Ladies and gentlemen,
the greatest show ever to be created in television is coming to Australia.
NO longer will we have to lag behind the rest of the world.

See what the other half of America thinks, and relax a little bit.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is starting on the Comedy Channel.
It’s worth getting foxtel just to watch it, and I don’t even work there any more.

When I grow up, I want to be Jon Stewart.

I’m telling you, it’ll make this country think about US politics, and our own scene too.

Just you watch what happens…

xx andrew

The greatest sporting achievement in my nation’s history just concluded.

We brought them the game.

Decisions beyond our control ended it.

We shall hold our heads high as players amongst the BEST in the world…

My heart hurts for those hard running men on the pitch tonight.

They gave everything.

Next stop: South Africa.

guus, frank lowie, johnny warren, you all made this amazing jourmey happen.
Thank you for your passion.

I will be there to give back to you in four years..

xx aa

My country is proud!
I am proud of my country!

I have captured the flag of my country back from race-hate degenerates.
I have captured the flag of my country back from those who use it as a thing to hide behind.
I have captured the flag of my country back from those who use it as a symbol of jingoism.

My flag shows I am proud of my country.

I have hung a flag in the window of my house for all the world to see.

There was a time when that flag meant that unless you were caucasian, you weren’t in the gang.
Today that all has changed.

Sure, we play cricket against international teams, but it’s not like Sweden plays cricket, thusly we never can say we’re best in the world.
We’ve had specatcular success in the pool in the olympics, but it’s not like there’s any Europeans or West Africans in the water, swimming alongside Thorpie is there?
Sure, we can beat three other nations at rugby or league but they’re not truly international competitions.

Australia is playing a game that the WHOLE WORLD plays, in a tournament featuring the best teams on the planet, from all over the globe.

Today, Australia is in the top sixteen nations on earth.

Today’s result is truly the greatest moment in Australian national sporting history.

I fly my flag proudly today.

Superb work gents, superb.

Jingosim BOO!

Patriotism, YAY!!
x aa g

Gooooooooooooooooooal!!

Thank you Harry Kewell.

Thank You Guus.

Top Sixteen in the world.

Fuck Yeah!!!

xx aa

WARNING!!
**extreme self righteous rant approaching**

Did you stay up and watch the Soccer?
Genius.
Our boys surviving the first half against Brazil with no goals scored against them is like making it through a round in the ring with Tyson. You just can’t believe you’re alive. I was so proud. Thankfully that pride filled a hole in my heart that up until that moment had been filled with unspeakable shame.

I’m talking about the Footy Show Munich Edition.

It was like the ghost of Hey Hey it’s Saturday had come back to haunt us.

Vince Sorrenti?
I’m all for a fella having a long career, but telling gags like “Two goals from Cahill against Japan. One for bombing Darwin and the other for stuffing up the Gold Coast”. What kind of racist bullshit is that? Vince. It’s 2006, not 1976. Really mate, come on.

Rolling Colin Hay out was interesting, best of all when the Footy Show panelists stood behind him, trying to clap along.
The complete lack of rhythm from these fine footballing fellows was hilarious. Eddie Maguire on the 1 and the 3, Vautin on the 1.4 and the 4.1. They didn’t even know the words. It’s called Autocue fellas, and it’s not hard to use, crikey it gave me a career!

I’m not even going in to the squirmy Craig Johnston moment. Do your research men.

It comes down to this.
I’m sure those guys work really hard at that show, and are really proud of their work.
I’m sure a squillion people watched that show last night, loved it, laughed, sang along and enjoyed the show.

It’s just that I’m not one of those people.

xx

Ladies and Gentlemen.
Your favourite 1/3 Canadian, 2/3 Australian,
all mash-up, always mashed,
beautifully noisy,
lilypad-tastic,
superstar DJ,
all Newtown yet all to everyone,
jangly guitar,
smashy synth,
hurricane drums,
musical chaos merchants ARE BACK.

One word, two syllables,

Gerling.

They have come to save you (and certainly me) from shit-tastic bands who want to be Joy Division on a sad day (wiki thiat if you don’t get the gag).

Thanks Darren, Thanks Bourke and Thanks Presser.

They have been making great music for so many years, and this album is a tour de force.

It is Gerling’s time.
They will conquer worlds with this album.

And you can DANCE to it.

Pull on your favourite pair of skinny jeans, hi-top supersneakerfrekertooexpensiveonebaybutdonttheyrock kicks, and dance your arse off.

Thank fuck for GERLING!!!!!

xx money-g

(ps if you wanna know, hit my myspace page – they’re the somg there today..)

Or when games finish at the world cup, do they play an opera version of “go west” by the Village People?
Did they rip someone off?
x

I’m living in a self imposed jet-lag at the moment. WORLD CUP soccer keeping me up late and the sunrise getting me up early combine to make an odd schedule.

I was supposed to go out with my freind G tonight, go see a funk band, and so I set my alarm for 7pm so that my disco nap would only be an hour long.

I woke up at 9:15pm.

I had been hitting the snooze button for two hours in my sleep.

G went to the pub, I made soup.

Undone by my own sleepy ways.

My Queen’s birthday night of funky music and boogie until dawn replaced by trackie dax on the couch and the World Cup.

In the old days, when I did midnight to dawn radio shifts in Brisbane, I did the same thing. I became skilled in hitting snooze without waking up. I was so good at it in fact, I had to put the alarm across the room so I had to actually get up and walk over to it in order to turn it off. I would then set another alarm in a separate room, perfectly timed so that I had to stay standing. You can’t fall back to sleep standing up.

I remember sleeping in shifts of three hours for about four years.
It took me about two years to get my sleep right again.

Living and working in a night-time world can be very anti-social.
I recall never seeing my mates, never going out and barely seeing the sun for weeks on end.
You certainly feel vampiric after a while.
Your skin turns pale, you don’t know if you’re tired or hungry or if it’s Thursday or Monday.
You eat because you know you have to, not because your body tells you that you need food.
People eventually stop asking you out to places, because they know you’re asleep.

Lucky I’m going over to a mate’s house tomorrow to watch the game.

xx

So I have a day off, and wouldn’t you know it, I wake up sick.
I am playing host to some kind of flu-like virus.
Ah well, six weeks of being up close and personal with thousands of members of the public, I was lucky to get off with just this.
My head hurts and I’m cold and I am wearing all of my pyjamas at once.

Anyway, as I’m couch-bound, it’s DVD time.
What do I pull from my shelf this morning but a piece of my (and cinema’s) history.

The Rocky Horror picture show.

There’s a point when you stop being a kid, when you stop being this asexual thing all interested in trucks and sandpits and BMX with your friends and something clicks inside you and it all becomes about girls.
I was very young, perhaps eight or nine when I went to see this film with my Dad.

I can pinpoint the exact moment when my testosterone started producing, when my brain clicked over from toys to tits being my only priority. The precise moment in my life when my childhood view of girls and women was replaced by the idea that something in my body that I didn’t know what do do with yet had something to do with girls happened while watching this movie.

In the scene where Janet finds Rocky (monsterbating) in the tank, and then sings “Ta ta ta ta ta ta touch me, I wanna be dirty” and puts Rocky’s hands on her breasts, I remember this feeling in the pit of my stomach that somehow felt wrong and good all at the same time. It tickled my belly button and made me want to wee and giggle all at once.

I’ve since seen this movie about three hundred times.
Many of these viewings were after my dear friend Damian took me to see the film again, this time at a midnight session at Hoyts Regent in Brisbane on a Friday night in 1989. People dressed up, they shouted at the screen, they danced, they threw rice, toast and toilet rolls. They told jokes that had punchlines delivered in the dialogue of the film. It was the best night ever. For the next three years, I went pretty much every Friday night, participating with glee while dragging mates along who were all a bit creeped out by the whole guys dressing as girls thing, yet they came anyway, bless ‘em. We were sixteen, this is what we did on a Friday night, and it was AWESOME.

Watching the film again, I remember being (and happily am still) in complete lust with Susan Sarandon. Her journey from demure fiancee to complete free sexual creature through the film still makes me hot under the collar.

I also can’t describe how absolutely beautiful Tim Curry is in this film. He is so damn gorgeous on camera, and he plays the part so well, with such confidence, he is just inspiring. I’m comfortable being a straight man, quite comfortable with my heterosexuality, and I can quite comfortably say that Tim Curry is so damn sexy in this film I get why some blokes just wanna get it on with other blokes.

This movie was written by a New Zealander, directed by and Aussie, starred very few Americans and conquered the US market.

This film made me want to be in musicals.
I learned to play piano so I could play Rocky Horror songs.
This film makes me want to have a pink bathroom with round walls and live in a castle with a two-person lift right up the middle.

I’m dancing the Time-Warp lying on the couch…

xx aag-n-furter

I’ve gone to see a few bands recently.
There’s a disturbing trend in music at the moment.

I’ve seen it in Melbourne, I’ve seen it in Sydney.

Plain and simple: There’s far too many bands out there with guys who can’t play guitar well, and a terrible drummer trying to play along to a drum machine, a bass player who plays with one finger and a pick, sometimes even a terrible keyboard player who can only play one note at a time with some super-crappy depeche mode factory patch on their little midi schmaltz machine, singing songs with zero melody, zero emotion and zero fun at all.

I can’t stand it any longer, and I love music, and I’m no hater of people giving it a shot.

It’s ok that everyone wants to rehash that early 80’s new wave, new romantic thing and that’s cool, but for god’s sake – put some effort into it.

I saw a killer band the other night, classic lineup that everyone’s trying to be right now too, clangy bass, clean guitar with a delay playing Edge-like riffs, cute girl on a two-octave korg and girl drummer and they were KILLER. They were called ‘Jump to light speed’.
They had all the jangly, ‘Gang of Four’ and ‘Police’ riffs down, even the ‘Nick Rhodes’ playing keys with one finger, but they had great songs, great melodies and even though I only saw them once, I can sing you a bunch of their choruses, they were that memorable.

So I guess all those living-at-home/songs about fascists at the university rec club/know two chords/screamy bands? I guess you can play to the people that pay to see you, because I’m sure there’s tonnes, however I just don’t get it. I’m sure it sounds great to others, and good for you for giving them a new favourite band, but it sounds shite to me.

It doesn’t help that I’ve been listening to Black Sabbath’s ‘Mob Rules’ album all week (Dio is my saviour) and that the band I really went to see all those times I saw these shitty bands recently, ‘Young and Restless’, absofuckinlootly rock.

Young and Restless will save you all. Add them to your myspace and dance around in your dirty kicks. Yes You. and then listen to some Sabbath. Life is better already.

xx aa