Where dreams roll into reality

So, right now, as I'm typing this, thousands upon thousands of people are queuing up outside Saitama Super Arena in Tokyo, waiting anxiously to experience something that may only make an appearance once - a second Seatbelts live concert. Yoko Kanno will be there in all her glory, along with the full band, plus the Warsaw Philharmonic and all the singers that featured in some of her works, including Russian singer Origa and Steve Conte.
I only really found out about this not all that long ago, and even though the tickets first went on sale a few months ago, they were sold out in minutes. What's worse is that Y.K. has officially said that there will be no DVD release of the concert, and that all the music is to happen in that one space on that one night, and then vanish from existence. That's very poetic and all, but what about the billions of fans around the world that don't get to attend this massively huge astronomically awesome music festival of epic proportions? Like me? If i'd have known about the concert before the tickets were sold out, i would have spent every inch of money I had on buying one and flying over to Tokyo just to see it. It's during holidays and everything.
Reading Steve Conte's twitter every day leading up to the concert doesn't comfort me one iota either: "Back from a 6 hour Yoko Kanno rehearsal. It's gonna be a really big show @ the Satiama Super Arena in Tokyo on Tuesday night! Get here!!"; "just back from day 2 of Tokyo rehearsals w/ Yoko Kanno & Seatbelts. This show is musically amazing...but it's 3 hours long!!"; "i'm excited...today i found out the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra is playing on Yoko's show tomorrow night...and i'm singing with them!"; "tonight's the big night - Yoko Kanno & Seatbelts @ Satiama Super Arena, featuring "Yours Truly" on vocals and guitar! It's a mad good show."
Jesus fuck. Now i'll probably find out about a massive Tokyo Jihen concert next month or something.

My stomach is holding up a bit of a hangover currently, last night I hitched a car trip with Ben Turner to the Foley mansion and we kicked up a party there with a few people. Marty Holoubek was there for the night, and thanks to his generous spending we obtained a case of Coronas to work through the night, as well as some passion pop I had bought previously, and some white russians that we made with leftover vodka and kahlua. Playing air hockey matches was a lot of fun that night, but most of the time was spent on the couches watching random Foxtel shows (Whose Line Is It Anyway beats the absolute shit out of Thank God You're Here - i'm sorry, i know our version is good, but we just have so much to live up to). we did however set up some gear in one of the loungerooms and had an epic jam session over some miscellaneous chord progressions, beers in hand. Curiously, amongst the epic collection of random music paraphernalia and memorabilia, the Foleys somehow got their hands on Will Hull-Brown's (drummer from Cat Empire) original snare drum, which he supposedly used at their first gig, or something.
At about 3am, probably the height of my inebriation, I jammed with Marty mono e mono, which was probably the best part, yet I can't exactly remember most of it, so i probably played terribly. I also came up with the phrase "no YOU-phonium" on the balcony as we played jazz word games, and enjoyed the freezing emptiness of Mordialloc in the dead of the night.
I woke up to There Will Be Blood on the TV, and I rode home in Ben's car, which was doing strange things because he had accidentally left his lights on the previous night. Mum had left the car at Belgrave station for me to drive home, and despite my head being in a funny state, I managed to race home for a shower and something to eat. All in a day's work.

After completing a rather simple yet profound Aural assignment today, I went about composing some more music. Most of it turned out really well, and there's a definite piece in the works that should hopefully see the light of day for the VCA Improv Series, or something like that. Despite that, i think i've got a real problem with my creative process, or rather the way i go about writing music, and i think it's the same with writing prose and the like - I take too long to do something. I could spend hours on maybe just doing a few bars of music, or a page or two of writing. One would think that doing that would produce only the finest quality products, but I don't even know if that's the case. I'm not sure if it's writers block or anything, but i'd love to be able to write, say, two songs a week or something. I don't think i'm lacking in inspiration or motivation much, because I always have things in my head that desperately want to get out, but i'm just not exactly sure how to get them out. I don't even like half the stuff i write, there's usually always so many things missing, but I keep doing it anyway because I have this outrageous desire to express something.
Anyway. Probably it'll all come out in the wash, as they say.

Films: saw Lust, Caution the other night, finally. With Tony Leung in it, i had high expectations, and thankfully he did me proud. The film is intense and highly charged, and for the the most part highly unpredictable. I had a few niggling questions about certain characters' motives and stuff that I thought would let the film down eventually, but it turned out that they were answered, just not obviously, which is a lot more pleasing. It's so refreshing to see a film that doesn't shout things at you, and lets you do a lot of the surveying and analysing. Asian filmmakers are best at that i reckon, next to Europeans - they let you understand how a character feels by their body language and their expression, rather than having someone explain to you every inch of every detail. The Wong character in this film, the female lead, was hugely interesting and deep because of this technique.
At the moment i'm sitting through Nobody Knows, an independent Japanese film that was apparently a hit at Cannes some years ago. I'm not entirely sure where i stand with this one, i can't tell whether i like it or not. It's long and not a lot happens or is developed, but it's a pretty interesting meditation on childhood, abandonment and isolation. There's heaps of very touching minimalist scenes as well, and good use of symbols and colour.
Next on the menu will probably be a Harry Potter marathon. *dodges abuse* I know, but y'know, after my dream a few nights ago, and...well, i know the films are nothing compared to the books, but I think i'll get my Harry up to scratch before Half-Blood Prince comes out next week, because, you know, he's not all bad, is he?

Music: at the end of last semester a singer at the VCA gave me a copy of Gian Slater's collaboration album with ex-VCA pianist Will Poskitt, "Creatures at the Crossroads", and, holy shit, it's one of the most amazing works of music i have ever had the privilege to listen to. Gian for one thing is simply beautiful, but all the originals on this album resonate with so much depth and raw emotion, and the timbres as a result of Will playing a prepared piano is fascinating to listen to. I could listen to Gian improvising all day, it's just...i'm at a total loss for words. Whenever i listen to it i'm both intimidated and inspired. I don't know what I'd do if music like this didn't exist.

So, that's it from me for another couple of days. Blogging compulsively like this may end once i'm back at uni next week, but while i'm all for getting outdoors and doing some productive things for the best part of the day - and getting the fuck away from this computer screen - I'm enjoying reporting back here every now and then, so, whoever's reading....starfleet out.

No dreams of note.

--marty

now playing: björk - oceania

Ease my mind

So, I just had a dream where I kissed Emma Watson. A really vivid dream too, it was awesome.
The set-up was kinda weird though - this particular epic dream started off in some dystopian, future-placed 1984-esque totalitarian universe where me and all these other teenagers were slaves, kept on these real industrial looking trains, getting transported all over the place without ever getting off, except for when we had to change lines. Everything was monochromatic, and everybody wore grey. The wardens that supervised us might have been our age, if a little older, but they were hard motherfuckers who beat up anyone that disobeyed them. This happened a couple of times to some of the captives who got a little too curious.
Anyway, so this one time, me and some others decided to throw everything in the fan and hoist a rebellion. I abruptly shouted obscenities at one of the three wardens that was patrolling our carriage. He came over to me, snarled something at me and swung this blunt bit of iron over my face, which hit me but didn't knock me out or anything. He went for another hit but I caught his arm and twisted it, then kicked him in the side of the knee so that he fell to the ground and had a crippled leg. The other wardens down the end of the carriage didn't even bother to come and see what was going on, and instead resorted to walking back a few carriages and fetching a warden that had a massive reputation for being the ultimate badass - you know, one of those guys you hear about that can crack a kiln in half. So for a while our carriage was liberated from wardens, but they knew that we weren't going to do anything, because the train was speeding so fast and the ultimate vessel of badassery was marching down the train towards us. I could see in my comrades' faces that some serious shit was going to go down, so I sat down and waited for divine judgement.
The badass entered the carriage, and immediately started slapping people left right and center. He was distracted by some random guys down the front of the carriage, for no particular reason, but when he reached our end, he knew we were the ones he would direct his ultimate divine judgement stick upon. He started off with some of my rebellious counterparts, and totally maimed them up - their faces were bashed in, limbs were broken, and they were left kneeling on the floor of the train crippled beyond belief. He moved onto me and worked me over several times until I was in a similar state. Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - the law of presiding over these captives was that it was illegal to kill any of them, so we were kept alive by some life support system installed in our transportation, or something like that. In any case, it wasn't long before we were back in our seats uncrippled, and the badass thought his job done. The thing is though, you know how when you cut yourself it hurts like fuck, but when you cut yourself again in another place, you only notice one source of pain? Well, due to that phenomenon, amidst all the pain that rained down on me during my beating, I had managed to force off my shackles, which would have normally hurt like hell. My hands were covered in blood because of it, but it did enable me to do one more act of heroism: just before he left, the badass shoved a pointed finger in each of the rebels' direction, spewing profanities or threats or something. When he pointed in my direction, I saw an opening and grabbed his whole pointed arm, throwing him face down on the cold steel floor.
Perhaps all the nervous energy I rapidly accumulated in this split second of time accounted for this remarkable display of superhuman strength, for trying to deck the badass in one's normal state would have been like trying to pull over a building with a piece of twine. I wasn't taking any chances on him getting up, so I grabbed him by both arms, flung open the carriage doors, and literally held him there for a while, watching his limbs get butchered by all the passing shrubbery. Before I knew it we were pulling into a station, and as the asphalt platform passed by below, I held his face against it, keeping it there until all hope of identification was erased. All of a sudden I was holding a big sack of leftover organs and blood, so I threw it down the crack in between the doorway and the platform, and he was minced down below, all means to an end.
The response was instantaneous as all the captives rose up and choked the wardens, who were defenseless upon this uplifting show of solidarity. The other carriages must have seen this event, because in a matter of seconds we were all free, and all who opposed us were dead. We all ran out of the train, and along the platform I could see thousands of grey uniforms pouring out of the carriage like it was some peace riot or something. Even though it was a dream, I felt a curious kind of triumph, and a feeling of closure and justice that good had prevailed over evil.

I think I got a bit carried away just then, and i've lost my place in the dream account.
OH that's right, Emma Watson.

So then, as that story came to an end, the dream changed gears dramatically. Cut forward in time to where me and some of my captive friends were all dressed in colourful freeman's clothes, and were boarding a train to go home. As we sailed through the green countryside, we noticed that we had stumbled upon the filming of the new Tintin film, as it were. Never mind that it was basically all to be CGI, here behind us sat Jamie Bell and, for some completely unknown reason, Emma Watson. (Perhaps she had been cast as Madame Castafiore, but that's highly unlikely.)
Jamie was all suited out in Tintin apparel, except for one thing: his hair didn't look anything like the eponymous hero's. It was all strawberry blonde and shaggy, which we all wouldn't have, because we were all heavy fans of Tintin. (In this dystopian future, our only source of happiness and revitalization will be Tintin comics.) Jamie subsequently suffered several insults about how his hair looked, to which he replied with more insults, but in a broad Cockney accent.
So my friends went on bagging Jamie Bell and he went on whingeing about it, until some guy in a skeleton costume crossed the line and was thrown overboard (by this point we had appeared on a boat, docked at some harbour). Just then however, filming started, and seeing as I was wearing a red scarf all of a sudden, I was to be the villain that Jamie would be running after in this particular scene. So, I ran, and Jamie chased, and we ran all over the town, climbing over cars and having shootouts. He never caught me, and when the director yelled 'cut', we all gathered back on the boat, and he remarked how exciting it was to have that chase scene with me - meaning it as a compliment. I acted modest, saying that I didn't even know I was part of the film, and then we became quite good friends.
Later that afternoon, inbetween takes, Jamie and Emma put on some music and started dancing. I was invited to start dancing as well, so I went and did so, but once the horrible house-esque track finished, I went up to Emma and was like, "but do you have any M.I.A, like 'Paper Planes'?", and she was like, "Yeah, oh my god, I love that song!". And then, it was night time, and everyone was partying under my balcony to Paper Planes. I was dancing with Emma Watson right next to this massive amplifier, and then she turned around and kissed me, and it was so nice and she was so into it that I woke up and ended the dream. Best night's sleep ever.

Probably something you didn't need to know about, but I thought it was interesting, and somehow it made the following day more productive/interesting/better. Hey, maybe I could start a dream journal.
Anyway, I'm going to go and rent some Harry Potter movies now.

--marty

now playing: antti rissanen - saamelainen

Take a little hand

Today we had our first few prospective buyers in to inspect our house, during which we had to vacate the house for about 40 minutes, two times - not unlike evacuating on a total fire ban day - and this afternoon as I was sitting in my room, flipping open the laptop on my bare desk that was made ready for prying eyes, about to settle down with a plate of toast to watch In Bruges, watching all these golden-orange cylinders of sunsetlight filter through the leaves right outside my window, glinting in the wet, I had a thought: I don't really want to move from here.
No matter how often we have to evacuate during hellish summers, or how many evacuating hours I spend far away from home worrying whether I'll ever actually be able to go home again, I could probably easily live out the rest of my days here. It's far away from basically everything that I want to do, but it's one of the most beautiful places on earth. So much is alive here, and there's so much open space to fill your mind with. After living here my entire life, I'm starting to regret not having spent more time outdoors, when I had the opportunity, to meditate or read or whatever. I even neglected my hammock during the sunnier days, boy, do I feel bad for that.
Now that moving house is a done deal for us though, there's not a whole lot of time for regrets, so I'll take whatever comes in my stride and embrace this change. And then maybe I'll resolve to move back out here when I retire - given that all the forests haven't been either chopped or burnt down for the good of mankind - and die amongst the life.

I know leaving a bittersweet juxtaposition like that up in the air is probably a strange way to open a post that's probably going to be pretty mediocre, but, life goes on.
Last night was a gathering at Courtney's house, which all the lads immediately seized as an opportunity to get outrageously drunk, which we went and did, and it was nice. I'm sad to say I've become a victim of resorting to buying passion pop for all these drinking occasions, mainly because I'm terribly skint and horribly self-conscious about how much money I spend on sundries and the like. Yeah, i'll buy a $70 graphic novel with almost no hesitation, but i'll balk at forking out $14 for a six pack of beers.
Regardless, I bought three Chang beers ($2.50 each) and enjoyed the taste of Thailand along with my bottle of mixed berry passion pop, and we whiled the night away with drinking games, dancing, and cocktail making. I invented my very own cocktail, entitled Miss Piggy's Anus: 1 shot of Bacchus cream, 1 shot of Jägermeister, and topped up with Agrum to curdle the milk and make the consistency of the drink not unlike an icecream spider. Mmmmm. Actually, it was probably pretty disgusting.
So yeah, a whole lot of cres shit happened, like Eric starting to transform into Necrid or some shit after spewing up all his alcohol. I've got some great footage of this moment with eric growling like a MAN and saying something like "WHOA. WWWELL". yes, it was odd but strange, and amusing. Eventually, I ended up snuggling up on a sofa bed with beef and DD, which was quite uncomfortable, and tried in vain to get to sleep, but having my plans foiled by Courtney's dog who seemed to be going about it's business barking at things and the like at 4-fucking-30am.

That pretty much brings us up to now. In other areas of my existence:
Films: as aforementioned, I watched In Bruges before - my god, what a stunning film. Hilarious, yet at the same time dark and beautiful. Such an original idea for a storyline as well, and the Bruges setting was epic. Music was great as well, and acting all around was top notch - especially Ralph Fiennes who I hardly recognised - so highly recommend this film for anyone who hasn't seen it.
I also got my internet hands on Tokyo Boy, a pseudo-romance-psychological Japanese movie, which was pretty sweet, but I think I was a bit disappointed by it. I love how Japanese movies are so minimalist, and how delicate they are, but I think I was expecting this movie to be a bit more...I don't know, deep. It was still good though, a great soundtrack and some great cinematography.
Withnail and I and Under Milk Wood are the only films of those 4 I bought last week I've watched so far, and let me say, Withnail is an absolute classic. In true tragicomedy style, it follows the estranged and eccentric friendship of two British actors in 1969 as they drink and smoke themselves to oblivion. Richard E. Grant is perfect as Withnail, and the humor is not only second to none but unique, and perfectly timed. It kind of reminded me of the Young Ones, but heaps more poetic. Under Milk Wood was surprisingly good too, remaining rather faithful to the play, albeit several missing dialogue lines and some more added in to make sense of the conversational flow, but it was a worthy adaptation. And who could seriously go past Richard Burton narrating, and Peter O'Toole as Captain Cat?

Music: a while ago somebody gave me a CD with the whole Herbie Hancock discography on it - something like 41 albums - and I was ever so grateful, but i didn't have the time or computer space to put all of it on there, so I missed out on some albums. I loaded some of those missing albums onto this laptop the other day, and surprise surprise, they're now my new favourite Herbie tracks. I'm talking about the 'Trio '77' live album, and another live album he did, 'VSOP The Quintet', with some of my favourite other jazz musicians of the time: Tony Williams, Freddie Hubbard and Wayne Shorter. Golden.
So i'm actually listening to a lot of jazz at the moment, which is somewhat unlike me, because usually i just stick on Y.K., some J-pop, or put my whole library on shuffle.
Bonnie Pink probably deserves a mention though, i've been listening through her stuff for ages now, and while a lot of it is pretty average, she has some songs that groove SO HARD.
Oh, and this song may be the most perfect piece of music ever written.

Anyway, sleep.
--marty

now playing: gabriela robin - take a little hand

Smooth in the shell

As the holidays are slowly coming to an end - I go back July 13th - things are becoming a little more upbeat, in a manner of speaking.
Last friday night was the Blackburn Big Band gig at Spenserslive, which turned out pretty sac. The BBB originally was going to be a Blackburn alumni band, but not enough alumni could do it so there's some random players in there, but the band worked out great so it doesn't really matter. The rehearsals were on a sort of awkward Monday night - especially when I got a job at Creative Vision and worked only Mondays from 4pm to 7pm - but it got there. The charts were mainly pretty straight ahead big band charts, which isn't terribly exciting for me, but good fun to do with a good band. In the middle of the gig on friday night Mr. Mott handed the stage over to me for some reason, and the rhythm section had a bit of a jam over some charts, which ended up sounding pretty good, apart from the fact that we all lost our place in a 12 bar blues.
I've also been driving heaps lately, I got my Ps a while ago, in March. I've driven into the city a few times for gigs, and although it's pretty hairy in there, i find driving to be kind of like meditating, if only when driving alone, and particularly at night. I guess maybe my liking of driving might change if i owned a car myself and had to pay for everything - i only pay for a bit of petrol whenever i drive mum's car.

On the following saturday night, I went out with the lads and various other people to Nat's 19th in town. The night started off easy as we walked to Dan Murphy's and bought some $5 bottles of passion pop, and then shaun, DD and myself proceeded to drink through them at a Buddhist, Chinese-family run vegetarian restaurant called White Lotus in west melbourne, while we ate meat substitute and rice. Quite delicious, actually. We then proceeded to a Japanese bar called Shogun, parting with Nat and friends, and spent some hard-earned money on ceramic bottles of cheap sake, some of us drinking it cold and some warm. In my opinion, warm sake is legendary, if a little strong to just neck on the spot. After we drank all the sake we could, they closed the bar and so we left, and met up with some other people at Flinders St who suggested we drink cheap wine on some stairs somewhere so we went and did that, it was pretty cold, but amusing. At Flinders we bumped into Gemma and Ross by chance, although i didn't recognize Ross at all so i forgot to say hi to him. By about midnight we thought it was about time to go and do something normal, so we all headed over to Ding Dong and had some beers and 'mint shots', which are little shot glasses filled with some sort of alcoholic substance that tastes like mint chocolate, and then danced to a whole range of alternative music and MJ. We then somehow made it over to Pony, which was very crowded, and DD and myself went upstairs to see some rockin' 2-piece band called the Cheats finish their set, which was actually pretty damn good. Some more beers later and i was sitting next to DD and some strangers, and then Jim, Courtney, Shaun and Jen disappeared so we eventually decided to bail, and I gave half of my leftover jug of Carlton to some strangers, and they showed us much gratitude. We all met up at Hungry Jacks at about 4am and ate some fast food, and then hopped on the Nightrider bound for home, where I slept until our stop, and then stumbled home with shaun and DD to DD's pad, where i slept a good night's sleep. The following morning I had a huge hangover when I woke up, but it disappeared pretty quickly as I was getting home so that was good. CRESCENT FRESH!

The following monday night I headed out with dad to see the DMJO play at the Apartment, mainly because Marty Holoubek was down from adelaide and it was a grand opportunity to catch up with him. It turned out that there were heaps of people I knew at the gig, including the Dowers, some of the Blackburn crew, and Andy O'Connell and his family. The Foleys were also there, because they were housing Marty. After a few beers I headed back to the Foley mansion in Mordialloc to 'party' some more, but we sorta just ended up drinking beers and watching 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?', and then we mixed some white russians (vodka, kahlua, and milk) and went to bed. I shared a foldout bed with Marty which was pretty interesting.
A two-hour train ride home the next day brought me home, where the power was out. It came on just after we had lit the fire, but I read some Murakami and ate dinner in front of it nonetheless. Rumour also has it that our new house in Northcote will have a fireplace in my room.

Today I got up early to tag along with mum to Knox, taking the opportunity to sift through the epic Target DVD sale, in which i managed to score My Own Private Idaho and a film version of Under Milk Wood, with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, that i didn't even know existed, for about $7 each. I also picked up a copy of Withnail & I and I Heart Huckabees from elsewhere, two movies i should have owned ages ago. At the moment my DVD collection is currently at about 120 DVDs :)

Other things to write about: reading several books at the moment (Hard Boiled Wonderland & the End of the World - Murakami, On the Road - Kerouac, Miles Davis' autobiography, and about to start Kafka's The Trial), and i'll probably keep buying more, because I seem to always purchase books at a pace that completely owns the pace at which i read them. The next 50 $10 Popular Penguins have also just been released, and there's some great stuff in there, like some more Raymond Chandler, Satre, and William S. Burroughs.
I've been listening the shit out of this 49-minute Yoko Kanno track called "smooth in the shell - no break disk" which goes through all these transitions between tracks, but is just one long mp3. Truly epic. It constantly reminds me of the greatness of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, a series I finished watching last week, enjoying every minute of it.
I also want a bonsai tree, but am unsure of where to get them.

That's about it for now, more things happening soon so I'll keep this blog posted, and ahhh send me some money also.
--marty

now playing: vangelis - main titles and prologue

C'mon, Let's Go!

OK, i just have to take five minutes out here to post about something that's been on my mind for the past hour or so.

What the FUCK is all this hype around the new Transformers film? I mean, did anybody see the first Transformers? I get it that some people enjoyed it, and i'll admit there was stuff in there that maybe some people might have been able to secrete joy out of, but I can't get past the fact that it was just an orgy between the disgustingly two-dimensional Megan Fox, pieces of metal, explosions, Linkin Park and John Turturro, with some horribly constructed character and plot development thrown in there at the last minute. I mean, come on now, really. I know this is just my opinion, but is this really what the public think 'good' cinema is now?
Wait one fucking minute, people actually LIKE Michael Bay's movies?!
So then the sequel comes along. Lots of press coverage, lots of word of mouth hype. Give me a fucking break. What would you expect from a movie that was so egotistically, patriotically American (Hugo Weaving doesn't even come close to saving it), and that relied solely on the appeal of angsty teenage sexual drives, explosive action and the exploitation of a classic franchise of awesome, original toys? Seriously, the first Transformers movie shouldn't have even been called 'Transformers'. It was Shia LaBeouf being a fucking moron featuring short guest cameos from some monstrously, hideously disguised "TRANSFORMERS" that really doesn't have any connection to the DECENT Transformers. Michael Bay, what have you done to our beloved late 20th century heroic pop culture icon?
It may come as no surprise, but i will NOT waste any time (the movie goes for ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY FUCKING MINUTES) nor money on this tripe. I can't believe people are actually being brainwashed into liking this. If you dig lots of action and just like to sit there and let your brain die, that's fine with me, but I have to say I feel sorry for you, I really do, because you're missing out on so much good cinema. It hurts to think about what you're missing out on if you like this Transformers phenomenon.

To quote one reviewer, Garth Franklin, who was one of the reviewers contributing to Revenge of the Fallen's 22%/100% rating on rottentomatoes.com: "the male teenage cinematic equivalent of snorting cocaine off a hooker's ass".

Rant over.
--marty

now playing: yoko kanno - untitled ~SAC #22~

How long do I have to wait for you?

Dear readers, dear followers of Mushroom Hunting 101, I digress, I have been slack. No proper posts for nigh on 4 months? How terribly malign of me. What have I been doing with myself lately? why should I neglect something as glorious as MH101, a practical journal of my high school life since 2005? I guess maybe I thought what I'd do was, I'd pretend i was one of those deaf-mutes.
But seriously, I ask myself these questions every time there is a hiatus on this blog, and I never can answer them properly.
Fortunately, I'm back, like Malkovich in 'Burn After Reading'. I'm back, I'm better, than ever, you fuckers, I'm back, fuckers. I miss looking back on old posts and thinking "now I remember how that happened". So, in case in the future I forget what's happening right now, in some bizarre twilight zone paradox, I'm going to pick up posting again. And, because I'm currently on holidays.

Things that have happened since we last spoke to each other:
-life at VCA is great, I'm not really sure where to start with that, so all I can think of to say is that it's just about exactly what I expected I'd end up doing after 13 years of educational hell, in that I'm learning everything I wanted to actually learn while I'm still young. Fuck high school, fuck all that shit to hell, I learnt more in the first few weeks of being at the VCA than I ever learnt at those institutional health hazards. And more than that, I'm surrounded by all these amazing filmmakers, artists, actors, dancers, and virtuosos of creating and self-expression, and everyone's exactly who they want to be, doing what they want to do. In all honesty, it's a beautiful place, and I feel almost fraudulent having all the luck to be there. The people in my year are awesome also, and their level of playing is amazing, so it's all very inspiring and motivating. My teacher, Monique, is great fun to be around, and has so far shown me heaps of great things. I finally feel like i'm actually getting somewhere with my playing, and whilst I want to be able to write music better, i'm pretty much just where i want to be.

-we're moving to Northcote pretty soon, like in a couple of months. After the flame-related nightmare that was last summer, we decided to throw in the towel of living in the densely forested hills for twenty-something years and have a complete change of lifestyle. Move closer to the city, live smaller, live modern, and be close to uni, awesome gigs (i.e. 303 high st., northcote social club) and not ever have to evacuate like every day during summer. Maybe i'll be able to start enjoying summer, who knows? we'll have an air conditioning and everything. Because let's face it, folks, the earth is burning up fast. Humans have well and truly fucked the planet's proverbial backside environment-wise, and summers will not get any cooler and the seasons will have complexes and struggle to decide who they are. Before too long, we'll all be struggling to survive in a Fallout 3-esque post-apocalyptic wasteland, where there is no purified water and massive radioactive bees fly around and cause havoc. awesome...

-Tess still likes me for some reason, can't seem to get rid of her. :)

-My best friend, one of the only living things that has helped me through many stages of life since I was a very wee one, died a few weeks ago. I am of course talking about my dog, Jess. One friday a while ago my mum told me that she had to be booked in to a vet to be put down, because of her terrible arthritis that was causing her pain, and merely because she was struggling in her old age. It was funny because I always seemed to see past those ailments, and she really retained the integrity and flair that she had since she was young. Nevertheless, I guess it was best for her to go rather than suffer any more, so it had to be done. I didn't cope very well with it, the following weekend i don't remember it all, because i sort of just floated through it. Thankfully, our new dog Bonnie, who we got at the start of the year, seemed to take my mind away from jess's absence every day when I came home from uni, even though she's a mongrel and misbehaves all the time. I really miss jess these days though, and now and then I catch a glimpse of the leftovers of her food we used to give her at the top of the pantry and feel myself being dragged down by the loss, but...you know, life goes on for some.


-The residency at the Yarraville pizza restaurant was great fun and great money, but these things have to end sometime and sure enough, they pulled the plug on us and even almost didn't send us the money for the last gig we did for them. Still, it was good experience, and I'm glad to have had the income for the time we did it for. I alternated playing with Alistair, a bass player from the VCA, and Dan Nealon, and it worked great every way, so it was win. At the moment i've filled the empty space of incoming income with a small teaching job at an institution called Creative Vision in Kilsyth, which nets me $25 an hour, and is actually quite fun to do (although i don't know how good a teacher I really am, but these people are learning for fun rather than excellence so, y'know). Things will probably be made more difficult when we make the move to Northcote, especially since i may be getting a job in a music cafe just up the road from the house that i'm living in now, but, y'know, live and let die.

-A singer by the name of Sarah Maclaine contacted me back in April asking if i could play for her quartet for a gig at the Paris Cat, and I hastily accepted. Holy shit, i was actually getting my foot in the door, playing my first real proper professional jazz gig amongst the jazz scene in Melbourne! I owed a lot to Daryl McKenzie, who passed on my details to Sarah. The gig turned out great, one of the best i've ever played, and Sarah is a great singer. The gig is now a semi-regular affair, and we're playing every month or so at the Paris Cat (the next one's not til August though). Also, not only is it an awesome gig, but it pays healthily too.

-The Adelaide leg of the Ross Irwin Invitational All-Star Band was fucking awesome. I stayed at Marty Holoubek's for the five days, and much time was spent drinking beer and playing awesome music. The level of epicness was also raised when one night we snuck into Womadelaide - the massively huge world/ethnic/alternative music fesitval in Adelaide's botanical gardens - and were part of a massive crowd for the Cat Empire, and other great bands playing reggae, dub, African funk and other worldly delights. I bought a pair of fisherman pants also, which are unbelievably comfortable, particularly in summer. Marty's down here in Melbourne next week, so that should be a riot, and the next Melbourne leg of the band is for the Yamaha Festival of Brass in September, where we'll be recording an album with some international trumpet guy at BMW Edge, hopefully. Oh yeah, and our album turned out fucking sac as! If you want to buy one ($22) just mention it to me and i'll tell you how to get your hands on one.

-The lads have been fairly triumphant this year so far, we still manage to get together now and then despite our taxing uni schedules and so forth, which are unfortunately about as forgiving as being in year 12 last year. We're still as tight as ever, and lads nights will not cease even when we move house! Not to mention the schoolies round 2 at the end of the year...it WILL happen.

-I got a Twitter account. It's not THAT great, but it's awesome tracking celebrities and well known people who actually update it. Best one so far has to be either David Lynch, who just updates every so often with "Hello everyone, it's *insert day here* and here is the weather and my official site", or Steve Conte, one of the lead singers with the Seatbelts & other miscellany Yoko Kanno stuff, who has some great updates about his touring or his 1-year-old son Zia.

-How epic is my DVD collection? It's currently on growing hiatus as i'm not really leaving home much while i'm on holidays, but DVDs are mainly what i spend most of my money on. That, and probably books - I'm getting lots of reading done this year, mainly because of the long train rides (another thing that'll disappear come the move to Northcote), but also because I'm writing a lot more myself these days. Nothing salient, just odd tidbits, most of which don't see the light of the public eye.

-Oh, i got a laptop. And an awesome one at that. It's a MacBook Pro, my bro's old one, so thanks to him for that.

-Shit, what else? Going into the city everyday and having time to wander around and drink in the events and the atmosphere is beyond perfect, it's exactly what i was hoping for with going to the VCA. The downsides are that i often wander into shops that have all this stuff that i want to buy and so I lose a lot of money.


I guess maybe I should be doing practise, so later. I'll keep in touch.
--marty

now playing: bonnie pink - lie lie lie

A short summary of my DVD/film collection.

1. 12 Monkeys
2. A Fish Called Wanda
3. Ah! My Goddess - The Movie
4. Akira
5. All About Lily Chou-Chou
6. (Monty Python's) And Now For Something Completely Different
7. Babel
8. Back to the Future - the Trilogy
9. Badlands
10. Being John Malkovich
11. Big Fish
12. Blade Runner
13. Brazil
14. Broken Flowers
15. Bullitt
16. City of God
17. Cowboy Bebop: The Movie
18. The Darjeeling Limited
19. Dark Water
20. Dial "M" For Murder
21. Dinotopia
22. Dirty Harry
23. Dolls
24. The English Patient (+ Chocolat + The Girl with the Pearl Earring)
25. Enter the Dragon
26. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
27. Event Horizon
28. (Osamu Tezuka's) The Experimental Films
29. Fargo
30. Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas
31. The Fifth Element
32. Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within
33. From Here To Eternity
34. Garden State
35. Ghost World
36. Goldeneye
37. Goldfinger
38. Goodbye Lenin!
39. Harold and Maude
40. High Plains Drifter
41. Hitchcock Collection - The Birds, Psycho, Rear Window
42. House of Flying Daggers
43. Indiana Jones & the Raiders of the Lost Ark
44. Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom
45. Inside Man
46. Jacob's Ladder
47. Jurassic Park
48. Kill Bill vol. 1
49. Kill Bill vol. 2
50. The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou
51. Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Rings
52. Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers
53. Lost in Translation
54. The Machinist
55. Magnolia
56. Marie Antoinette
57. The Matrix
58. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence
59. Metropolis
60. Minority Report
61. Mission: Impossible
62. The Motorcycle Diaries
63. Mulholland Drive
64. The Nightmare Before Christmas
65. Oldboy
66. Once Upon A Time In The West
67. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest
68. Pan's Labyrinth
69. Paris Je t'aime
70. Pirates of the Carribbean
71. The Place Promised in our Early Days
72. Plan 9 From Outer Space
73. Poltergeist
74. Porco Rosso
75. Princess Mononoke
76. Pulp Fiction
77. Resident Evil: Apocalypse
78. The Royal Tenenbaums
79. Rushmore
80. The Science of Sleep
81. Shadow of a Doubt
82. Shine
83. The Shining
84. Silent Hill
85. Sin City
86. Slacker
87. Spirited Away
88. Sukiyaki Western Django
89. Taxi Driver
90. The Trouble with Harry
91. Tomb Raider
92. V for Vendetta
93. Vertigo
94. The Virgin Suicides
95. You Only Live Twice

TV shows:
96. Cowboy Bebop #1
97. Cowboy Bebop #2
98. Cowboy Bebop #3
99. Cowboy Bebop #4
100. Cowboy Bebop #5
101. Cowboy Bebop #6
102. Excel Saga #1
103. Fairly Oddparents #1
104. The Adventures of Lano & Woodley
105. The Mighty Boosh #1
106. The Mighty Boosh #2
107. The Young Ones #1

Music:
108. Dave Chappelle's Block Party
109. Jamie Cullum - Live at Blenheim Palace
110. Jeff Buckley - Live
111. Norah Jones - "Come Away With Me": Live in New Orleans
112. Norah Jones - Live 2006
113. Supergrass Is 10
114. Tokyo Jihen - Just Can't Help It

Boxsets:
-Kino's Journey (4 discs)
-Wolf's Rain (6 discs)
-Tintin (6 discs)

VCR tapes:
-Run Lola Run
-Gattaca
-Perfect Blue
-Grave of the Fireflies

Rejects:
-Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
-Madlax #1
-Eureka 7 #1
-Eureka 7 #2
-Eureka 7 #3
-Last Exile #1
-Trigun #1
-Love Hina #1

+ 30 or so burnt DVDs and films recorded off TV - Kubrick films among them.
Awesome. Any recommendations?

--marty