heart u, hungover owls

true friend love

I don't know much about art but I know I like this project of Coral's...best friend marriage ceremonies are a super-sweet idea

about the Platonic Marriage project

The performance artist minister for the day, Coral Short, believes in monoplatonics and polyplatonics: you can marry all your best friends OR your one and only very special best friend!

Come get married to your favourite friend(s). No holds barred. This is an inclusive marriage ceremony for everyone.

Marriages will be performed until everyone is happily married. A marriage certificate will be available to all the happy couples, triads and friend groupings. Also! if you would like to marry yourself you are free and completely supported to do just that.

Please let me know who you plan on marrying in advance so I know how much cake and confetti is needed. Some preparations you can do for the big event:

1. get down on your knee or propose in any other way you see fit
2. decide on your outfits
3. prepare special vows if you want to

Spontaneous spur of the moment weddings are welcome. The wedding marathon ceremonies will occur one after the other outside of La Centrale in a semi secluded white wedding tent. The relationships must be strictly platonic and non sexual. This is a celebration of the longevity of deep platonic love. There will be a photographer on hand to document this joyous occasion. Please send your future marriages and questions to: coralshort@gmail.com

we kissed on that bridge that fell down

The Age newspaper has a regular feature in its Saturday magazine "Just the Two of Us" that interviews couples and friends and other kinds of special partners. Yesterday there was an interview with the guy from Things of Stone and Wood who wrote "Happy Birthday Helen" circa 1992. Guess what? He's still with Helen. I guess he really did mean it when he said "you're my everything"

I recall a bigger brighter world

1. Get inspired to re-read this article about Grant McLennan and Robert Forster and the Go-Betweens.

Robert Forster interview

2. Marvel about the fact that this article may result in the waterworks being turned on, but that things printed in the goddamn sodding Courier Mail usually make me cry for another reason.

3. Understand the many layers of Brisbane references in the interview and in their songs, in the way that someone who spent their whole entire life (excluding the last year + five months) living in Brisbane can. And well, hell, the Go-Betweens song "Karen" used to pop into my head when I entered the library at the University of Queenland when I studied there. And plus, I am forever a sucker for hearing the tales of people who have lived long, interesting lives in my town.

3. Watch the Go-Betweens song "Cattle and Cane" several times on Youtube



4. Then watch Grant Mc and Robert F performing it together




5. Feel a little homesick, feel a lot alone, wish for someone to give you a hug, and settle for going back out into the freezing, grey, cold, Melbourne winter day. But tell yourself to stop moping around and pick up the pace a little with the catchiest most summer-sounding substitute-for-serotonin soundtrack:

Frankie Norman Warsaw Stubbs

I got a ticket for the Poison City Weekender today...yep, I'll get to see one of my favourite-ever bands Leatherface for the third time in my life this September. And the serendipitous state of things is such that they are playing at the nearest pub to my house.

Frankie, if you're reading this, please play:

Watching You Sleep
Dead Industrial Atmosphere
I Don't Want to be the one to say it
Springtime
Hops and Barley
Not Superstitious
anything from the split with Hot Water Music

and I know it hasn't been announced yet, but if you do happen to get added to the Sunday arvo acoustic show, please play the Ship Song cover. that is all.

close your eyes, i'll be here for awhile

me, swigging from a bottle of wine, anxiety, my bed, this song (close your eyes, I'll be here in the morning):



I think there's a TVZ film showing in Melbourne sometime soon

young hearts be free tonight

spent tonight watching Love, Lust and Lies in an almost-empty cinema on my own. it's an Australian version of the 7 Up series. It starts with 3 young teenage girls in Adelaide in the 1970s and follows their lives every 7 years or so, until they're in their late 40s.

Lots of insights into love, relationships, hopes, dreams, hopes and dreams being crushed, lives not turning out like you expected, the Australian suburban landscape...and the whole thing is like an example of the effects of feminism on the ambitions/possibilities available to girls/females. I was a blubbering mess at least 4 times during this film.

also, unlike documentaries like Cunnamulla, it doesn't have an exploitative feel. as in, the documentary-maker is really sweet and sensitive and seems to have a genuine interest in the lives of the 3 women, and they seem to really like and trust her.

I think it's worth mentioning, because sometimes I watch these sort of documentaries and feel like the documentary-maker gained the trust of the "subjects" and then betrayed that trust by highlighting little things about their lives completely out of context. it can come across as really classist, like "can you believe people actually live like this?", and I nearly lose my mind when I witness people in the cinema laughing at parts of other people's lives that were never intended to be humourous.

when I came home I lay in my bed, listening to a combination of the rain outside my window and this song by Little Joy

everybody says they want a million bucks

but I'd rather have a million days with you

I need you so much closer

(so come on, come on)

you can't be lonely in this town, the pubs won't let you

The other night I was at a rollerderby match in Reservoir, got a lift home, got a reminder text message about a very important show, and promptly got on my bike and rode like a person possessed to the Birmingham Hotel to see Like...Alaska play.

I got there just as they were setting up, breathed a sigh of relief and then watched the hell outta my favourite current Australian indie folk-tinged Lucero-loving punk band.

Some of the newer songs actually seem a little reminiscent of another (now defunct - although recently they *did* go on a reunion tour of Australia to launch a never-released CD) Newcastle band CONATION. Which is kinda funny, because Dale from Conation now plays in Like Alaska.

When I witness Like Alaska (on or off stage) they seem like a gang to me. Like a tightly-knit gang of totally good friends who play their hearts out and have the best time doing so. (I could watch their drummer Lauren forever and never ever get tired of it).

And it goes without saying that it seems like a gang I wish I was in. I wish I had a gang of besties who loved stuff like Lucero and the Weakerthans and Samiam as much as I do, and lived in the same town as me, doing something we were crazily passionate about together.

They were on tour to launch their new record "Insufficient Funds" that's out on Poison City Records. I realised that I religiously attend Like Alaska shows whenever they're passing through in my town, but never actually listen to them at home. Apart from 1 song on the second Poison City comp!

Yesterday I was helping my friend Chris do a morning radio-show on 4ZZZ and he played "Drug Runs" off the new record. I remembered this song being one of my favourites from the show at the Birmy, and to make it even better, Chris read me the lyrics too. Pretty sure I will have to urgently take a trip to Poison City to pick up the Like Alaska CD and the new Leatherface record while I'm at it.



like alasksa on myspace

the heat death of the universe

I told the new me:
"Meet me at the bus station with a sign that reads:
"Today is the first day of the rest of your life"
But the old me met me with a sign that read:
"Welcome back"

hello daddy. hello mom.

hello world I'm your wild girl.

/desperately seeking a date for the Runaways movie

I really fucked it up this time

I like those rare occasions where the masses actually show themselves to have damn good taste in music. Maybe that wasn't supposed to sound quite as elitist as it came out, ahem. Well I'm talking about the #1 song in the JJJ Hot 100. It's so good! There are banjos! Listen!



pretty incredible, huh

am I just wasting my time again?

I won't sit watching days go by/I don't know what I can try

(monday morning/leatherface bender)

and did the Government call last night

sometimes the saddest songs come at very unexpected moments and via the most unexpected places. a meeting with my workplace supervisor about some student files where we ended up listening to this song on youtube instead. until I almost couldn't take it any more. I like when songs come from outside my usual spheres of influence. this one is an early-80s australian band called Little Heroes and the song is called "One Perfect Day"

one perfect day I'll get your telegram

the mathematical probability of finding a girlfriend

at work, planning lessons, shuffling papers, procrastinating (already), and therefore contemplating the statistical probability of true love via This American Life: "Somewhere Out There."

"Of all the 6 and a half billion people in the world, what are the odds that any two people are a real match? Stories from people who know they’ve beat the odds, and the lengths they’ve gone to do it—including an American professor who sings Chinese opera for anyone who'll listen, to get one step closer to his mate, and two kids who travel halfway around the country to find each other and become best friends.

Prologue: NPR reporter David Kestenbaum tells host Ira Glass about the time, when he was doing graduate work in physics, he and his other single friends decided to figure out the mathematical probability that they’d find girlfriends. They wanted to know what the chances were that there was more than one person in the world for them.

And This American Life Producer Alex Blumberg and his wife, Nazanin Rafsanjani, reveal the subject of their first fight: They were in love, walking in the park, when Nazanin asked him if it felt like fate—like she was the only one for him. (Yes Alex, there is a wrong answer to that question.) When you’re in love, it always feels like it was meant to be, whether or not it really, statistically speaking, is."

I love these total romantics/dorks talking about employing the power of mathematics to estimate the likelihood of finding a girlfriend, and replacing "intelligent life" with "girlfriends" in the Drake equation, ha.

this american life

Revival Tour

holy shit, I'm happy right now. despite the fact that I just woke up feeling distinctly crummy (it really sucks getting a summer-cold while on the last few days of my holidays), I am overjoyed about the Revival Tour coming to Australia, actually totally overjoyed even

it's kinda funny cos just the other week on the 4ZZZ Punk Show we were generally doing our "end-of-2009 Top 5's", and included a Frank Turner song. I was talking to one of our interview guests (who does a podcast radio show from Brisbane), wondering about the possibility of Frank Turner ever touring to Australia. He seemed pretty certain that he would be here sometime in the first half of the year with Tim Barry and possibly the Revival Tour.

I thought that was an hilariously specific hunch to have, but now I think he probably just had some secret insider-information, because I just got the press-release about the Revival Tour stating pretty much exactly what he had predicted

yep, holy hell all the dudes with beards that used to be in melodic punkrock bands playing all the acoustic punk you could ever want: Chuck Ragan (Hot Water Music), Frank Turner, Tim Barry (Avail), Ben Nichols (Lucero)

"Founded by Chuck Ragan, the singer / songwriter / guitarist and Hot Water Music co-frontman-- THE REVIVAL TOUR is set to launch in Australia from April 22 in Brisbane and wrap May 1 in Hobart.

Drawing from a diverse group of established musicians in indie Americana, rock, punk, Irish folk, THE REVIVAL TOUR will take the band of traveling musicians throughout Australia including Brisbane, Newcastle, Sydney, Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne and Hobart."

Thu April 22 The Zoo, Brisbane
Fri April 23 Annandale Hotel, Sydney
Sun April 25 Cambridge Hotel, Newcastle
Wed April 28 Rosemount, Perth
Thu April 29 Enigma, Adelaide
Fri April 30 Corner, Melbourne
Sat May 1 Brisbane Hotel, Hobart

waiting for something to break/left my heart out to bake

slipped my mind that I could use my brain/I'll stay up all night and crash on the plane

Best friends are ones who fix your sickly ailing Ipod for you, while also reprimanding you for your shoddy Itunes filing system, noting with disapproval that Afghan Whigs appears 4 times in your "Bands" menu, and expressing general disappointment that you are NOWHERE near meeting the "required listening" quota for classic and/or otherwise essential punkrock.

But they quickly enact a crucial Ipod-to-Ipod transfer so that you have every Descendents song ever, In Sepia, Songs:Ohia, Jay Reatard, L7, Light Sleeper, Melvins, more Blueline Medic, more Misfits, more Wipers, Spy Vs. Spy ("Don't Tear It Down", yep the song that the Gifthorse covered), extra Mono...

And they immediately fix situations like the fact that you have NO Poison Idea whatsover ...I could go on..but I should probably be ashamed and just stop there.

I confess I'm not sure how I went for so long without the Lemonheads "Shame About Ray" album. I used to listen to it constantly while driving around in my car, so it's nice to have it back in my life again, thanks to aforementioned best friend.

"Rudderless" is pretty much my favourite track from the album, but closely followed by "Bit Part" (a song that starts with someone all-in-love-and-deranged screaming "I JUST WAAAAANT A BIT PART IN YOUR LIIIIIIFE" will probably never lose its appeal to me).

And "Bit Part" is closely followed by "Alison's Starting to Happen" (which is about Alison from Smudge and has those lines about "Alison's getting her tit pierced/Alison's growing a mohawk/Alison's starting to happen/to me"...there is something really cute and adorable and punkrock romantic about this song that's really reminiscent of stuff like "Bad Scene, Everyone's Fault" by Jawbreaker.

so here we go:



(hope in my past)
Evan Dando and Chris Brokaw version

I try everything I know

I can't seem to make you mine/

(Sky Saxon breaking hearts and howling at the moon)