Pitiful Discourse?

more to follow ...

Time to stop procrastinating?

Something I've been wanting to do for a while, is keep tabs on the various things I watch, read, see, listen, think etc. I started writing down all the shows & films I went to last year, in a gorgeous wee blue journal, but for some reason I stopped updating it and all the entries were filed around all sorts of other nonsense too. So perhaps it's time to utilise these pages to remember my cultural pursuits through, and by using appropriate tags, I can pretend that they are itemised and listed as I desire them to be.

But, I will start it tomorrow ...

another letter to a friend ...

I'm sure Sean won't mind me paraphrasing him here, as it was his message that prompted the tirade ...

As Blair says, sounds like you should just get the fuck out. Make the leap - you've lots of friends in London and Glasgow. You're totally employable but you have to be around to get offered the gigs. You can always say no until your cash starts to run out.
As they say, it's nae borra.
Take it very easy and don't be afraid of vaulting the (geographical) abyss. What's to lose?

OK, I was planning to make the move back to London in May 2011. That was to allow me a year or so to earn BIG DOLLAR as an executive assistant for some corporate gentleman in a lovely oil&gas firm here in this little town, so that when I got back, I'd have enough cash to find myself somewhere nice to live and get settled proper like. Then I'd work the summer and start some sort of study in September of art practices + curatorship, maybe getting a wee job in a gallery and ultimately one day ending up as some sort of curator of art vs music type happenings.

And I was rather happy with putting aside my morals in order to do so, as dollars and alleviating the planet of it's natural resources are not really the top on my priorities list, y'see.

But, my lack of current work experience, and lack of employment in Perth by companies that these corporate peoples recognise seems to be going against me, and I've spent the last six weeks applying for jobs that in an ideal world I wouldn't do, and then I get rejected from them all! Some 100 odd jobs!! What the dickens??

So, I've now started applying for temp admin work, and receptionist/secretary jobs, which I'm either over-qualified for or my word/typing skills aren't fast enough for. Unfortunately, I don't have a network of music biz people here in this town to call upon, as I know I'd get work in Glasgow/London/Melbourne easy enough.

The cash ran out while I was in London at Christmas, and I've been haemorrhaging even more since then. Avoiding credit card bills, as I'm unable to pay them, don't want to know what will happen there...

But then, I don't want to leave here just yet. I know I've said I always disliked this place, but I've kind of set myself up OK now that I've moved out of my folks, and I'd been looking forward to a year in Perth to follow through with my sensible, mentally healthy, financially secure plan. I have a fabulous house my with bestest, oldest friend and housemate, a gorgeously mental kittycat, some good friends that I can mostly call on, and my folks aren't that far away when I fancy popping in on them, like most normal people do - something I haven't had in fifteen years. However, the nightlife is mainly poor, the boys are non-existent, people CAN'T dance and there's only about four people who know of Northern Soul. And it's expensive. And hot. And the public transport system needs some investment. But my bike is fun ...

Calamitous?? I don't know where to turn, I've started even thinking of trying to get summer work on the road overseas, but like you said, kinda impossible if I'm not located that way.

Waiting for something to land in my lap isn't going to happen, but I'm so tired of constantly getting knocked back, that I don't have the wherewithal - or desire, even - to play the game that this stupid employment sector demands these days, namely, that you have to sell yourself like a corporate salesperson in order to succeed. For someone who isn't so confident at the best of times, this is rather problematic, and I know I'm missing out because of it, but I don't know how to be different.

Sorry, whinge over ... any tips gratefully appreciated?

*all italics courtesy of the Conservative Perth filter...

Back in the UK ...

I landed @ Heathrow last night, first time back in four years, and to reassure everyone back home I was safe and well, I managed to type some jetlagged nonsense into an email, which I thought I'd preserve for posterity here ...

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to send y'all my new UK number, it's gonna take me ages to remember it, but you can get me on either that or my normal Aussie number. Right, I dunno how many hours I've been up for, but I'm feeling delirious, so I think I need to go sleepies, despite the fact that Never Mind The Buzzcocks with Noel Fielding is on the telly and I can watch the latest Doctor Who on the internerd that was broadcast here last weekend and I have Time Out and a million StalkBook messages and a full day planned tomorrow ...

Flight into LHR and train journey from Heathrow was bizarrely normal and wrongly super-familiar at the same time. And then when I hopped off @ Paddington, the old Victorian station roof and blackness of the smokey air as if we were still in the coal ages blew me away. Jen, I NEARLY had dinner @ Yo Sushi! where I've texted you TWICE upon seeing Anthony Head or whatevs his name is there having lunch. But I was so excited about seeing M&S and Boots and Millie's Cookies that I decided to wait until I got to the hotel ... except, that the hotel is around the corner from Marble Arch and if you walk a couple of blocks, you find SELFRIDGES. And, as it's Christmas time, the shops on Oxford Street are all open past 9pm ... so I was shopping on Oxford St, recreating all the Doctor Who Christmas episodes that have taken place over the last couple of years in my head and grinning like a total maddie as I walked passed Next (Saralee, I didn't go in you'll be pleased to know!), H&M, Waterstones, Boots AND Superdrug and pretty much every other high street store you can name. But it was Selfridges that tempted me in, and then Pret a Manger for my dinner and some juice for breakfast tomorrow as I have no idea what state I'm going to be in after I try and get my head down in a wee bit ...

OK, speaking of, I should prob try and shut this computer and do that... Nighty night peeps, much love from this beautiful, cold, wonderfully inspiring city (gosh, i almost typed CV there!)

It's been a while ...

... so long in fact, that I thought the LJ blog was the current one? Oopsie.

Anyways, another thing written that I don't want to lose, so I have to post it here. I suppose after writing I now have a sense of what I wanted to say ... something mixed up between having wanted to be a music journalist, but now realising it's not as special, privileged or creative as actually being a musician, and the beauty and badness inherent in that statement. Especially seeing as I want to write about art now, but I'll be up against exactly the same argument. Perhaps being a curator is the ultimate step between the two? Who knows...

Brighton Concorde 2 review in The Independent

As much as I love Simon Price - he's never swayed from his constant desire to bring exciting new "pop" movements to the masses - I really do feel that he is the one missing out when reading his critique of The Horrors' Brighton show. More to say shortly, but here's the article ...

The Independent

OK, here goes ...

I too love a band that have a sense of style as well as musicality. Even more so, I love individuals that have an ethos or manifesto of types to sum up their passions and desires. But most of all, I love it when people evolve and transcend all these things to become something more organic and "real"; a truer depiction of a whole. Such things take time though, and when an artist adapts and incorporates their varied experiences and influences as collected over the course of touring, promotion or everyday life, their art will invariably change.

I think it's probably easier for a journalist, for Price, to assume that he is staying true to his manifesto and beliefs, yet all the while denying artists are staying true to theirs. After all, his "look" hasn't changed in all the years he's been writing, as far as I know? Price's work will always be the same though; his writing can be affecting, but it will never transcend being a bunch of words that serve perhaps only to inspire someone to pick up an old record, read a great novel or check out an incredible director. His words are important, don't get me wrong, they're just not as important as the art he is critiquing. His perceptions are incisive, but probably not life-changing. Not that Price has ever claimed they should be, just that in critiquing something that can change lives, by writing about art, his words assume a powerful position, which can sometimes be misconstrued as more-than-just opinion.

But then, I suppose all I'm saying is that I disagree with Price's opinion, really? I think the fact that The Horrors have evolved - and from what they've publicly said, it's been a very natural evolution for them - is a great thing for music and those who believe in the power of music to inspire and touch and affect people's lives. And that their visual transformation is a natural part of that progression, and not a loss at all. That their performance has changed, it apparently (for I haven't seen the band play live at any point of their career thus far) has no less impact upon the people witnessing the spectacle than before. Yes, it's different, and the affect may have moved more from the visual to the sonic, but isn't that the point of music, to inspire and affect more so aurally than visually?

Just my two bobs worth, however, and welcome all such comment ...

New year, new dramas, new me?

Aaahhh, could it be possible ...

So, it's been quite a while since I last wrote. The excitement of exams and finishing Uni, followed with the inevitable comedown. A trip East pretendingly based around work but actually unfolded as a sojourn of solitude and recovery. Yet a seductive prick at the tail end however, which, I discovered the following week upon my return home, turned into a bit of a throbbing pain and has now turned into a wound that I know not how to heal. And then Christmas followed by NYE all mixed in with more visitations from afar, and I ended up spent, broken and spat out by the holidays.

Such fun, I hear you ask? Well, naturlich (how the hell can I add an umlaut?), nein, but a lesson to be learned nonetheless.

I proclaimed that this 34th year of my life was to be the year of saying yes, yet I am still as cautious as ever. Obviously, this only ever really has anything to do with matters of the heart, and I let another possibility just s-l-i-p away on a plane into the skies once more.

I don't know how to figure out what is worth expending energy on, and what isn't anymore? I'm sure my Mother would encourage me to do one of her fabulous SWOT analyses, but I don't really think that's going to give an accurate reading of one's emotional tendencies in such situations. Maybe I'll try a brief a rundown here, and see if typing it out helps any?

Potential suitor numero uno: has the geographical benefit, as well as the fairly well-established friendship. Yet the potential of ruining said lovely (and extremely necessary friendship) and the difference in years and experience counts against #1. Plus, we've only discussed our separate desire for mates, rather than a mutual desire for each other.

Potential suitor numero dos: has requited feelings most definitely of something more than friendship, yet the huge geographical distance makes it pretty impossible - in the short term - for these to develop in any other way than virtually. And knowing my track record with email flirtations/relationships/explorations, they invariably never live up to the hype in real life. However, the coincidence meter is off the scale regarding #2, could that be a secret weapon, perhaps?

Potential suitor numero tres: has had the benefit of already seeing one naked so there ain't so much in the way or embarrassment to be spared in that regard, (yet, I can always dig up self-consciousness in spades as and when necessary.) He also has far more important personal issues on his plate right now, and doesn't score too hot on the geographical divide either. Do I have feelings because I feel like I should, or because I actually do? When he's not around or in mind, I'm not sure how highly #3 features on the love-o-meter?

and that leaves Potential suitor numero quatro: whom I adore spending time with, but I just don't know if I feel anything other than friendship, when I know his feelings run far deeper than that. Is that beacuse we've never been able to spend terribly much time together over the years, again a rather large geographical as well as age gap? I have been in a couple of potentially very romantic situations with #4, but I always felt more awkward than enamoured.

If I could have anything I wanted in the world right now, I think it's fairly obvious which suitor could Sharpie my heart all over his dance card. Is it right to wait for that to happen, knowing full-well the possibility may never arise? In that case then, do I push for it, batter the poor gentleman around the ears with my incesant desires to make something happen? Or do I pursue the closer to home option, in some sort of 'we both know we want someone else, but this'll do until then' solution?

Anyone get a crystal ball for Chrimbo? Care to let me take a look, please?

My YES year?

Wonderful Celeste has suggested that my thirty-third year, be the year of YES! So, I am to document everything I say yes to, and if I can associate a song with it, I'll come up with a super playlist too...

So that's the idea. Starting Saturday. Am I putting it off? Umm, no, not really. I don't think?

Anyway, a song to start with. The Rapture's "Olio" off the Yes New York compilation, perhaps? Same version as on 'Echoes', I cannae remember which I heard first though, everything back then is such a blur ...

Yes to NYC for next year as well, too! Hurrah!