Feels Like Friday, issue nine

FEELS LIKE FRIDAY, ISSUE #9, IS DONE!

Writing about: trying to write; reality or lack thereof; boy(s); driving down the coast; identity through nationality; the usual. Short pieces of writing, mostly. Photos. Cut and paste. Made with love and angst. $2 or trade. Email ivanaforpresident@hotmail.com

It’s all happening

I’ve been forgetting to update. Things have happened.

 

Third year started and already there is so much work to do, but I love my subjects and it’s been really good seeing people again (especially Allie) and getting back into some sort of ‘normal’ routine. Although the early starts aren’t so good. My subjects this semester are Politics x3 and General Education x1: Propaganda & Satire; Australian Foreign Policy; The Art of Political Science; Introduction to the Australian Legal System. My politics lecturers are amazing. I have my favourite professor for one subject, Dr Levey, so I spend Tuesday mornings basking in his greatness.

 

 

 

Drawings by Allie (paying attention during Australian Foreign Policy, obviously).

 

I went to the Mardi Gras for the first time, except the crowd and trying to find friends in the complete insanity meant I basically didn’t see the parade at all. Still, the vodka + rum was nice, and seeing people I hadn’t seen in a while was good too.

 

    

 

My Wog friend Alex had a horrorpunk themed birthday party which was a lot of fun. Messy and fantastic. Kylar and Jack came as my replacements for Annie and Zig. A vey wasted girl in Kings Cross was nice enough to share her cigarettes with us. They were Vogues and actually quite nice. I made Alex a mix of music from the mother country (well, MY mother country). This was the track-list:

 

Van Gogh – Klatno (live) : Belgrade, 1997

Elektricni Orgazam – Nebo : Belgrade, 1981

EKV – Ja Znam : Belgrade, 1983

Azra – Krvava Meri : Zagreb, 1980

Prljavo Kazaliste – Noc : Zagreb, 1979

Riblja Corba – Necu da zivim u bloku 65 : Belgrade, 1982

Idoli – Moja si : Belgrade, 1982

Zabranjeno Pusenje – Guzonjin sin : Sarajevo, 1988

Partibrejkers – 1000 godina : Belgrade, 1984

Sarlo Akrobata – Mali covek : Belgrade, 1981

Elektricni Orgazam – Odelo : Belgrade, 1982

Bijelo Dugme – Pamtim evo deset dana : Sarajevo, 1974

 

    

 

Hung around Liverpool a couple of times and saw The Unborn with Jasmina which was actually quite scary. Also, Gary Oldman is brilliant!

 

  

 

Morgan and I helped Zig out with a COFA project which involved photobooths. I got to wear an eyepatch!

 

I fell in love with this poem:

 

Rhododendrons

 

It was the dream
I was allowed
to touch you in.
We were strangers.
You kept your eyes closed.
I cannot really say
if there were rhododendrons
or anything like music or
even if I asked you.
Only your blue skin and the pleasure it gave you –
the way you moved,
the way you caught your breath
whenever my hands moved
so I kept on moving them.

-Thomas Lynch

 

& ten more copies of Feels Like Friday #7 sold at Sticky in Melbourne!!!!!!!

I know your name, I’ve danced with you

Tutoring going well – boring and repetitious and more work than I get paid for but the girl is nice & it’s $25 more than I was making previously; Kylar is back, yay – K-Rudd impersonations & Cuban cigarettes & bubble gum cigarettes & amazing, amazing things at the MCA & stories from the Americas; excited about upcoming zine fairs (Wollonghetto on the 5^th of April; MCA on the 24^th of May); excited about Feels Like Friday #9; the boy is lovely; I’m pretty excited about starting the third year of my Bachelor of Arts, although the idea of essay deadlines and early mornings is not so pleasant; my zebra-print curtains are too awesome; had my last trip to the dentist today, finally (although I still need to get a crown on my root canal & get one more wisdom tooth taken out, but those things can wait).

Update…

I received this email the other day and it made me pretty happy:

 

 Hi Ivana,

 

elle from sticky here. I am really enjoying Feels Like Friday. please
keep it going. I really like your writing. and now I have a query for
you….
 
I was wondering if it would be OK to use a scan of your work for a
powerpoint file to be submitted to australia council as examples of
the types of work that we (as an arts organisation) support.

…

 

Sticky have been very good to me and I am really excited to go to Melbourne just so I can hang out at the shop all day long!

 

Two new pieces of writing by yours truly are up on The Dwarf: my not-so-nice review of Iglu & Hartly’s album & Then Boom. Watch me turn “this is a pile of shit” into 350 words. Also, my fangirl rant about the Tegan and Sara concert is here.

 

Yesterday was a nice day. I dropped off some photos to be developed in Cabramatta (never, EVER will I develop photos in Liverpool again. Rabbit Photo charged me $18. My awesome people in Cabra do it for $12). Then I went to the city, obsessively listening to Alisa and Azra on the way. I wandered Basement Books and bought Junkie Love by Phil Shoenfelt which looks pretty interesting – the cover has a syringe and love hearts, and on the back is a quote from Nick Cave about liking the book, so…how could I resist? (Also, it was only $7!) Then I went to Hyde Park and was writing/reading/smoking/drinking coffee/minding my own business/waiting for Morgan, when this random dude with no shoes comes to talk to me. I figured he was just a random drunk who was bored, but then he says he was sent over to invite me to “join their party” and points to this group of people sitting on the opposite side, one with a guitar, one a hippie looking girl with glitter on her face, etc. I say I’m waiting for a friend and so he stays around to talk. He’s from Brisbane, has been in Sydney for a few months, slept in Hyde Park last night. Then Morgan arrives and Dave (I think was his name), the shoeless dude, continues talking to us, then the hippie girl (Elise?) joins us and they convince us to join them. So we sit with them for a while and they’re all random people that met each other that day in the park and have been ‘recruiting’ other people to hang out with them. It was so incredibly weird and random and funny. Morgan and I were a little anti-social so we didn’t talk to anyone except Dave and his girlfriend (I assume she was, anyway) because they kept talking to us, but the sunshine was nice and we hung around for a while before we left to make use of my ‘present’ of which we didn’t have enough to share with everyone. Then we smoked across from a church which made us feel pretty good. So we hung around for a while and discussed how amazing Josh Beech is, and then Morgan had to leave, and I wandered the city a bit more but it was a Sunday evening and everything was closed so I got some food and headed off.

 

I went to Liverpool where I met up with Jasmina and Nenad and we went to the cinemas, and with very little movie choice, watched The Day the Earth Stood Still which was SO BAD; it was hilarious. Keanu Reeves cannot act. At all! It was too funny.

 

Today I had to get up at 7.30 because I had a ‘job training’ appointment at 9. The only reason people go to job training is because they will stop getting their Centrelink money if they don’t. I don’t GET money from Centrelink so I realised it is completely fucking pointless for me to go. Oh and not to mention USELESS. The trainer is a condescending asshole who treats us like we are retarded and/or five years old. It was incredibly painful to sit through. I’m going tomorrow to ask them whether I can get money for going, and if I can’t, they can fuck right off. Seriously – he SHOWED US HOW TO USE A COMPUTER. He showed us an inspirational video then asked us comprehension questions. He says things like “ok so if you do three hours in the morning, then three hours in the afternoon, how many hours is that – anyone?” UGH. I wanted to shoot myself. But it’d probably be a better idea to shoot him.

 

I’m making Feels Like Friday #9. Yay!

13th & 14th December

 

The Nevada Strange & Ghosts of Television

 

Saturday

Annie and I never go out on Saturdays and we figured out why – because filth from every corner of Sydney seems to run loose through the city on Saturday nights. We went to Spectrum where we saw The Nevada Strange, Dead China Doll, Ghosts of Television and Reptiles play. Out of those bands, I’d only ever seen Ghosts of Television before, and I wanted to go just because of them, and they were brilliant, as always. They must have been playing new songs because I didn’t recognise any. My only complaint is that they didn’t play their cover of Notorious B.I.G.’s Juicy which is seriously the best thing ever! It was my first time seeing Ghosts of Television whilst sober, and yep, still as good! They really remind me of Kicks Joy Darkness which adds to my immense love for this band. I’d heard of The Nevada Strange before, and heard good things about them, and they did not disappoint. They had a stand-in drummer who didn’t even know their songs and they were still great! The singer is absolutely fucking insane, as though always on the brink of being violent. It was amusing watching them play. They could seriously be something incredible. Dead China Doll were also very impressive. I wasn’t expecting anything like their sound. Was very good. Reptiles were good, obviously a talented bunch of guys, but they just weren’t anything special and I got bored pretty quickly. I left a few copies of Feels Like Friday #8 at Spectrum. On the way home I made up rhymes about the City via Granville line – “Minto, the place to go.” “Campbelltown, party town.” “Canley Vale, epic fail.”

 

Sunday

Today consisted of listening to Bad Brains and Minor Threat, walking down to the shops to buy the newspaper, sitting on the living room floor reading the newspaper, simplifying my resume so that it says “hey, I’m not headed anywhere more than a part-time retail job, please hire me”, having a one-woman Girl Talk dance party in my living room and thinking up my Top 10 Albums For 2008 for Those Walls, Your Ears. Obviously a really exciting day…

 

Oh and my sister basically cornered me into admitting I smoke (various substances). The surprising thing was how nonchalant she was about it. I was expecting her to break my neck or something…

 

Photos by ANNIE LY.

BUY MY ZINES!

Alright, because I don’t have a job at the moment, I need to sell like 40 of my zines to get my haircut. Yeah, I know, $75 for a haircut, it’s insane. But I need to get rid of this thing living on top of my head. SO, you know what to do.

Bleed ideals

+ I bought this & this yesterday and I can’t wait for them to arrive. Brainscan is my favourite zine and the most important to me as a zinester. Alex Wrekk is amazing!

+ I’m already working on Feels Like Friday #9! Seems I have a lot of time and angst on my hands.

+ We Make Zines is so great! I’m trying to find all my overseas zinester friends that I lost contact with.

     

So police think they have the authority to kill a minority

Last night I went to one of the best gigs I’ve been to in a long time. Sydney music…seriously, it’s fucking incredible.

 

   

 

Leesy, Jo & I are from the WEST SIDE.

Zig & I are obvs raging lesbians.

I like to stalk Annie.

 

Annie & I headed to the city on a train that seemed to be headed to Eternal Damnation. The lightning and thunder and dark dark sky were all pretty frightening, especially when stuck on a really old train. But we made it out alive except that when we got to Central, it started raining like a motherfucker out of nowhere and we had to hang around waiting for the rain to calm down. When it eventually did we made the uphill trek to the Hopetoun (where we met up with Zig) and by the time we got there, were pretty much soaked. Fuck this weather! It’s the worst when it’s hot AND raining.

 

First, The Vignettes played and they were awesome, as always! As someone later said “he’s a great little guitar player, isn’t he?” They’re so much fun to watch and their music is great. Go down to your local JB Hi-Fi and grab a copy of their EP Out of Home, On Our Own. I assume Red Eye should also have some copies. It’s really good. Or come to their next gig and you could get a copy for free! I did the mailing list rounds for them after they played and gave away a bunch of copies of the EP.

 

Then Leesy, Jo and two of their friends whose names I’ve unfortunately forgotten rocked up. Leesy brought her grillz, yo! Her ghetto alter-ego is Rude Boy and last night she wrote a new song on the back of Feels Like Friday #8. I feel so honoured to have been part of the process! BALLZ DEEP!

 

Chaingang played next and they were really, really good! The singer’s stage presence is just amazing. I’d seen them once or twice before but I was never as impressed as last night. Despite the ridiculous heat inside the venue (seriously Hopetoun, some air-conditioning would be nice. Or a fan at least!), they put on an incredible show. I’m so excited to hear their future recordings.

 

Then the headlining act of the night – The Wahas. It’s no secret that I love this band and think they’re pretty much the best band in Australia at the moment. They just get better with every gig they play. This was their first headlining gig and it coincided with their End of the HSC celebrations. And it was fucking amazing! Seriously, this was the best gig I’ve ever seen them play. They were INCREDIBLE. The set was a nice mixture of new and old songs, with the highlight being “Cheap Stuff” (that ending is brilliant) and the fact that they played “Loads” (I think it’s called) made me happy. Just…wow, they were so, so good! If you haven’t seen this band yet, WHAT THE HELL MAN?!

 

After the gig, we hung around outside the Hopetoun being ghetto for a while and then we all headed home. The rain before just made me really unwilling to do anything afterwards except take a long warm shower and sleep.

 

  

 

On the way home, Annie and I got stuck in Merrylands. When the train doors opened at the station, a guy ran out yelling “HELP! HELP!”. The train had to stop until the guards and drivers figured out what was going on. All we knew was that some guy was bleeding all over the place, claiming to have been attacked in the last carriage. There was a lot of confusion, paranoia on my part, boredom and annoyance at the mystery of what happened. Annie and I befriended a girl on our carriage who was coming home from work, and two kids outside the train who had come from the last carriage but hadn’t heard anything happening. One of them thought I was someone who went to her school and then it turned out we knew some of the same people. The Serbian community in the south-west is rather small…

 

After quite a while, the ambulance and police arrived. The police ran through the train, looking like they were desperately trying to put on an image of importance but seeming rather incompetent. They ran straight for every Samoan kid on the train, demanding to see their tickets, asking them questions. They completely ignored us. We could have murdered someone and they wouldn’t have asked us a thing. Apparently girls aren’t violent. Oh and it could be all this N.W.A I’ve been listening to, but – racial profiling, anyone? It couldn’t have possibly been the white girl and her Vietnamese friends, nor could they have possibly seen a thing; let’s harass the Samoan kids, they must be the violent ones. If they figured we didn’t hurt anyone, that’s annoying but sort of understandable, but the fact that they didn’t ask us a thing, nor check our tickets like they did with those kids is just fucked up.

 

All photos by ANNIE LY, except the one I took as I was stalking ANNIE LY…

If you have come looking for love, you have come to the wrong fucking place man.

I’d been relatively inactive for the last few days that yesterday made me exhausted. I didn’t sleep much, then I got up early (at 10…) and made my way to the city. Met up with Kylar at Kinko’s and got rid of almost $20 worth of 5c, 10c and 20c coins. I didn’t realise until we were putting all the coins into the machine that it would have been so much easier if I’d taken the coins to the bank and exchanged them for a note. But anyway. I made FIFTY copies of Feels Like Friday #8 and ten of #7 to send to Sticky. If anyone from Melbourne is reading this, you will soon be able to buy copies of #7 and #8 from Sticky so please do so! #6 was available in the past but I’d like to put that issue behind me like I always do a few months after I make them. That’s the problem with making perzines…

 

ANYWAY. Kylar turned out to be really useful as he stapled all the zines for me. (Thank you!) But his collating skills aren’t all that fantastic. (Speaking of collating, I used to have this badge that said “copy, collate, staple” and it was ‘borrowed’ by this kid Tee in high school who didn’t even know what zines were but liked the badge, and I haven’t seen it, or all the others he ‘borrowed’, since.) After Kinko’s we wandered around for a bit, had a classy daytime gutter party, hung around Hyde Park, put up a few of Kylar’s radio show posters (Spirit House, Mondays 10pm, 89.7 FM – did I get that right?), I bought a couple of CDs with money I found left on my bag in the morning (thanks dad!) and then I went to work.

 

I hadn’t been to work in a while but I was nicely relaxed because Kylar is such a thoughtful person. Also, the supervisor I dislike wasn’t there and the girl I was working with was quite nice, albeit an idiot – “I don’t really leave the North Shore much”.

 

By the time I got home it was around 9.30 and I was exhausted. It’s the time spent on trains that kills me.

I just spent about an hour on the phone with Jasmina. I hadn’t talked to her in forever. Was nice.

 

Cassette Kids – We Are (mini album)

Really, really good but after seeing so many of their live shows, a bit of a disappointment… I see this is the direction they want to go in and it is great but I really wish they’d stuck to what they used to do back when I first started listening to them. It was that gritty sort of sound which has now become way too polished. But still, if I disregard what they used to sound like, I can still appreciate that We Are is really good. ‘Techno Dan’ is probably my favourite song. I also really like that they put the lyrics in the sleeve.

 

Warhorse – Gun$ (EP)

I don’t really know much about Warhorse yet and I haven’t seen them live but once at Exquisite Corpse the door dudes gave me a piece of paper with Warhorse written on it and Annie says they’re amazing live. This EP is really fucking good and I look forward to attending one of their gigs. They sound like they’ve grown up on a healthy dose of Iggy Pop and The Cramps. The little Red Eye sticker said “for fans of Brian Jonestown Massacre” but I haven’t listened to them so I wouldn’t know. ‘Skeletor’ is my favourite! “If you have come looking for love, you have come to the wrong fucking place man.”

Feels Like Friday

Issue #8 of my perzine Feels Like Friday is DONE. Sixteen quarter-sized pages of angst about me, uni, me, employment, me, national identity, me, boy(s) & me. To get your hands on a copy, email ivanaforpresident@hotmail.com. It is $2 or a trade for your zine/a mixtape/something else.

“Ran into E, this kid who went to school with me. He’s got his girlfriend’s name in ink along his left arm.

I can’t decide whether another cup of coffee is a good idea and if I should leave the house or stay inside.

or to have peanut butter or jam on my toast.

& they’ve got such certainity, making ir/rational choices to get married, take each other’s last names, move in together, abandon every other option

& I still can’t decide whether to get up in the morning or to lie in bed waiting for some better option to present itself to me”