of civic is "of the people", and the people live in timber castles with floral moats.
An elegant slender arm delivers my steelhead trout. A velvet bell of a voice announces it. The voice doesn't match the tattoo sleeves on the young waitress. When I was growing up criminals and bikers wore tattoos. Tattoos were to be feared because of the fearsome men they appeared on. My brain has trouble interpreting them as sexy, but the evidence is all around. Pretty young girls in sundresses and dragons. I show my age by worrying what monsters will be born when that svelte figured lass is the size of her mother. I'm the only person I know here without a tattoo. I hope it somehow makes me interesting.
The Lloyd Center Mall is a time machine. I'm returned to suburban Melbourne in the 1970's. I shudder at the thought. Two generous contributors to the obesity cause sneak out of Victoria's Secret. I shudder at the thought. Two ladieswholunch stand in front of the mall map. They've run out of ideas on where to spend their money and it will be hours before they can ask a television. Shudder like Sideshow Bob. The Church's "Under The Milky Way" comes on the Sear's sound system just as the clerk asks me about Australian music. He doesn't believe that song is from Australia because he has heard it before.
So I say tomarto instead of tomayto, is it that amusing? Just make the sandwich. No, I won't say "crikey", not even for money.
He's wearing jeans, braces and a checked shirt, the classic logger's outfit from the movies. I've never seen it in real life so I'm checking it out. Next thing I'm being hit on by a gay logger. I feel I have a certain Oregon cred now.
I've never seen snow falling before so I'm in the back yard trying to catch it on my tongue. The fellows fixing the roof across the road are cursing the sudden drop. One of them says,"it's like that dude has never seen snow before."
A park? This isn't a park it's a bloody forest. For sins in a past life I am the son of a property developer. All this land, so close to downtown, potential profit, potential profit, potential profit. Washington Park is just a beautiful, green, not for profit gem.
I'm crossing N.E. Flanders St. Simpsons reminders wherever I go, I'm taken back seventeen years. I'm taken back to the airport on the lightrail for two bucks, not the usual tourist fine for coming and going. The flight home is too damn long, I won't be back soon, but I'll be back.
Parkstreet.
Words.
I'm trying to understand why words affect me, the words I say to others, the words they say to me. Words seem to matter but I don't know why.
My rational mind tells me you can say anything, tell me your darkest secret, call me names, it shouldn't affect me. Logically I should be able to say anything to you, and if you judge me, dislike me, then I really haven't lost anything. Yet when someone trusted me with important words recently I was deeply affected. When she tells me I'm nice, she likes me, I'm good at something, it affects me. When I tell her something private I feel excited, like I've taken a chance and won.
I don't get why the words matter. They matter.
Parkstreet.
My rational mind tells me you can say anything, tell me your darkest secret, call me names, it shouldn't affect me. Logically I should be able to say anything to you, and if you judge me, dislike me, then I really haven't lost anything. Yet when someone trusted me with important words recently I was deeply affected. When she tells me I'm nice, she likes me, I'm good at something, it affects me. When I tell her something private I feel excited, like I've taken a chance and won.
I don't get why the words matter. They matter.
Parkstreet.
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Building Blocks.
Right now I feel like a small boy sitting on the floor surrounded by building blocks. I know I can build any sort of home I want, palace, fortress, temple, but I can't get started, can't decide what I want.
I believe the child wants to build something simple and elegant but he knows that when a parent sees it they will think it childish, artless. They won't recognize the beauty in naivety. They will judge the edifice on their own terms, and judge their child accordingly.
The child shouldn't have to explain to the parent. He shouldn't be embarrassed for them and their lack of understanding.
I want to whisper into the ear of that boy, tell him to build what is in his heart, tell him there will be a better day in the future.
Build what is in your heart, young me.
Parkstreet.
I believe the child wants to build something simple and elegant but he knows that when a parent sees it they will think it childish, artless. They won't recognize the beauty in naivety. They will judge the edifice on their own terms, and judge their child accordingly.
The child shouldn't have to explain to the parent. He shouldn't be embarrassed for them and their lack of understanding.
I want to whisper into the ear of that boy, tell him to build what is in his heart, tell him there will be a better day in the future.
Build what is in your heart, young me.
Parkstreet.
Art And Fried Chicken.
The D'Orsay Museum in Paris is currently being renovated so an exhibition of famous paintings has been lent to the major Australian gallery in Canberra. Statistically about one in forty Australians will go to view this exhibition in the four months it is here, although some sway the figures by attending more than once. Some people will also be from other countries, Asia and New Zealand, so it may come down to one in sixty Australians, even one in eighty.
Every week one in eleven Australians consumes a famous brand of fried chicken. Again, some will eat the chicken more than once.
These two statistics have nothing to do with each other, I just heard them both within one hour of each other and felt they should be telling me something about the culture I live in but I don't think they do.
Parkstreet.
Every week one in eleven Australians consumes a famous brand of fried chicken. Again, some will eat the chicken more than once.
These two statistics have nothing to do with each other, I just heard them both within one hour of each other and felt they should be telling me something about the culture I live in but I don't think they do.
Parkstreet.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
Sleeping.
One of the people I love most in the world was once faced with one of those ridiculous job application forms, you know the ones that try to gain a psychological insight through a cunning array of questions? The form asked what her hobbies were. She knew full well that the correct answers were martial arts to display strength, flexibility and discipline, and amateur theatre to exhibit collaborative skills and vivacity. Instead this is how she filled out the question.
Hobbies - sleeping.
To see sleeping as a hobby, a passtime to be enjoyed, summed up her approach to life. I'd like to believe that her courage in filling out the form in this manner scored her the job, but I believe the fact that my sister was the employer helped a little.
We should take sleep more seriously. This time when our bodies and minds repair should be treated with the respect it is due. It has been shown that repeated shocks at night, when our physical cells are growing and dividing, can cause those cells to be distorted and even become cancerous. These shocks can be as simple as turning on lights to go to the bathroom. The damage done to soldiers during war is hard to estimate. I've always thought of myself as precious and self important when I've been overly sensitive about sleeping in peace, and now it turns out I was assuring myself a long and healthy life.
Dreaming is the time our minds repair, complete with in flight movies. Often the movies aren't very good. Once in a while it would be pleasant to sleep through a nice Jackie Chan flick, something the whole family could eenjoy, instead of the highlights reel of the European and Scandinavian Surrealist Film Convention I usually struggle through. One thing we can be certain of, someone is in our hearts when they are in our dreams.
There is something delicious about sharing a bed with the rightt person. Sleeping with a true lover is true sleep, wholesome and real. Waking up with someone is more intimate than having sex with them. The combination of the two is obviously ideal.
I love the siesta. Working nights I never quite get enough sleep, an hour in the middle of the day sets me up for the night superbly. Again, a siesta shared , afternoon delight, is one of the great joys of being alive.
Hobbies - sleeping. What a great answer. What a great girl.
Parkstreet.
http://www.kentparkstreetblog.com/
Hobbies - sleeping.
To see sleeping as a hobby, a passtime to be enjoyed, summed up her approach to life. I'd like to believe that her courage in filling out the form in this manner scored her the job, but I believe the fact that my sister was the employer helped a little.
We should take sleep more seriously. This time when our bodies and minds repair should be treated with the respect it is due. It has been shown that repeated shocks at night, when our physical cells are growing and dividing, can cause those cells to be distorted and even become cancerous. These shocks can be as simple as turning on lights to go to the bathroom. The damage done to soldiers during war is hard to estimate. I've always thought of myself as precious and self important when I've been overly sensitive about sleeping in peace, and now it turns out I was assuring myself a long and healthy life.
Dreaming is the time our minds repair, complete with in flight movies. Often the movies aren't very good. Once in a while it would be pleasant to sleep through a nice Jackie Chan flick, something the whole family could eenjoy, instead of the highlights reel of the European and Scandinavian Surrealist Film Convention I usually struggle through. One thing we can be certain of, someone is in our hearts when they are in our dreams.
There is something delicious about sharing a bed with the rightt person. Sleeping with a true lover is true sleep, wholesome and real. Waking up with someone is more intimate than having sex with them. The combination of the two is obviously ideal.
I love the siesta. Working nights I never quite get enough sleep, an hour in the middle of the day sets me up for the night superbly. Again, a siesta shared , afternoon delight, is one of the great joys of being alive.
Hobbies - sleeping. What a great answer. What a great girl.
Parkstreet.
http://www.kentparkstreetblog.com/
The 1970's.
Today I was in a rehearsal studio, it wasn't soundproofed as well as it could have been, the sound from the 1970's vintage band next door seeped through. I wondered if they had seeped through a hole in the space/time continuum to appear thrity five years too late in 2010?
I was a kid in the 70's, I never wanted to play in a 1950's soundalike band. Why would I? Why would the kida of the 90's want to play music their parents listened to? Is it just me or is that kind of sad?
I have fond memories of the 1970's. I turned into a teenager in 1980 so I look back through the eyes of a child, I see a guilt free time. I don't see hand wringing and angst about every bloody thing we do. Pre A.I.D.S., pre climate change, it was a time people could over indulge in anything and only risk killing themselves. It seems a glorious age now. Today we have to assess and reassess every little action we take, how will it affect the planet, will a quicky kill me, what fucking message will it send to the kids?
Sure, it may have been blissful ignorance, but blissful. Coca Cole did taste better from a steel can. milk from a glass bottle, life tasted better through rose coloured taste buds. Maybe the kids are right to want to go back?
I've tried, it can't be done.
Parkstreet.
I was a kid in the 70's, I never wanted to play in a 1950's soundalike band. Why would I? Why would the kida of the 90's want to play music their parents listened to? Is it just me or is that kind of sad?
I have fond memories of the 1970's. I turned into a teenager in 1980 so I look back through the eyes of a child, I see a guilt free time. I don't see hand wringing and angst about every bloody thing we do. Pre A.I.D.S., pre climate change, it was a time people could over indulge in anything and only risk killing themselves. It seems a glorious age now. Today we have to assess and reassess every little action we take, how will it affect the planet, will a quicky kill me, what fucking message will it send to the kids?
Sure, it may have been blissful ignorance, but blissful. Coca Cole did taste better from a steel can. milk from a glass bottle, life tasted better through rose coloured taste buds. Maybe the kids are right to want to go back?
I've tried, it can't be done.
Parkstreet.
What Have The Little People Ever Done For Me?
People often joke that when I'm rich and famous I shouldn't forget the little people. Why not? What have the little people ever done for me?
Arbitrary definitions of success, of who is big and who is small, are patently stupid. Let's say I write one truly beautiful song, I play it for thirty people in a coffeehouse, I'm one of the little people. Now let us imagine someone truly horrible, perhaps Celine Dion, records my song, sells ten million copies and makes me superbly rich. Suddenly I'm big. Same song, same man, different size.
The really little people are the ones who go around assessing others relative size. Those people I will forget, no matter how big I am judged to be.
Parkstreet.
Le Crueset
Arbitrary definitions of success, of who is big and who is small, are patently stupid. Let's say I write one truly beautiful song, I play it for thirty people in a coffeehouse, I'm one of the little people. Now let us imagine someone truly horrible, perhaps Celine Dion, records my song, sells ten million copies and makes me superbly rich. Suddenly I'm big. Same song, same man, different size.
The really little people are the ones who go around assessing others relative size. Those people I will forget, no matter how big I am judged to be.
Parkstreet.
Le Crueset
Tuesday, 13 April 2010
The Susan Song.
I'm always a little embarrassed by the lyrics to this song, they make me sound like a bitter, jilted ex boyfriend. Songwriting is about honesty, I was bitter, I was jilted, and the lyric is true too. If it ain't she can sue me.
I hope it's a little funny too.
The Susan Song.
If you think it will make you happy,
I'll buy you brightly coloured and shiny things.
If you think it will make you happy,
I could hock this guitar, buy you a diamond ring.
I can wear all your rules, your timetables,
I can calm you down when you're unstable,
If you think that will make me happy,
You had better think again.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can hang out with your coven of ghastly friends.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can listen to your tales of past boyfriends.
Let you squeeze until you break my balls,
Spend my weekends in shopping malls.
If you think that will make me happy,
You'd better think again.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can listen to you whine, I can take the blame.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can let you slander my good name.
Listen to all your tales of woe,
If it's all the same to you, I'll just go,
'Cos if you think that will make me happy,
If you reckon you can make me happy,
If you think that will make me happy, well,
You'd better think again.
Parkstreet.
I hope it's a little funny too.
The Susan Song.
If you think it will make you happy,
I'll buy you brightly coloured and shiny things.
If you think it will make you happy,
I could hock this guitar, buy you a diamond ring.
I can wear all your rules, your timetables,
I can calm you down when you're unstable,
If you think that will make me happy,
You had better think again.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can hang out with your coven of ghastly friends.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can listen to your tales of past boyfriends.
Let you squeeze until you break my balls,
Spend my weekends in shopping malls.
If you think that will make me happy,
You'd better think again.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can listen to you whine, I can take the blame.
If you think it will make you happy,
I can let you slander my good name.
Listen to all your tales of woe,
If it's all the same to you, I'll just go,
'Cos if you think that will make me happy,
If you reckon you can make me happy,
If you think that will make me happy, well,
You'd better think again.
Parkstreet.
Monday, 12 April 2010
Bad Boys.
If I were a therapist helping women with their attraction to bad boys I believe the conversation would go a little like this.
"So, you like the way bad boys make you feel, the hint that they've been bad before excites you. This makes you feel like you are good, that anything bad you do is down to his influence, that you can help him change but not so much that he doesn't feel dangerous any more. But then he behaves badly, as one might imagine a bad boy would, with your money, your friends, your life. You act surprised that this bad boy could act badly around you, because you were supposed to be special, different to all the other people he has been bad to, better than them."
"Maybe if you accept your own badness, enjoy your dark side, stop expecting the world to see you as the victim princess, then you'd start seeing bad boys as boys and bad. Men don't need to misbehave to feel good about themselves."
It might go something like that. I'm pretty tired of female friends complaining about idiot men, men they knew were idiots before they gave them the house keys, men who have always behaved badly and like boys.
Parkstreet.
"So, you like the way bad boys make you feel, the hint that they've been bad before excites you. This makes you feel like you are good, that anything bad you do is down to his influence, that you can help him change but not so much that he doesn't feel dangerous any more. But then he behaves badly, as one might imagine a bad boy would, with your money, your friends, your life. You act surprised that this bad boy could act badly around you, because you were supposed to be special, different to all the other people he has been bad to, better than them."
"Maybe if you accept your own badness, enjoy your dark side, stop expecting the world to see you as the victim princess, then you'd start seeing bad boys as boys and bad. Men don't need to misbehave to feel good about themselves."
It might go something like that. I'm pretty tired of female friends complaining about idiot men, men they knew were idiots before they gave them the house keys, men who have always behaved badly and like boys.
Parkstreet.
Body Schmody.
Each evening when I take my evening coffee at a local cafe I'm treated to an extraordinary display of human idiocy. A muscle bound fool jogs along, warms down as he orders a coffee to go, skim milk. He has been told that caffeine burns fat. He is wearing some sort of device on his upper arm, it probably gauges just how much excellence he has achieved recently.
He tries to be a normal human for a minute or two, sip on his coffee and have a chat. His arms are so overdeveloped that the only way he can bring the coffee to his mouth is to cock his wrist in a strange way and lean his neck forward. In his effort to create the perfect body he has successfully made himself look ridiculous, no one can look him in the eye as he performs his drinking contortion.
I'm sure there is a moment each night when he is oiled up in front of his mirror, steroid shrivelled cock in hand, when his muscles make him feel important, attractive, powerful, whatever it is he wants to feel.
Women tell me that during a sexual encounter they like to feel like the most attractive person in the room, or at least that their male partner thinks so. I wonder if any woman could ever feel comfortable sharing a bed with this charicature of male beauty and the small, sad ego that built it?
Parkstreet.
He tries to be a normal human for a minute or two, sip on his coffee and have a chat. His arms are so overdeveloped that the only way he can bring the coffee to his mouth is to cock his wrist in a strange way and lean his neck forward. In his effort to create the perfect body he has successfully made himself look ridiculous, no one can look him in the eye as he performs his drinking contortion.
I'm sure there is a moment each night when he is oiled up in front of his mirror, steroid shrivelled cock in hand, when his muscles make him feel important, attractive, powerful, whatever it is he wants to feel.
Women tell me that during a sexual encounter they like to feel like the most attractive person in the room, or at least that their male partner thinks so. I wonder if any woman could ever feel comfortable sharing a bed with this charicature of male beauty and the small, sad ego that built it?
Parkstreet.
Sunday, 11 April 2010
Sweet Dusty Love.
Every now and then in Sydney we get assailed by clouds of Bogong moths. I don't know where they come from or where they go, just that they love to pay my eleventh floor apartment a visit on their way.
Last night one was banging around my bedroom like a drunken sailor, head first into the lamp, the wall, the mirrored wardrobe doors. They are one of the few creatures dumber than humans. Inside the wardrobe is a plastic hanging device designed to deter the moths from my clothes. Last year they took away my favourite t shirt, tiny hole by tiny hole. Bastards. I can smell the chemical the device releases, it makes my nose bleed so I hope it sorts out the flying vermin.
Last year I checked my washing on the horse in the lounge room to find two Bogongs fornicating inside a pair of my underpants, making sweet dusty love. I was only upset because they were getting more action than the usual occupant of those briefs. It made me wonder how moths get together? I've squished a few moths in my time, they're all cartlidge and dust, a tiny brown squelch for a brain. I can't see any possibilty for mating rituals. let alone romance, with a brain small enough to allow crashing into the same bedside lamp twenty five times in a row. Maybe the moth that can take enough crunches in the head is tough enough to provide strong offspring?
Maybe they get together the same way humans do? Maybe the brain has nothing to do with it? Maybe it is just another creature of the same species, with the same coloured stripes, hanging around in the same pair of underpants?
Parkstreet.
Last night one was banging around my bedroom like a drunken sailor, head first into the lamp, the wall, the mirrored wardrobe doors. They are one of the few creatures dumber than humans. Inside the wardrobe is a plastic hanging device designed to deter the moths from my clothes. Last year they took away my favourite t shirt, tiny hole by tiny hole. Bastards. I can smell the chemical the device releases, it makes my nose bleed so I hope it sorts out the flying vermin.
Last year I checked my washing on the horse in the lounge room to find two Bogongs fornicating inside a pair of my underpants, making sweet dusty love. I was only upset because they were getting more action than the usual occupant of those briefs. It made me wonder how moths get together? I've squished a few moths in my time, they're all cartlidge and dust, a tiny brown squelch for a brain. I can't see any possibilty for mating rituals. let alone romance, with a brain small enough to allow crashing into the same bedside lamp twenty five times in a row. Maybe the moth that can take enough crunches in the head is tough enough to provide strong offspring?
Maybe they get together the same way humans do? Maybe the brain has nothing to do with it? Maybe it is just another creature of the same species, with the same coloured stripes, hanging around in the same pair of underpants?
Parkstreet.
Bureaucracy.
In Australia we have more public servants administering the pay and perks of politicians than we do politicians. How funny is that? Kafka couldn't write that shit.
We have so many people looking over the shoulders of our elected officials, checking their expenses claims, because we don't trust the people who are supposed to be serving us. We don't trust them because of their track record. Any chance they have to get their hands on the money of the taxpayer is taken, the longer they serve the more entitled to our money they feel.
More and more complex rules are put in place as more and more devious politicians are elected, so more and more bureaucrats are required to follow them around. The answer seems simple enough to me. Us, you and me, we the people, need to pay more attention to the people we vote for, get off our lazy arses and find out more about these pricks before we send them to the capital to serve our interests.
We have the politicians and the public service we deserve.
Parkstreet.
We have so many people looking over the shoulders of our elected officials, checking their expenses claims, because we don't trust the people who are supposed to be serving us. We don't trust them because of their track record. Any chance they have to get their hands on the money of the taxpayer is taken, the longer they serve the more entitled to our money they feel.
More and more complex rules are put in place as more and more devious politicians are elected, so more and more bureaucrats are required to follow them around. The answer seems simple enough to me. Us, you and me, we the people, need to pay more attention to the people we vote for, get off our lazy arses and find out more about these pricks before we send them to the capital to serve our interests.
We have the politicians and the public service we deserve.
Parkstreet.
Saturday, 10 April 2010
The Writing Musician.
The writing musician is an impossible and ludicrous creature. He is happiest when is unhappy and has something to write about, yet he is happy when he is happy and has something to write about. The middle ground has no attraction to him or his craft, there are no songs to be written in the middle ground.
He is always faced with the choice between serenity and writing. Serenity loses every time.
Parkstreet.
He is always faced with the choice between serenity and writing. Serenity loses every time.
Parkstreet.
O'Toole.
There is a lovely, and possibly true story about actor Peter O'Toole, that he was once wandering the streets of New York at three in the morning proclaiming, in his booming actor's voice,"while O'Toole is awake, none shall sleep."
We used to reserve the right to such extravagant selfishness for stars, the really big names. In this post Warhol world every unknown compulsive masturbator wants to be heard, demands to be heard. O'Toole was revelling in the joy of his magnificent voice, in the fact that he could use his talent to demand an audience anywhere, anytime, and he was probably drunk out of his mind. The talentless vermin who run around my suburb in the early hours are just starved of the attention their parents told them they deserve.
Until you can act and speak like Peter O'Toole, shut the fuck up.
Parkstreet.
![Audio Magazines]()
We used to reserve the right to such extravagant selfishness for stars, the really big names. In this post Warhol world every unknown compulsive masturbator wants to be heard, demands to be heard. O'Toole was revelling in the joy of his magnificent voice, in the fact that he could use his talent to demand an audience anywhere, anytime, and he was probably drunk out of his mind. The talentless vermin who run around my suburb in the early hours are just starved of the attention their parents told them they deserve.
Until you can act and speak like Peter O'Toole, shut the fuck up.
Parkstreet.
Friday, 9 April 2010
The Cosmic Tailor.
Photograph by Kris Reichl.
You hear of two people being cut from the same cloth, often this is applied to fathers and sons. I have a lovely image of a grey haired tailor, glasses on the end of his nose, tape measure around his neck, his work table so long you can't see the end of it, his impressively sharp scissors cutting out the shapes of generations. Sometimes the quality of the material demands time and care, as many patterns as possible, other times the best he can do is avoid the imperfections and take what he can.
A son may reject the overalls of the father, prefer a suit, or vice versa, but it doesn't affect the actual stuff they are made of. The exterior trappings may change their perceptions of each other, but only briefly. The son may even prefer to don a pink jump suit to appear as Penelope Pitstop on a Mardi Gras float, but it doesn't change the generational connection. I'm guessing this is the Cosmic Tailor's way of saying he has run out of genetic material.
You don't often hear father and son being described as of different cloth, but it happens. In my case I think at the last minute the tailor's apprentice spilled his milky tea all over the last of the conservative char grey fabric I was supposed to be cut from so emergency measures were put into place.
"Quickly lad, hand me some fabric, anything will do, grab it from that bin marked Another Time And Place, that will do."
"Ah yes, I remember this material, I've made some great stuff out of this, he will be of the same stuff as the Pied Piper of Hamlin, as the story telling harlequin from Conrad's Heart of Darkness, the same stuff as Willy Wonka, he'll be a maker of music, a dreamer of dreams."
"Yes, of course I know all those people are fictional, you think I don't make them too? You are a silent voiced, tea spilling idiot from a Kent Parkstreet story, I cut you didn't I?"
"Yes, of course he will suffer, won't know if he's coming or going for forty years, a long time to spend in an emotional desert, but he will make it. Because he is of the stuff of fantasy he will see reality clearly, be able to explain it to others. He will know that fantasy is bred in the heart and the head. Once he knows of what he is made he will find his promised land, there he will create beautiful fiction."
"Hmmm, yes, you are right, until then life will be a bitch, he will be confused by being cut from a different, multi coloured cloth."
Clothes don't make the man, they make him able to get what he wants on some occasions. The man makes the man.
Parkstreet.
www.kentparkstreetblog.com
A Positively Mental Attitude.
I'm not sure if it is a mentally positive attitude or a positively mental attitude, but either way some folks have it. It rubs off on the people around them and makes them feel good. It may be teaching a new way of thinking, it may be sharing a delusion. Who cares? It feels good.
Parkstreet.
Parkstreet.
Thursday, 8 April 2010
As Punk As My Mum.
If you were a teenager in the 1970's there is a fair chance you went through a Sex Pistols phase. If the experience didin't leave you feeling empty and idiotic you were probably an empty idiot beforehand anyway.
The Saints were an Australian band with a "we don't care who you are, we're gonna' fuck you anyway" attitude. Their recording Stranded is seen as the real start of punk. The Malcolm McLaren manufactured Sex Pistols weren't worth the steam off The Saints' piss. The Sex Pistols were as cool and edgy as The Monkees. The only reason Sex Pistols songs aren't being used in commercials for detergent and tourism right now is thaat theey never successfully wrote a melody.
The real punk scene came and went, probably the death throes of rock and roll, even though it's zombie is still shouting in my ear. Malcolm McLaren jumped off it like a stuntman, waited for the next fad to milk. He had his business, good on him, but it isn't anything to do with music or musicians. Any carnival act can muster shock value, any advertising bottom feeder can pick a trend and suck the semen from it.
Anyone who is telling me it is too soon to be slagging off McLaren didn't hear the real message of punk. The exterior bullshit means nothing, three chords, the truth and the guts to tell it are what matters. Technique, image, popularity, marketing, are all in the way of the essence we all crave. McLaren was as punk as my Mum.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
The Saints were an Australian band with a "we don't care who you are, we're gonna' fuck you anyway" attitude. Their recording Stranded is seen as the real start of punk. The Malcolm McLaren manufactured Sex Pistols weren't worth the steam off The Saints' piss. The Sex Pistols were as cool and edgy as The Monkees. The only reason Sex Pistols songs aren't being used in commercials for detergent and tourism right now is thaat theey never successfully wrote a melody.
The real punk scene came and went, probably the death throes of rock and roll, even though it's zombie is still shouting in my ear. Malcolm McLaren jumped off it like a stuntman, waited for the next fad to milk. He had his business, good on him, but it isn't anything to do with music or musicians. Any carnival act can muster shock value, any advertising bottom feeder can pick a trend and suck the semen from it.
Anyone who is telling me it is too soon to be slagging off McLaren didn't hear the real message of punk. The exterior bullshit means nothing, three chords, the truth and the guts to tell it are what matters. Technique, image, popularity, marketing, are all in the way of the essence we all crave. McLaren was as punk as my Mum.
Parkstreet.
Shop our Bargain Fiction Collection. Titles under $5
Indian Summer In Sydney Australia, from www.parkstreetcafeblog.blogspot.com
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Indian Summer In Sydney Australia.
The last of the warm summer breezes is blowing through Sydney this week. There will be squalls of rain, small storms, a city with only two real seasons doesn't give up the glory days easily.
To spemd these afternoons drinking coffee outdoors, watching the pretty girls go by, well, it ain't the latest thing, but you'd be mad to do anything else. When I'm old and tired I'm not going to look back and smile fondly on the gorgeous Sydney Autumn and be pleased that I worked through it.
These are the days that city cafe were made for. In Paris apartment dwellers would be soaking up the sun on one side of the street in the morning, on the other side in the afternoon. The same in Rome. Why not here in Sydney?
Really, what else would you do?
Parkstreet.
Indian Summer In Sydney Australia.
The last of the warm summer breezes is blowing through Sydney this week. There will be squalls of rain, small storms, a city with only two real seasons doesn't give up the glory days easily.
To spemd these afternoons drinking coffee outdoors, watching the pretty girls go by, well, it ain't the latest thing, but you'd be mad to do anything else. When I'm old and tired I'm not going to look back and smile fondly on the gorgeous Sydney Autumn and be pleased that I worked through it.
These are the days that city cafe were made for. In Paris apartment dwellers would be soaking up the sun on one side of the street in the morning, on the other side in the afternoon. The same in Rome. Why not here in Sydney?
Really, what else would you do?
Parkstreet.
Does My Art Look Big In This?
Stop Mural Experiments!
These three words are probably my favourite graffiti ever. In the 1970's and 80's in inner city Sydney and Melbourne, university educated champagne socialists were moving in and electing councils of their peers who naturally felt compelled to bemoan the plight of the working class via the medium of the giant public mural. Crap murals were painted on any large surface in public space as those without a life imitated the art of Eastern European socialist democratic republics.
Derivitive, unspirited nonsense filled huge walls, the last remaining inner city working class people largely ignored them, most busy raising families and drinking at the last pub that made them welcome. The real plight of the working class was that upper middle class fucks were buying their rental houses out from under them, along with a beautiful way of life. The pub counter meal became tapas, the punters moved on.
The art was big, possibly well intended, hugely hypocritical and ignorant. My favourite graffiti was scrawled over a mural on the wall of an electricity substation in a park in St. Kilda in Melbourne. It was panning the quality of the painting, but the intention behind it deserved the same critique.
Parkstreet.
These three words are probably my favourite graffiti ever. In the 1970's and 80's in inner city Sydney and Melbourne, university educated champagne socialists were moving in and electing councils of their peers who naturally felt compelled to bemoan the plight of the working class via the medium of the giant public mural. Crap murals were painted on any large surface in public space as those without a life imitated the art of Eastern European socialist democratic republics.
Derivitive, unspirited nonsense filled huge walls, the last remaining inner city working class people largely ignored them, most busy raising families and drinking at the last pub that made them welcome. The real plight of the working class was that upper middle class fucks were buying their rental houses out from under them, along with a beautiful way of life. The pub counter meal became tapas, the punters moved on.
The art was big, possibly well intended, hugely hypocritical and ignorant. My favourite graffiti was scrawled over a mural on the wall of an electricity substation in a park in St. Kilda in Melbourne. It was panning the quality of the painting, but the intention behind it deserved the same critique.
Parkstreet.
Wednesday, 7 April 2010
Lady Gaga In My 'hood.
The club on the corner near my local cafe was hosting Lady Gaga after her gig tonight. The crowd that follows pop stars around is physically attractive, very physically attractive. For a three buck coffee I sat back and watched the teenage A list parading about in front of me. I was a tightarse Hugh Heffner.
I remember being at a club in Melbourne twenty years ago, suddenly everyone was being roped off, David Boawie was being ushered through the crowd and into the V.I.P. area. David Bowie stopped rright in front of me. Directly in front of me. Actually directly in front of Graeme, the bloke right next to me, my mate from work who had talked me into attending this nightmare nightclub. David Bowie pulled Graeme out of the crowd, over the rope and off into the Valhalla of the exclusive bar upstairs.
The next day at work Graeme couldn't stop apologising, he was so surprised that David Bowie recognized and remembered him from a party in Berlin two years earlier that he didn't have time to think about dragging me along with him. I really didn't mind. I was happy to know and work with someone so cool that he not only met David Bowie, but David Bowie remembered him two years later. That was enough for me.
I'm pretty certain that if someone I know now is on first name terms with Lady Gaga I couldn't find a way to care.
Parkstreet.
Value Mags - Free shpping, no tax, and best price guarantee
I remember being at a club in Melbourne twenty years ago, suddenly everyone was being roped off, David Boawie was being ushered through the crowd and into the V.I.P. area. David Bowie stopped rright in front of me. Directly in front of me. Actually directly in front of Graeme, the bloke right next to me, my mate from work who had talked me into attending this nightmare nightclub. David Bowie pulled Graeme out of the crowd, over the rope and off into the Valhalla of the exclusive bar upstairs.
The next day at work Graeme couldn't stop apologising, he was so surprised that David Bowie recognized and remembered him from a party in Berlin two years earlier that he didn't have time to think about dragging me along with him. I really didn't mind. I was happy to know and work with someone so cool that he not only met David Bowie, but David Bowie remembered him two years later. That was enough for me.
I'm pretty certain that if someone I know now is on first name terms with Lady Gaga I couldn't find a way to care.
Parkstreet.
Value Mags - Free shpping, no tax, and best price guarantee
Bono, The Edge, Spiderman, Musicals, Lameness.
Spiderman is a super hero tale for kiddies. Musicals are the ultimate naff middle class form of entertainment. When someone decided to make Spiderman into a musical the obvious choice of songwriters were Bono and The Edge from U2. The man calls himself The Edge. He hasn't even reached the sticky bits of the envelope let alone pushing the edges. Bono will find a way to sound self important in this fantasy genre.
Is there any point raging against lameness, the inane? The war has been won and lost.
Parkstreet.
Is there any point raging against lameness, the inane? The war has been won and lost.
Parkstreet.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
The New Revised List Of The Five Men I'd Go Gay For.
Five men I'd go gay for, the new revised edition.
1. David Bowie.
2. Chet Baker.
3. Colbert. Any right thinking man would do anything Colbert told him to do in the name of freedom.
4.
5.
Parkstreet.
1. David Bowie.
2. Chet Baker.
3. Colbert. Any right thinking man would do anything Colbert told him to do in the name of freedom.
4.
5.
Parkstreet.
The Malcolm Frasers On Easter Island.
Between 1975 and 1983 Australia had a Prime Minister named Malcolm Fraser. His head looked like the giant busts on Easter Island. It really did, all chin and brow.
Malcolm Fraser is a member of a long established pastoralist family, gentry, trust funded lives forever more. The Easter Island statues make me wonder if his family held the same status there, if the Fraser clan has moved through history in a position of quiet wealth and power, getting up and moving on when there is new territory to conquer or when the old one is used up?
I love the fact that the island is named after the date the Europeans arrived, after the auspicious date on their calendar and not after the bloody awesome giant heads that are the most obvious feature of the place. Fantastic cultural blindness, like calling a place Wednesday Island, as if it had nothing else to recommend it.
One day I'll make the pilgrimage to pay homage to the Malcolm Frasers. I once knew a heroin addicted middle aged musician who survived on the Fraser trust fund, I'll go and put in a word for him with his priviliged ancestors.
Parkstreet.
Malcolm Fraser is a member of a long established pastoralist family, gentry, trust funded lives forever more. The Easter Island statues make me wonder if his family held the same status there, if the Fraser clan has moved through history in a position of quiet wealth and power, getting up and moving on when there is new territory to conquer or when the old one is used up?
I love the fact that the island is named after the date the Europeans arrived, after the auspicious date on their calendar and not after the bloody awesome giant heads that are the most obvious feature of the place. Fantastic cultural blindness, like calling a place Wednesday Island, as if it had nothing else to recommend it.
One day I'll make the pilgrimage to pay homage to the Malcolm Frasers. I once knew a heroin addicted middle aged musician who survived on the Fraser trust fund, I'll go and put in a word for him with his priviliged ancestors.
Parkstreet.
Poor Defenceless Pope.
The Pope and his church have sent out the spin on high rotation, claiming the media is attacking the pontiff unfairly. This guy has a media team bigger than God's, he is hardly defenceless.
I can't feel sorry for any man who holds the office of head of the Roman Catholic Church, an organization that has attacked just about everyone for the last millenia. Jews, homosexuals, moslems, indigenous people in foreign lands, communists, just about everyone except the N.A.Z.I. Party. If the current pope is being attacked for turning a blind eye while his henchmen aided and abetted paedophiles then tough titty.
I'm certain his faith, his lavish lifestyle, his ego, his confidence that the church can survive any shame will see him through.
Parkstreet.
I can't feel sorry for any man who holds the office of head of the Roman Catholic Church, an organization that has attacked just about everyone for the last millenia. Jews, homosexuals, moslems, indigenous people in foreign lands, communists, just about everyone except the N.A.Z.I. Party. If the current pope is being attacked for turning a blind eye while his henchmen aided and abetted paedophiles then tough titty.
I'm certain his faith, his lavish lifestyle, his ego, his confidence that the church can survive any shame will see him through.
Parkstreet.
More From Our Beloved Greens Party.
A Chinese coal tramsport ship has run aground on the coast of Queensland Australia. Icons, abound, coal ship, oil leak, Great Barrier Reef, the Greens Party of Australia have no choice but to stick their disaster loving noses into this one.
Sure enough, their intrepid leader hired a small plane and flew over the stricken ship. He burned enough fossil fuel to support a third world village for a year in the process, learned nothing, got his head on tele. Useless prick. Useless, fatuous, obvious prick.
Greens preference votes will decide the next government of Australia. In the meantime all the useless pricks do is self publicize and annoy.
Parkstreet.
Sure enough, their intrepid leader hired a small plane and flew over the stricken ship. He burned enough fossil fuel to support a third world village for a year in the process, learned nothing, got his head on tele. Useless prick. Useless, fatuous, obvious prick.
Greens preference votes will decide the next government of Australia. In the meantime all the useless pricks do is self publicize and annoy.
Parkstreet.
Monday, 5 April 2010
Canary In A Chinese Coal Mine.
It is a cruel irony, the way a canary is so well suited to assessing the air quality of a coal mine, so susceptible to the bad air a mine can create, yet the best equipped to simply fly out of harm's way if it weren't for the cage we put it in.
The most beautiful and sensitive humans are often in the same situation. We cage them with poverty, expectation, duty, hopelessness, so many ways. They can feel the bad air before any of us, have to sit and breathe it with the rest of the brutal schmucks, their deaths give those schnucks the warning they need, only then are the human canaries seen and heard.
Parkstreet.
Book Club Favorites
The most beautiful and sensitive humans are often in the same situation. We cage them with poverty, expectation, duty, hopelessness, so many ways. They can feel the bad air before any of us, have to sit and breathe it with the rest of the brutal schmucks, their deaths give those schnucks the warning they need, only then are the human canaries seen and heard.
Parkstreet.
Book Club Favorites
Television With The Sound Turned Down.
I've recently watched a few well known T.V. shows without sound. This is how they appear.
Sex And The City - Four not quite passable transvestites shag a large number of men in return for glamourous clothes.
Lost - Nothing happens, nothing happens, something awfully violent happens, nothing happens, something inexplicable happens, nothing happens.
C.S.I. Miami - The director of a sunglasses commercial loses his mind like Kurtz.
Dexter - Nothing happens, nothing happens, a creepy guy hangs around with some police officers, the police officers look the other way while the creepy guy kills someone, nothing happens.
Bones - A lesbian anthropologist and a gay detective solve crimes together, consider a marriage of convenience.
I Dream Of Jeannie - A gay astronaut cannot grasp the concept of magic.
The Sopranos - A deep psychological drama set in and around a crime family.
The Sopranos stands out like the balls of the proverbial dog, a show where excellent acting, writing and direction come together to make excellent television. It can be done, it makess money for the investors, is it too much to ask that it be done more often?
Parkstreet.
Sex And The City - Four not quite passable transvestites shag a large number of men in return for glamourous clothes.
Lost - Nothing happens, nothing happens, something awfully violent happens, nothing happens, something inexplicable happens, nothing happens.
C.S.I. Miami - The director of a sunglasses commercial loses his mind like Kurtz.
Dexter - Nothing happens, nothing happens, a creepy guy hangs around with some police officers, the police officers look the other way while the creepy guy kills someone, nothing happens.
Bones - A lesbian anthropologist and a gay detective solve crimes together, consider a marriage of convenience.
I Dream Of Jeannie - A gay astronaut cannot grasp the concept of magic.
The Sopranos - A deep psychological drama set in and around a crime family.
The Sopranos stands out like the balls of the proverbial dog, a show where excellent acting, writing and direction come together to make excellent television. It can be done, it makess money for the investors, is it too much to ask that it be done more often?
Parkstreet.
Relative Morality.
Some arctic ring cultures rely on whale and other blubber for vitamin C, without it they would die of scurvy. Is it o.k. for these people to hunt and kill whales? So it's o.k. to kill some whales, in some circumstances?
Modern politicians are afraid to speak their minds, bogged down in relative morality. Most people would agree that the Japanese killing of whales just to prove a point about their sovereignty is infantile and wrong, the Innuit hunting small numbers of whales to maintain healthy nutrition is fine. Why do our leaders lack the balls to tell the Japanese to behave in a civilized manner?
Playing with moral tricks is easier and less likely to offend anyone.
Parkstreet.
Modern politicians are afraid to speak their minds, bogged down in relative morality. Most people would agree that the Japanese killing of whales just to prove a point about their sovereignty is infantile and wrong, the Innuit hunting small numbers of whales to maintain healthy nutrition is fine. Why do our leaders lack the balls to tell the Japanese to behave in a civilized manner?
Playing with moral tricks is easier and less likely to offend anyone.
Parkstreet.
Sunday, 4 April 2010
Van Gogh's Pipe.
I'm in a cafe furnished with rustic old chairs and tables, my chair is rustic to the point I am dubious about it's safety. It creaks when I move forward and again when I move back, the legs shift in sympathy, the back reclines a couple of inches when I lean on it.
I can think of three responses to this chair. The first, and most natural to me, is to accept it as it comes. It has lasted this long, show some faith in the old dog, enjoy the conversation with it's quirks, think of it as interactive rather than broken. What's the worst thing that can happen? It might break eventually. I won't plummet to my death, just drop a foot and a half onto my arse and look a little foolish for a moment or two. I'm willing to wear this fate if it means sparing the feelings of an old servant.
The correct male response is to fix the chair. Bolts, glue, action, hand written sign saying not to use it for twenty four hours. Why not tweny five hours? What is so magical about one day exactly?
The modern response is to throw the chair out. Of course it is. Why not? The hour I spend fixing it I could spend working, make enough money to buy a new chair. I can't see what is wrong with this but I know it is wrong. I feel it is wrong. It is wrong.
In the last hour my arse and this old chair have become mates. This will be my table from now on. One day I'll come in, find the chair missing, find it back in twenty four hours, fixed, not quite the same. Until then I'll sit here feeling like Van Gogh's pipe.
Parkstreet.
I can think of three responses to this chair. The first, and most natural to me, is to accept it as it comes. It has lasted this long, show some faith in the old dog, enjoy the conversation with it's quirks, think of it as interactive rather than broken. What's the worst thing that can happen? It might break eventually. I won't plummet to my death, just drop a foot and a half onto my arse and look a little foolish for a moment or two. I'm willing to wear this fate if it means sparing the feelings of an old servant.
The correct male response is to fix the chair. Bolts, glue, action, hand written sign saying not to use it for twenty four hours. Why not tweny five hours? What is so magical about one day exactly?
The modern response is to throw the chair out. Of course it is. Why not? The hour I spend fixing it I could spend working, make enough money to buy a new chair. I can't see what is wrong with this but I know it is wrong. I feel it is wrong. It is wrong.
In the last hour my arse and this old chair have become mates. This will be my table from now on. One day I'll come in, find the chair missing, find it back in twenty four hours, fixed, not quite the same. Until then I'll sit here feeling like Van Gogh's pipe.
Parkstreet.
Tempo, Pace, Timing.
When I'm playing a set of music I try to have an idea of what songs I'll play, in what order. How the set actually goes depends on the night. What sort of song is more important then what actual song, what tempo, what pace to run into the next song, whether it's better to pull back with a little chat, the timing of the big songs, the ones that punctuate the set, give it context and style. It is an art of turning a list of songs into a composed set. The art is a collaboration between audience and performer, depends on both of them.
I find the same applies to a new relationship. Every man has his set plays, what he sees as his strengths, but the mood between two people is different every day, every night, every year. I guess a relationship isn't a performance, or maybe both parties are audience and artist?
For a man who studies tempo, pace and timing for a living it is pretty funny how often I get it wrong with women. I try to switch of the performer and just be normal. Maybe I should accept that a performer is what I am and try playing the set of a lifetime instead?
Parkstreet.
I find the same applies to a new relationship. Every man has his set plays, what he sees as his strengths, but the mood between two people is different every day, every night, every year. I guess a relationship isn't a performance, or maybe both parties are audience and artist?
For a man who studies tempo, pace and timing for a living it is pretty funny how often I get it wrong with women. I try to switch of the performer and just be normal. Maybe I should accept that a performer is what I am and try playing the set of a lifetime instead?
Parkstreet.
So This Is Easter.
Nearly two thousaand years since holy man, orator and cabaret artiste Jesus Christ died and people are still celebrating his resurrection trick. It was a good trick and beautifully media managed. His self titled faith has hardly looked back since, no matter how appallingly they behave.
This week one leader of a Christian sect spoke up on behalf of the victims of another sect's paedophile priests. As if his sect hasn't covered up for it's share of child molesters? I attended a school of this man's sect and it was happening there, one perpetrator was moved out of the school to be caretaker of a camp, a camp attended by the same aged boys he was guilty of attacking.
Then we had the spectacle of the leader of the other sect defending the indefensible, claiming that his only interest was the victims. These victims are a brand new interest for all these men, they didn't give a rats arse about them just one year ago. What changed? Maybe the collection plate is taking less each week, maybe parents are withdrawing their children from indoctrination classes?
Perhaps these men need to look back to the man they believe is their saviour, firstly to learn how he managed propaganda, and secondly how to behave in a manner that honours the faith he created.
Parkstreet.
This week one leader of a Christian sect spoke up on behalf of the victims of another sect's paedophile priests. As if his sect hasn't covered up for it's share of child molesters? I attended a school of this man's sect and it was happening there, one perpetrator was moved out of the school to be caretaker of a camp, a camp attended by the same aged boys he was guilty of attacking.
Then we had the spectacle of the leader of the other sect defending the indefensible, claiming that his only interest was the victims. These victims are a brand new interest for all these men, they didn't give a rats arse about them just one year ago. What changed? Maybe the collection plate is taking less each week, maybe parents are withdrawing their children from indoctrination classes?
Perhaps these men need to look back to the man they believe is their saviour, firstly to learn how he managed propaganda, and secondly how to behave in a manner that honours the faith he created.
Parkstreet.
Saturday, 3 April 2010
Token Straight Bloke.
So it is the mid 90's in Sydney, I'm living above a cabaret venue in Woolloomooloo. For those who haven't been to Sydney Woolloomooloo is a real place, an inner city working class suburb with a history of immigration and art.
The venue is called The Tilbury, so named for the port in England that many of the sailing ships departed only to end up at the long finger wharf at the end of my street. The wharf was derelict and fenced off back then. Over a century of exporting sheep's wool had left the timber floors so full of lanolin that one drunks cigarette could explode the entire edifice. It's now a complex of seafront restaurants, five star hotel and private apartments. Russell Crowe lives there, paid more for the end apartment hanging into Sydney harbour than the whole suburb was worth when I lived there.
I have no gigs so I'm running the sound and light for a show, some washed up soap opera star who can't sing or time a line but is a gay icon just the same. Full houses for the worst show of the year. Some bloke approaches me after the show, claims he knew me at high school. I got kicked out of some of the best schools in the country so I'm not sure but I think I remember him. He has just come out, is living with his first boyfriend, about to start six years of medical specialist studies. I'm impressed, but he seems more interested in the glamourous world of showbiz. He clearly wants me to be gay, hints at my creative urges. I explain that I'm the token straight bloke in the establishment, I'm kept around so bad behaviour and noisy farts can be blamed on someone. He is so disappointed. He has just discovered the joys of the threesome and the idea of bedding an old schoolmate has quite gripped his imagination. I feel I should go along with it, lube up and think of England just for his sake, but let's face it, he is a very unattractive man and as soon as he leaves I can go and score a large round of drinks for that there hen's night at table seven. His boyfriend gets cranky, the hen's leave at the same time, no one gets laid. So much for showbiz.
All the big names of Australian cabaret come through the place one by one. They are all lovely, some a little more nuts than others. It is one long workshop in stagecraft and being true to the essence of yourself even though you are acting. I wash dishes and cook when times are tough, eat under the grapevine in the courtyard when the gigs are coming in.
Everyone feels sorry for me, being straight and all. couple of the girls bed me to test their theory. I'm never sure what is and isn't proven. I don't care much. I'm the token straight guy and life is sweet in this gay high living enclave.
Parkstreet.
Le Crueset
The venue is called The Tilbury, so named for the port in England that many of the sailing ships departed only to end up at the long finger wharf at the end of my street. The wharf was derelict and fenced off back then. Over a century of exporting sheep's wool had left the timber floors so full of lanolin that one drunks cigarette could explode the entire edifice. It's now a complex of seafront restaurants, five star hotel and private apartments. Russell Crowe lives there, paid more for the end apartment hanging into Sydney harbour than the whole suburb was worth when I lived there.
I have no gigs so I'm running the sound and light for a show, some washed up soap opera star who can't sing or time a line but is a gay icon just the same. Full houses for the worst show of the year. Some bloke approaches me after the show, claims he knew me at high school. I got kicked out of some of the best schools in the country so I'm not sure but I think I remember him. He has just come out, is living with his first boyfriend, about to start six years of medical specialist studies. I'm impressed, but he seems more interested in the glamourous world of showbiz. He clearly wants me to be gay, hints at my creative urges. I explain that I'm the token straight bloke in the establishment, I'm kept around so bad behaviour and noisy farts can be blamed on someone. He is so disappointed. He has just discovered the joys of the threesome and the idea of bedding an old schoolmate has quite gripped his imagination. I feel I should go along with it, lube up and think of England just for his sake, but let's face it, he is a very unattractive man and as soon as he leaves I can go and score a large round of drinks for that there hen's night at table seven. His boyfriend gets cranky, the hen's leave at the same time, no one gets laid. So much for showbiz.
All the big names of Australian cabaret come through the place one by one. They are all lovely, some a little more nuts than others. It is one long workshop in stagecraft and being true to the essence of yourself even though you are acting. I wash dishes and cook when times are tough, eat under the grapevine in the courtyard when the gigs are coming in.
Everyone feels sorry for me, being straight and all. couple of the girls bed me to test their theory. I'm never sure what is and isn't proven. I don't care much. I'm the token straight guy and life is sweet in this gay high living enclave.
Parkstreet.
Le Crueset
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