We should be inside by evening

       

 

I spent Tuesday attempting not to die from the horrible weather and the bad mood it put me in. I spent the day reading, hanging out with my sister as she built a model of a castle from Terry Pratchett books, listening to The Doors and generally being bored. My Canadian cousin Zoran came back from New Zealand and is staying with us until Saturday when he flies back to Canadia. He’s sleeping in my sister’s room so Jelena & I have become roomies. I decided I had to watch Gossip Girl but I couldn’t find it on DVD at Blockbuster (does it even exist on DVD yet?) so I got The OC season 1 instead. I’m convinced the girl working was judging me for borrowing that… But it puts me in such a good mood! Then I discovered that the PSP box in my room was not Vlado’s or Zoran’s PSP which I figured they’d left as it was too heavy to carry around; it turned out to be a present from their brother Sasa – it was filled with Canadian candy! Much more exciting than a PSP for someone like me who’s not into video games!!

 

On Wednesday I had to get out of the house because I’d been inside too long, so Annie and I went to the city. We wandered around Town Whore a bit and it was packed with people. We walked down Circular Quay-way, and stopped at some little park in Wynyard, which was quite nice. But then it started to rain a bit so we walked down to the Museum of Contemporary Art. There are so many new things in there that I’m completely in love with. GO HAVE A LOOK! Then we sat around outside people-watching a lot and making up new lives for everyone that walked past. We saw a man in a cowboy hat and a Marlboro jacket! Then back to Town Whore where we spent a long time looking at CDs in Red Eye, and I ended up buying a Doors DVD – one of those Classic Albums things, for their first record. It’s a pretty good DVD and features a snippet of one of their first demos, before Robby joined the band! I love The Doors…..so fucking much. Then we went to Chinatown for lunch, then to our new favourite spot, across from the cake shop, for cigarette smoking and barley tea drinking. Theeeeen to a park in Surry Hills where we hung out for a while before heading home. A really nice day.

 

So far today I’ve watched two Doors DVDs, a Bowie DVD, listened to two Doors CDs, made a mini-zine out of my short story Survival of the Fittest, eaten ice cream and complained about being bored and broke.

12.51

 

This arrived in New Zealand today so now it’s safe to post it here without the surprise being ruined – mail I sent to Dee with a mix I, just quietly, think is some of my best mix work yet.

 

Straylight Run – Hands in the Sky (Big Shot)

Bjork (feat. Kelis) – Oceania

Tricky (feat. D’na) – Call Me

The Weakerthans – Without Mythologies

Die! Die! Die! – Whitehorses

Kicks Joy Darkness – Collapse of the Wave Function

MGMT – Weekend Wars

The White Stripes – I Want To Be the Boy To Warm Your Mother’s Heart

The Magnetic Fields – With Whom To Dance

Patrick Wolf – Lycanthropy

The Dandy Warhols – I Love You

Bloc Party – Selfish Son

Pulp – 97 Lovers

 

Speaking of mail, this morning I received a lot of zines and it was so good; it felt like back in the day when the only zines I knew of were from overseas or from elsewhere in Australia and the idea of zinester friends in person seemed so far-fetched, so I’d get really excited every time I got mail addressed to “Ivana Stab”.

 

I chopped off more of my hair yesterday and have started straightening the ends so it fluffs out more and curls less and it’s pretty rad.

 

Aside from the inconceivable pain caused by my menstrual cycle, today was a pretty good day. I had plans of going to uni to return some books but the thought of climbing up all those steps was just too much. All I wanted to do was curl up in a ball and clutch my stomach. I got to the city around 1.30 and hung out at Hyde Park reading zines – Brainscan #23 by Alex Wrekk is absolutely fucking amazing and everything I love about zines combined into the one well written, amazing-looking zine. I bought a World AIDS Day ribbon, leaving me with $1 in my wallet. The man that was selling them said “excuse me sir” before I looked up…then he apologised quickly. Hah. I was wearing yet another shirt stolen from my dad, though. The man has a much bigger wardrobe than I do and he’s got style! Then Kylar joined me and brought some tube of neon green goo which was apparently candy – didn’t look very edible and neither of us wanted to try it. Kylar also brought presents. Then Morgan joined us, bringing Panadol thankfully (which sadly didn’t end up helping at all). We hung around for a while, put Kylar’s present to use, though it didn’t really do much for me, then left Hyde Park because they wanted food, then wandered aimlessly before going into Red Eye where I saw lots of CDs I wanted to buy (although the one that really interested me was by a band I’d never heard of but loved the name – Agnostic Front! …also, why are bands like Cobra Starship and Fall Out Boy and Simple Plan in the Punk section…?). Then Kylar left and Morgan and I went to Hyde Park again where we ended up staying until 7, I smoked an entire packet of cigarettes and it was decided that I have to go to Mother Russia before moving out, and I can move out after I’ve discovered the meaning of life in the mother country. Yes!

 

I came home to realise mother has completely stopped talking to me and I have no fucking idea why. Something about how I’m not taking care of my health and don’t listen to her? Lollerskatez.  

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.”