The Road To Animal Heaven.

Is You Is Or Is You Ain't.

Interesting and important debate going on here.

Broken Hearts Want Broken Necks.

No posts for a while, on account of typing with one hand being fucking annoying.

Monster Trucks.

Sometime in 2002 I accompanied my friends to a piano bar in Boston. It was right near Fenway Park, which I thought was pretty cool, but overall I was pretty skeptical about the evening. Little was I to know that the three or four hours I spent there would leave an indelible impression on me in the form of "Homegirl, Ya Wicked Awesome", an ode to the girls of South Boston (aka 'Southie', for those of you who haven't seen Good Will Hunting). It's the catchiest fucking song ever, but other than that night with Jake Ivory, I haven't heard it since. Until now. Apologies for the footage in this link, but the song comes through strong. Go look at facebook while it's playing. The campfire tales surrounding the origins of the song are nicely coalesced here.

Become Good Friends

A few random ideas while watching Neighbors:

When Didge tackles Riley in the opening credits, it is clearly a push in the back. If an umpire came out, blew their whistle and stopped the show from starting, it would rule.

Neighbors, like life in general, needs way more pop culture references. Their mining of the movie Ghost World was truly plagiaristic brilliance, and should be repeated (for those who missed it, when Skye was introduced she was a blatant rip-off of the Enid character. Wacky hair, a taste for Bollywood, and even following creepy old guys around. A few months later, however, Boyd approached Skye and accused her of copping all of her moves from Ghost World. Imagine plagiarising a movie, then detailing to everyone exactly which parts you shamelessly bit! The chutzpah of those writers is unbelievable).

It strikes me that the real lives of Neighbors actors is often more interesting than their characters; Doctor Karl is president of the Media and Entertainment Arts Alliance (the actors union), Susan is an out and proud lesbian, Joe Scully was a coke addict. Where possible, these real life dramas should overlap with Neighbors storylines.

Ads during Neighbors should be screened for age appropriateness. I don't need to see that teflon pots ad with the old lady's fully sick tribal tattoo while I'm indulging in my early-evening soap. That's not making me want to buy pots. That's mocking me.

And, whenever there is a TV playing in the background, it should be playing old episodes of Neighbors. This would be especially awesome if Paul was filmed watching TV and the barely-audible background audio featured him.

This One's For The Sun.

Where It Belongs.

Holy shit! Conation are going to finally release their final EP! I don't want to be the one starting rumors or anything, but surely this means they'll play some shows...

I'm Going To Tell God.

Last Saturday night, as the previous post mentions, I went to ShitTown. For those out of the loop, it's a fucking shitty fucking hipster bar in a stairwell next to St Jerome's in the city. At one point in the evening I found myself bemoaning the location with my friend Tash. "It's like some bar from Sex and the City that those women just had to be at the opening of." I whined. "Yes," she replied, "but full of eighteen year olds that you can't hit on because they used to be your students." Although technically, according to the letter of the law, I can hit on them, I took her point. Which isn't my point. My point is that the perfect antidote to a night in a place that features significantly in "what's hot" lists everywhere is Collapsed Toilet Vietnam.

They were playing Horse Bazaar on Wednesday night, and were alleged to be starting at 9.40. I didn't know this until 9.30, and was comfortably on the couch watching House when TJ worded me up. So I roared down St Kilda Rd, skidded into oncoming traffic on Little Lon, and made my way into the venue. CTV were just setting up. It kinda looked like all hell was breaking loose. There was gaffer tape plastered everywhere, connecting drums and amps and mic stands and - midway through the set - members of the band to the audience. There seemed to be stuff everywhere. They'd brought along their own PA, which add to the clutter, but which made perfect sense as soon as they started. When you're as deliberately loud and obnoxious as CTV, it pays to bring your own PA. I was surprised to see some other dude standing up there next to Petie Hyde, with some bamboo sticks and a metal bar. But when they started playing he joined in, whacking the sticks against the bar, then pressing the bar against his neck and screaming, the added bass and percussion pushing in and out of the wall of noise. CTV are the band I want appear out of nowhere when I'm at some shitty wedding or presentation night, to scare off everyone but the true believers. A band made up of fucking awesome musicians - whose collected ears for abrasive sound production are some of the finest around - making music that mums, trendy scenesters, authority figures and TV soundtrack scouts would fucking hate. Their sets are a little longer now, and some of the new songs are a little slower, but fuck me if they're not the best fucking band in town.