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Reality / Performance / Results

Reality episode from the interweb

Dana bitches about Ryan calling her not rock on international television. Hey Dana, I’m calling you not rock on international interweb – how do you like THEM apples, bitch?

Gilby plays his guitar at the house, and it’s a song-writing clinic. They get to write lyrics and melodies in teams led by Dilana, Toby and Magni, since they won the encores. Anyone remember ‘Stop/Go’? Or that little ditty ‘Pretty Vegas’? Dana bitches about being picked last for baseball, and she’s chosen last again.

In Team One (Dilana, Storm, Ryan, Lukas) Lukas writes “if you could touch a star, would it show you what you are?” Umm no, it would burn you, because I’m not sure if you know this up there in Canada, but stars are big flaming balls of gas. So instead Lukas goes off for a beer break.

On Team Two, Phil, Zayra, Toby and Patrice talk about scat. Huh?

Magni bitches at Shakira to shut up, because he wants to hear the song a couple of times first. She talks about how it pours out of her. By ‘it’ do you mean shit, Shakira?

Lukas goes to disturb Magni’s group, because apparently he has ADD. He’s also wearing white pants. Doesn’t he know it’s after Labour Day?

Magni talks about how he’s recorded six albums with his band, so he knows the process, apparently, and Shakira storms out. Did we ever figure out what band he was from? No? I’m going to say the Bomb Funk MCs then. Sweden, Iceland, Finland – what’s the difference? Shakira comes back, and their team effort goes okay.

Patrice loses the tracks that they recorded. Phil says “I hear there are worst catastrophes in other rooms”. Mean while on Team One, Lukas can’t sing what he’s supposed to, so Storm takes the mike off him. When they sing the final version for Supernova, it includes the line “Am I your little bitch or am I your girl?” Um hi, you’re singing to Tommy Fucking Lee, of course you’re his little bitch. All of you. But the song actually sounds pretty fucking cool. Much better than INXS anyway. T’Lee says he got goosebumps, Gilby Clarke loves on the chorus despite their headbutting. I’m surprised that Lukas doesn’t break out with his own individual version of it, but perhaps he missed that episode with JD last year.

Team Two are all with the whispering evil start. Phil is all swaggering all over the place like he’s drunk, you know, just for a change.

Team Three is very modest with Magni saying they’re the best. Jason loves their harmonies and their gospel feel. Gilby waves his lighter. These songs all sound really good. I want to hear them in full. T’Lee says not to take them in the bluesy direction. And then they party. Phil is wearing an orange headband and I don’t understand why. Tommy passes out jager shots, which I suppose is his trademark thing, given the amount of time he spends in Tommyland talking about the jager machine he had installed in his kitchen. Gilby says his daughter plays guitar. I wonder if Tommy’s banged her yet.

Lukas looks like Sonic the Hedgehog when he pushes his sunglasses up on his head. Gilby’s going to be playing on ‘Brown Sugar’ and so they have to fight for him. Ryan wants ‘I Alone’ by Live. FUCK, they’ve got ‘About a Girl’. STOP WITH THE MOTHERFUCKING NIRVANA. Why Courtney why? They’re being more civil this time, writing names on songs while they’re up on the board. Shakira says she’ll stay away from ‘White Wedding’ but offers up her dress to anyone who wants it, and that makes me go ‘heh’ which redeems her a little. Most of the girls want ‘Call Me’ and I can’t blame them for that. Storm takes ‘Anything Anything’ and says that she can do anything. I don’t know the song, but the way she’s talking to the camera so confidently, you know this means she’ll be kicked off next. Poor Lindsay Lohan and her boobies. Unless of course Jill pisses off Gilby too much making him play in the key of E.

EDIT: Also, read “the rockers’” journals online here. I’m so never voting for Dilana again (you know, if I had actually voted), solely because of her apostrophe catastrophes. And her use of the phrase “OMG”, because what kind of loser writes that all over the interweb?

Reality / Performance / Results

Performance Show

Lukas – ‘Bittersweet Symphony’: Jason says “I’m waiting for you to open up your throat”, and while usually I’d say that should be T’Lee saying that, I’m going to agree. Dude, Lukas, I appreciate that the way you talk and the way you write in your blog really does give the impression that English is not your first language, but if you’re trying to be JD you should remember that at least JD paid attention when INXS talked and followed their advice to the letter. That said, I did like it when they dropped all the lights down and had him in a spotlight, but he should have held the pause a little longer.

Anji says: “Lukas ? didn?t really dig it, although it wasn?t that bad. I hate to say it, but I agree with Jason about the strangled vocals. Plus, Lukas is such a teenaged brat.”

Zayra – ‘Call me’: To quote TWOP here – “I’ll be very surprised if anyone does. Or texts her for that matter”. For starters, she’s dressed in a RUBBER SUIT that’s a cross between Sergent Pepper and a power ranger. I don’t understand how she could have possibly thought it was a good idea to wear that. Plus, just for a change, she’s out of breath when she sings. This is hideous. Bart yells out “stop it, stop it stop it” and I feel his pain even though he apologises for intruding on my precious TV hour. She says that she did well when Supernova challenge her, and I want to punch her in the face some more. They looked pained while she was performing. Even T’Lee is having trouble with her outfit.

Anji says: “Zayra ? I actually think she looked pretty hot in a tacky kinda way, but by the end of the song it just sounded like bad karaoke!! Her voice is not strong enough and she just couldn?t cope. She HAS to be next to go?”

Dana – ‘About a girl’: This is rocking, Dana, you sitting down on a stool playing a guitar but keeping your face in a grimace. For once you actually look like you could be living the words of the song, so sure, you’re running around with a no-good hooker, but hey, you live with Jill anyway, right? Oooh burn. But seriously, Dana’s best performance yet, even though it’s obvious that she’s been studying Dilana. Plus the outfit is so much better than the miniskirt and leopard print corset monstrosity that she thanked the stylist for picking out for her in her blog. In fact, I might go as far as to say that this is my favourite performance of a Nirvana song all series, although I still wish they’d stop.

Anji says: “Dana ? definitely her best performance (and I thought that before the boys said so). I really liked her voice on that song (even if I?d prefer Kurt?s)”.

Patrice – ‘Remedy’: You know that I’ve been loving on the Patrice, and she can sing and she looks really comfortable on the stage, but this performance is a bit boring. When Dave tells her to do something different for each song, she sasses back “Is that what you do?” and he looks really shaken but comes back with “I’ve got the job, you’re just auditioning”. Snarky.

Anji says: “Patrice ? I like her ease and comfort on stage, but the song was really dull, and she almost looked too relaxed, y?know? But Dave ? what a wanker!!”

Toby – ‘White Wedding’: You can tell that I’ve watched way too many reality singing shows when even I can tell that he starts the song out too low so that he can do a key change halfway through. Toby’s got energy, and power, and this is pretty good, but he’s just so ugly. And I hate the way he turns up the Aussie accent. Supernova love him, although they note the lowness too.

Anji says: ” Toby ? very stadium rock. And he?s just not as sexy as he thinks he is.”

Magni – ‘Heroes’: Magni’s voice is amazing here, and I don’t have a problem with him standing behind a microphone playing the guitar, although Supernova do. They tell him he needs to sing the song to everyone in the room, and he says he’s singing it to someone across the other side of the world. Awwww.

Anji says: “Magni ? great singing. I thought the boys might think he wasn?t bringing the rock enough, but I guess he proved he can hold a lovely melody. Also, I like that he?s not as defensive as some of the others when criticised (I suppose he can go home to Icelandic glory and a decent career anyway)”

Ryan – ‘I Alone’: Okay, so I like guys with big noses. I have no problem admitting that. I love how Ryan is dressed simply, in a shirt and pants and a chain. It’s like the others dress how they think that rockstars dress (except for Zayra, obviously), but Ryan dresses how he dresses, and he looks hot. He rocks this song out, although Bart yells “stop it, stop it!” again when Ryan gets up on the drum kit to jump off. Sorry, did I just say “rocks this song out”? Sorry. But he’s definitely “crushing it” as Jason would like him to do, and Supernova appreciate that. Ryan says he’s having fun, and smiles. Nice work, best performance of his yet.

Anji says: “Ryan ? he even looked the part for Live!! I thought it was a great song choice and he did pretty good, but he really struggled with that ?fear is not the end?? line ? didn?t Marty struggle with the same bit?? Maybe we have to give Mr Live some credit??” No, we should never give Mr Live some credit. Remember “her placenta falls to the floor” ? Terrrrrrrrrible song.

Jill – ‘Brown Sugar’: Shakira is dressed like a Hooters waitress in hot pants, a singlet and heels, and I pay very little attention to her singing, except to note that you can hardly hear it because either there’s some weird echo or the backing vocals are turned up too loud, because she starts dancing up on Gilby, who’s playing the guitar for this song, and she doesn’t stop. Now, I admit that recently my affections have strayed from T’Lee to Mr Clarke since he started wearing tshirts, and I have a thing for anyone who wears a cuff while playing the guitar (I suspect this is a step up from fancying anyone who wears a static wristband while fixing computers at least), but damn girl, get your cooter off him, you’re making him sticky and he’s not happy about it. In fact, in his comments he even says it was cheap and degrading and that this contest should be about singing and not sex. Ha! But still Shakira, ewww. When a guy who used to be in a band with AXL ROSE who had sex with a porn star to record it in the break of my fav GNR song ‘Rocket Queen’, even if Gilby wasn’t around for Appetite, says you’re tacky and nasty, you need to pay attention. You’re like 53. Stop it.

Anji says: “Jill – blah. Even before Gilbey gave his little spiel about the grinding I could tell she was making him really uncomfortable on stage. She?s such a bimbo. It almost seems a shame she can sing. Maybe Vegas.”

Phil – ‘One headlight’: I have no idea why anyone would ever listen to the Wallflowers. They’re quite possibly the blandest band in the world, and Phil doesn’t even have Jakob Dylan’s pretty eyes to see him through. This is awful. Bart yells out for it to stop some more, and I wonder why the hell Phil lumbers around so much. He needs to grow into his arms, maybe? And lose the goatee. And why oh why didn the producers make anyone sing this song? Supernova argue amongst themselves about Phil’s bobbleheadedness instead of his blandness.

Anji says: “Phil ? awful. And boring. And the wobble does gotta go.”

Dilana – ‘Time after time’: I love this song so much, and even though Dilana is wearing some godawful crushed velvet hot pink corset thing, her hair looks amazing in its pink and purpleness, and her arrangement of the song, with just her and the hot guitarist playing solo accoustic is stunning. Stunning. I get my first welling-up of the season.

Anji says: “Dilana ? didn?t really like that version of Cyndi Lauper, but I still love her voice and think she did well. She looked a bit like a crazy gay pirate!! I think she?s playing the game very strategically, proving she can sing soft pop and in a high voice, proving she can rock out, proving she can do an innovative re-arrangement etc”

Josh – ‘No rain’: I know that they only get like, 90 seconds, but this song is chopped up to all hell and makes no sense, and Josh sounds really bad. He pleads with Supernova to embrace their soul side, and I’m just like oh my god, you are pathetic. They are the ones in the position of power here buddy, not you. You’re riding too much on the fact that they said you had one of the best voices around – in the first week. Move on.

Anji says: “Josh ? quite a good-timey song, and not badly performed, just bland. I really thought he shoulda done the Black Crowes actually ? would?ve really suited his voice (but maybe that seemed too obvious)”

Storm – ‘Everything, Everything’: I don’t know this song, but I do know that Storm is 37. 37! Lindsay Lohan is not going to look this good when she gets that old. Storm rocks, storming (heh) around the stage, showing Jill how to interact with a band without dripping vaginal juices on them, hitting all the notes right, coming across with huge energy and then launching herself into the audience in a T’Lee-approved beautiful dive. Nice work Storm.

Anji says: “Storm ? ROCKS! I reckon she should get the encore. She needs to stop with the crazy wide-eyed rolling, but still? Great energy, great voice, passionate delivery of a good song (not that I have anything to compare it to!!)”

Bottom three: Zayra (if there is a god, she’ll be going home too), Jill and Phil/Josh. I’d give the encore to Zilana, but I reckon Storm will get it.

Reality / Performance / Results

Results Show

On Friday night, it snowed in the suburbs of Wellington. It also snowed in my heart. Okay, so that’s actually total and utter bullshit, but I did have a really crappy night, because no one wanted to go out or stay out, and I was like all “oh, but this is the last time in forever that the normal group can go out” but it didn’t happen, so I ended up at the fucking Malthouse with Anji and her workfriends, and then Karen. I did manage to get away with only spending $6 on beer and a bit more on some chips though, so that was the only highlight. Oh, and I took the bus home and so was on the couch by 10.30pm. Bleh.

Part of my grump came from thinking about how grumpy the weather was and how I’d have to drive to Castlepoint the following day, and I so didn’t want to (*). But as it turned out, the weather was fucking gorgeous on Saturday. I picked up Chrisana at 11, and then went to Katy’s to get her and Puck and her flatmate Jacob. Trying to fit all them and all their things in my little bittle car was interesting. After we went to the supermarket and loaded up on SO MUCH food, we had to unpack everything and get the boys to play tetris to fit it all in. That’s what boys are for, after all.

I filled my petrol tank all the way up for the first time since I’ve owned the car and my head went boggle at the fact that it cost $56, when it used to be $35. Many jokes were made about the Hutt as we drove through it. CDs were sung along to by me, which was unfair since I’d told Katy she’d have to walk if she sang. But my car, my rules. Heh. I was imagining it’d be like an hour and a half to get there, like it sort of is to Martinborough, but oh no, it was a solid three hours, splashing through flooded roads on the way there and considering whether or not to stop the car to change a sign in the field with an explicit picture on it from ‘This is a life, not a choice’ to merely ‘this is a choice’. We eventually decided to do it on the way home instead.

I hadn’t been to Castlepoint since I was ummm 8ish, so I had no idea what to expect. As we headed out deeper and deeper into the countryside, our conversations became more and more focused on zombies, and survivalism. Castlepoint itself seemed like a tiny little place, and yet the hill we drove up to find our house reminded me of Churton Park, all new houses that seemed unoccupied. The place Katy had rented for us, Magic Thymes, was lovely though, in a very early nineties split-level kind of way. I grabbed myself a room and set off to laugh at and disobey the signs in the toilets that stated “if it’s yellow, let it mellow; if it’s brown, flush it down” and “if it’s pee, let it be, if it’s poo, flush the loo”.

Since everyone had been drinking in the car except for me, of course, since I was dridving, I quickly cracked open the cask of red, and we sat on the balcony, looking at the water tanks and the empty lot beneath us and out to the sea. Everyone decided to go for a walk, and I was tempted, but I decided to volunteer to stay behind to get eaten by the zombies first wait for Ash & the other carload to show up. There are worse places to be than on a balconey in the sun with wine, cashews, JPod and Black Holes and Revelations blasting out of the stereo down the right-of-way. After about half an hour or so I saw Ash’s car driving up the hill and going to wrong way just as we had done, so I stood up and windmilled for all I was worth, until eventually they saw me and I could give them strange pointy directions as to where they were supposed to be going. Ash drives the same kind of car as me, except hers is dark green. She parked it next to mine and we left them alone to make babies together. She thinks mine is the female car, because it’s white, but I know that hers is the female because it has a rack. Hehe, I am so hilarious.

Since I had done my duty and guided in Ash, Jo, Helen and Kartini, I was free to take my iPod, and roll up my trousers and trot up the little hill behind the house to take in this view:

Bloody gorgeous it was too. I followed a very very muddy little track around for five minutes and found a bench to sit on and listened to ‘In the backseat’ and had a wee little cry at the beauty of it all and also my remaining grr from the night before. Then I laughed at what I thought was Puck and Chrisana and Jacob scaling the top of the tallest peak because it was a long way up. It wasn’t the warmest of days ever, but I still wanted to get down to the beach. The only access looked to be a long way away though, and I wasn’t keen to scramble down the hill in the mud, strangely enough, although the two glasses of wine I’d had made for some serious giggling every time I slipped, so I went back to the house where we assembled a feast. A FEAST.

It seemed like everyone had brought along their favourite snack bits, and Katy is even more of an over-the-top entertainer than I am, so she’d bought six kinds of hummus (to be fair, she was staying two nights to our one). Platters of goodness were assembled, and Peaches CDs and various iPods were played. Have you tried peanut butter pretzels before? Holy crap they are awesome. So is wine. So is good company that just sits around talking and eating and drinking. That’s pretty much my idea of perfection right there. The boys started the fire, because that is what they needed to do to feel manly, and we drank some more. Eventually we split into four teams to play Scrabble. Katy and I won, despite the hardcoreness of some of the players. Me, I’m more along the lines of “well, if you can define it, I’ll let you make up words”. Not that I’m too easy-going or anything, honest. Puck and Ash pulled Who wants to be a millionaire? and Trivial Pursuit off their respective cellphones and we freestyled competition, although I tried to make everyone buzz in. You know who else liked their trivia under control? Yeah that’s right, the NAZIS. There was no 021 coverage at the house, so 8/9 people were cellphoneless. I don’t wear a watch, so with no need to keep my cellie around, I had no idea what the time was ever. We found Grease in the house’s collection of videos so we put that on and had a lengthy singalong.

Eventually everyone was outside smoking and looking at the thyme bushes around the door and checking up on the cars’ humping progress (they acted all coy when we were around), and I was like OMG HOLY SHIT look at the sky, and made people turn off the outside light, and it was just amazing, stars EVERYWHERE, so bright, and the Milkway arched overhead, and being (just a little bit, honest) drunk, I was like “wow, it’s like the Dukes of Leisure are playing and we’re at the star dome!” and I climbed up to look out at the back harbour again (*). More drinking was done. Gorgeous cake was eaten. Good times were had. More walks were taken in the mud, this time with handy cellphone flashlights. Good times.

In the morning, I didn’t feel quite so flash. In fact, once I finally managed to get a bathroom, I was sick for quite a while. Of course, I should have been happy that I wasn’t eaten by zombies, after a lengthy discussion had concluded that my being a virgin (ish) wasn’t going to save me. But instead I sat on the floor to put my clothes back on after my shower and considered crawling downstairs but settled for sunglasses and a duvet instead. I took my coffee and sat out on the deck and thought “wow, this looks just like an XP screen” and died a little more inside. It’s not my fault! I was raised in Tokyo, dammit! But while I lazed around on the couch drinking hot chocolate listening to Ryan Adams and Patti Smith, Ash and Jo went off to the carnie store for toilet paper and cooking oil, and most of the rest of the girls bustled around doing the dishes and cooking breakfast. Once again, the food array was dazzling, and heavily seasoned with magic thyme. We had mushrooms and potatoes and toast and avocado and bacon and kransky sausages and everyone else also had crumpets and salmon and eggs. After that I felt much much better. More lazying around was done until finally at 2.30 I was in a state to drive again, just as the second night’s shift showed up (*), so we scarped off so we wouldn’t have to do the dishes. Muhahaha. We chased Ash for a good while, until she went the wrong way, and then we got in the lead. They caught us up in Featherston when we stopped for a pee break, but since they were all about antiques and gelati, we won. And I made it home in time for The Gilmore Girls. Yay! Countryside is good. I like it a lot. I wanted to stay forever.

The reality episode on the interweb:
Woo, it’s vocal coaching time, which means that Lukas gets all shirty and pretends he is more authentic than everyone else. Dilana freaks out and sings higher than she’s used to. Patrice is awesome. Soul Boy Josh annoys me. Then they fight over song choice. Soul Boy is all “I must do ‘Come as you are’ to show that I’ve got edge” and then he sits on it, and that’s that. His unselfish attitude is apparently the reason that Patrice and Jill start bitching at each other over ‘Helter Skelter’, but actually we all know that the reason they’re fighting is because Jill is a Shakira hag and is way too old to win, wheras Patrice is awesome. Have I said that lately? Well the House Band say it too. Did you know that the bassist is Russian? I love the interweb. Lukas pretends to be more authentic than anyone else by saying it doesn’t matter what song he gets because he will still rock it. Then he bitches because he doesn’t know ‘let’s spend the night together’. The house band say he sings it awesomely until he gets them to put in loops and rearrange it like a Marilyn Manson band. Lukas says he is more authentic and a rockstar for making this decision. Hahaha Lukas, you’re trying too hard to be JD…

The Performance Show

Stop the press! Dave’s breaking up with Carmen! I wonder why? Could it be because he’s banging one or more of the rockers? I bet it is. And I bet he’s doing ummmm hmm Zayra? Surely that’s the only reason why she’s still in the competition?

Patrice fought Shakira for ‘Helter Skelter’, and I’m damn glad she did, because she rocks. Her hair is now black and platinum, which confirms what I’ve already said, and that’s that she is the new Suzi McNeil. I wonder if she’s going to start going out with Hank Azaria too now.

I want to punch Josh in the face for his booooooooooring version of ‘Come as you are’. Why the hell are they allowed to do this to so many Nirvana songs? Dave is miming sleep on his throne and it makes me laugh.

Storm is growing on me. I suspect that’s because she reminds of Mean Girls era Lindsay Lohan, and I’m not just saying that cos I’m perving on her boobies. I also really like ‘Just what I needed’.

Lukas’s ‘Let’s spend the night together’ doesn’t sound at all Marilyn Mansony, although admittedly I’m in the kitchen making toast for most of it, and our toaster is incredibly slow. His eyeshadow is still pretty.

Shakira is still hideous, and ‘Alright now’ is a terrible song. I don’t get what crack Supernova are smoking when they say they like it. There’s no way that they’d ever choose her, so why is she still here? She must suck a mean cock. I suppose being only three and a half feet tall must help with that.

When Ryan sings ‘Fortune’s Son’ I like him for the first time ever, but he still isn’t doing it as well as Brandon Calhoon did it last year. Perhaps I just really liked Brandon because he reminded me of James Robinson though. And then when Ryan actually smiles, he looks really hot, if your definitition of ‘hot’ is “looks like Warren from Buffy” which disturbingly, mine often is. Anji sends me a nasty text message which I won’t reprint here as to her opinion of his looks. That girl lived in Australia too long.

If only Phil would lose that fucking goatee, he’d probably be my favourite, purely because he looks like the type of boy that I normally go for, although his singlet should be tighter and he should swaying like he’s drunk if he’s not. But ‘White Rabbit’ sounds real good all hard like this, although apparently it takes a while to build up dancing-together chemistry because he and Jason keep bumping into each other.

I’ve always thought that ‘It’s my life’ by Bon Jovi sounded exactly like ‘Larger than life’ by the Backstreet Boys, and a quick search on Wikipedia confirms that they’re both written by Max Martin who, as we all know, is most famous for ‘Baby one more time’. That doesn’t explain why it’s SUCH A TERRIBLE SONG though. Sucks to be Dana. As she says in the results show, “how was I not rocking? I was pumping my arm in the air!”. Oh, is that what rocking is? Right, I get it now.

Anji loves of the Toby, because she says it’s nice to have someone who is drama-free, but oh man, he’s just ugly, and that Australian accent is so put on in order to differentiate himself, and also, Soul Asylum, ‘Runaway train’? You can mime “call me!” at me all you like, Toby, but I’m never going to like you. You’re showing the band your emotions are you? Riiiight. Anji’s like “I like him because he’s a surfer” to which I text back “Surfers are responsible for Jack Johnson”. Enough said.

Magni is well suited to ‘Plush’, but to me, there’s something a little lacking. Maybe it’s because it’s almost identical to the original, which is fucking great, but where’s the Icelandicness in this?

Oh yeah that’s right, Zayra stole it, doing her best Bjork impression on ‘Everybody hurts’, which is that song that all news media ever plays when they do a story about suicide. Not to be crass or anything, but Zayra’s wailings, coupled with that seethrough sparkly sweater dress kind of make me want to jump off an overpass. Why did the band say they like it?

Jenny doing Incubus is adequate, but yaaaaaaaaaaawn, as Supernova tell her. Go back to the super short skirt, lady. Don’t worry, Sheryl Crow called to tell you that soon you’ll be gone and you can go and find yourself a one-balled biker too.

I decided on the bus this morning that Dilana is a lesbian (because yes, you’re allowed to make snap judgements of people’s sexuality like that. Honest), which makes her perfect for the band, because she won’t sleep with Tommy and therefore there’ll be some sexual tension, not sexual boredom. Girls in corsets are awesome. The Cranberries are pretty naff, but she does well with ‘Zombie’. It’s so going to be her or Lukas or Magni that wins overall. I can’t see anyone else in the role.

The elimination
Ryan is spot on when he says that Dana belongs on a pop show, but I really like that Dana did an unknown song. It does well for her. Zayra’s all like “I so can’t believe I am here” and I want to punch her in the face just a bit more. Josh IS DOING NIRVANA AGAIN AND IT MAKES ME SO ANGRY THAT I NEED TO BUST OUT THE CAPITAL LETTERS. Courtney, I know that rehab is expensive, but really, did you have to sell them the entire catelogue? Also, Josh makes me laugh because he’s been all “I hear you” to the musicians, and I recently had an amusing conversation with an incredibly cheesy boy who told me that you should always use an action verb appropriate to what the person you’re talking to does in order to build up trust, so if you’re talking to a painter you’d be like “I see what you’re saying” or a massage therapist would be “I feel what you’re saying” and a singer would be “I hear what you’re saying”, and oh the cheese of it all. Jenny doing STP looks like Avril Lavinge, and she is not fit enough to run around and sing at the same time. Anji and I both agree that it’s going to be Jenny that goes, and of course we’re right. A girl is not going to win this competition, unless she’s Dilana. Sorry Patrice, but I figure you’re in this like Marty Casey anyway – you’ve got your own thing going on and you want the publicity. I dig that, bro.

In the first song from their debut album, Art Brut set the record straight when singer Eddie Argos declares “And yes, this IS my singing voice, and it’s not irony”. What it is, however, is more talking than singing, something half way between The Streets and Arab Strap, with a little Jarvis Cocker thrown in.

The story-telling is fantastically over the top, with ‘Formed a Band’ talking of how they want to write a song that will make Israel and Palestine get along and ‘Emily Kane’ being a lament for a long lost first girlfriend, that he hopes to find through making the song so successful that school kids start chanting her name on buses. Meanwhile ‘Rusted Guns of Milan’ is a tribute to impotence, with Argos assuring his partner that they’re beautiful, and a chant-along chorus of “I know I can, I know I can”.

The music, meanwhile is danceable rock of the kind that the U.K is excelling in lately – think Kaiser and Franz, et all. You may have trouble dancing to it though because you might be rolling around on the floor going “oh it’s funny cos it’s true” instead. Rock Rock Bang Bang is a hilariously good time.
4/5

Pulp

So apparently if I want to talk nonstop all night and all the next day, I should do what I did on Friday again, which is accept Cinta’s challenge at work to stick a berocca in my mouth and let it disolve. I don’t understand why NZ has a P problem – why aren’t all the kids just doing this shit instead? Man I can fucking babble, and talk a lot of shit, as I did all the way through Havana, and Scopa and Good Luck. I mean I know I normally talk pretty much nothing but shit, especially I’m drinking, but not usually with quite that much speed or lack of ability to stop myself even though I could hear my talking in my head. On reflection though, I know I brought up at least a couple of intelligent conversational points. I just raced through them very quickly. I’d sent out a couple of texts about gaxy and a lack of shine, and then the gaxy made me feel even older when she was like “oh, I remember listening to this song (‘Forgot about Dre’) when I was 15″ – it came out in 2000, right? And then that was compounded when she was like “so have you finished your degree yet?” But then she called another girl a whore and I realised that we weren’t so very different after all and I laughed at myself a whole bunch. I also laughed when we were at Scopa and the boys went out to smoke, and I looked up to see one of them stopping the tourists who were trying to come in and demanding to see some ID. Drunk boys are hilarious (*).

On Friday I’d ordered the weather to be sunny, so I wasn’t too surprised when I woke up on Saturday to see that the weather was glorious. I still managed to have entertainers’ stress outs though when my phone started beeping with people cancelling, or saying they’d be late, or that they’d meet us at the venue. But I went and picked up Brad, and got changed into my outfit and started peeling kumara while he said he was finishing off my birthday party. He then ahemed me and I turned into the lounge to see him standing there IN A FUCKING BEAR SUIT and when he told me to turn off my music in the kitchen, he started up a Spiderbait song and performed a dance he’d choreographed especially for me, although it had some basis in his class assignment to create something you’d want done at your funeral. He danced and he danced and i just about died from smiling and the sheer total fucking awesomeness of it. And like that I was giddy all over again and I knew that the Caribbean would be awesome – and it truly truly was.

People showed up in various states of dress, and the boys who weren’t piratey enough were made to wear headscarves. The McLeod’s Daughters, meanwhile, were tarted up to all excellence:
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We had some RUM and some other forms of GROG, which mostly consisted of PIRATE BEER, and then Katy put my boots on for me when I discovered that I couldn’t put my boots on without revealing pretty much all of Mary-Kate and Ashley, and I felt like an incapacitated drunk, instead of a tipsy giggly pirate, and now on reflection what I should have done was just taken my boots to a different room. But nevermind. We loaded ourselves into the good ship Insanity, which in a previous life had been my parents’ van, and passed around more cans of pirate beer to those who wanted them. I have photos from the van, but no laptop, so therefore no photos. But I do have photos from pirate mini golf to show you though, from my parents’ camera:

My mummy and daddy, who enjoyed themselves hearrrrtily, I think. And who are also crazy.

Myself and Brad

Two thirds of the revellers (2/3 of the KKK and the other Jo were exploring the mega centre when we got there)

Par for the course. Heh.

So, it turns out I’m as bad at minigolf when I’m drunk as I am when I’m sober. I still got a hole-in-one out of the castle, but on some I got sixes. Nevermind. It was very hard to stop saying “yarr!” so I gave up and just continued to spit out terrible pirate jokes and say inappropriate things. I found also that zipping up my hoodie kept the twins under a little more control so I got less distracted. Minigolf is awesome. You should all go.

Then we drove back home, waving our cutlasses at Ash’s car, and I started cooking my Caribbean feast of “goat” curry, blackeyed beans, candied sweet potatoes, jerk chicken and yellow rice. I am fucking awesome. We made daquiris and other rum-based concoctions, and Mike and Chrisana and Lisa arrived. People rather disturbingly started deep-throating a cutlass handle. General revelry and rumbustification was had. It was fucking awesome and radness. And due to the amount of mangos in the daquiris, and staying up late playing records, I wasn’t that hungover the next day, hurray!

Instead I spent my day laughing at Bart and Smoo who’d been on a different, shinier eyed journey the night before, and cooking a roast family dinner (yes that’s right, I roasted a whole family), and rereading Microserfs and doing dishes and laundry. Clean, dry laundry! Oh happy day!

Then this morning I got up to watch the soccer, because Dave had a $50 bet on Italy and they won, and that was yayness. Although my whole view of Italians has been shaken by the revelation that my favourite hospitality person is apparently younger than me, went to Onslow and actually went out with LisaB. I was like “what? he’s so beautiful, how could i not have seen him around before?” so I am obviously going to have to find my yearbooks and do some investigating.

Auckland in two sleeps’ time, yay!

These thoughts are going to be really scattered.

So, I compared Matt to Michael Murphy earlier, but I really think his Duran Duran song was fucking awesome. But not what they wanted to hear.

And I don’t want to write up every single performance, but can I just say that Jill Goia is hideous, and that white dress was terrible, but Courtney Love is not wearing a white wedding dress on the cover of Live Through This. In fact, she’s not even on the fucking front cover. Dumbass Dave Navarro.

I want to start wearing eyeshadow like Lukas, but I don’t want to be him. It must be so hard to be homeless – I mean, where could you store your hair products? But I really like his version of ‘Don’t panic’, because I secretly like Coldplay, except for Chris Martin, so it’s nice to hear it sung rougher, and not as whiney, and without Gwyneth imagery.

Why the fuck were those people singing Creed and Tonic? Those are IDOL songs. Bah. And hearing Tonic twice was just super cruel. I suppose I need to try and remember that they don’t get to pick them, but still. They could like, rebel, storm the castle or something. Why are you repeating on us, producers? I expect better from you, Mr Burnett.

I don’t like Phil as a singer, but he seems pretty smart when he talks. Meanwhile, I want to punch Zahyra in the head. I didn’t think Toby’s ‘Somebody told me’ was all that exciting. I delivered a much better performance of it on Saturday night. But I was dressed in a corset, so that probably helped. I’m glad that Chris got booted, just because of the clothes that he wore – first he dresses exactly like Anthony Keidis and then he does a total Brandon Flowers. If these aren’t his choices, he should still stand up and fight’em.

Now I am in love with the reality episodes on the official website, because the whole point is seeing them bitch about each other and stuff. Go the internet!

Does anyone actually still care about NZ Idol anymore? No? Good! Then I can talk about Rockstar instead, and try to recap weekly. You know though that I’ll be comparing the two shows once NZ Idol gets started though, so you might as well get on board now.

First off: I loved the whole idea of Rockstar because I didn’t like INXS so I didn’t care about Michael turning over in his grave and choking himself some more. The idea of finding a singer for a new super group is a better one, I think, although I’m still surprised that Scott Weiland is still alive and that this isn’t Rockstar: Velvet Revolver.

I also need to let you know that ever since I read The Dirt I have wanted to sleep with Tommy Lee. I know he’s probably riddled with a thousand diseases, but I’m going to go with the theory that he’s got so many of them that they’d all get caught in the doorway together and I wouldn’t catch anything, and that’d be great. Yes, I know this makes me sick and wrong and just full of self hatred, but I can’t help it. That’s why I was happy when he appeared looking so old and haggard, I was like “yay, I don’t actually want to sleep with him at all!” And then he proceeded to sit cross-legged and for some reason that really turned me on. Distuuuuuuuuurbing. Gilby Clark looks like he’s one of the three musketeers, but he’s surprisingly articulate. And Jason Mewsted, well, he’s from Metallica. And that whiney Emo-looking producer, well, bah to him I say. Also: It’s good to know that Brooke Burke is still totally and utterly fug. And Dave Navaro looks like a white Prince. He needs to stop tweezing his eyebrows. Now on to the performers:

Storm – ‘Pinball Wizard’by The Who: I’ve been listening to The Who a bit lately, on account of stealing my parents’ copy of Tommy and going “what the fuck? this doesn’t sound like the one in Almost Famous!” because they’ve got the big orchestral version, but Lisa put me right with her different copy. I feel it’s important to tell you this. But back to the recap. Her boobs look faaaaaaake, and while that might be fine for the Pussy Cat Dolls, it’s just not rock’n roll to me. And I don’t like the way she swallows the word ‘pinball’, because that’s the whole point of the song so she should emphasize it more. But it’s okay.

Ryan – ‘Iris’ by the Goo Goo Dolls: I know someone who tried out for Rockstar in Auckland, who will remain nameless because he swore me to secrecy over the fact that this was his audition song, but I laughed a lot then and I laughed a lot when this guy sang too. Not impressed with the song, not impressed with Ryan. But now I’ve pretty much forgotten him.

Toby – ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’: Toby is Australian, so cue many cringy “G’day mate” type comments from Tommy. Toby’s performance is accoustic, and it’s pretty good, although I’m not a fan of this song. Given the GNR cover, Toby must have some balls to play this in front of Gilby, as is noted. Oh, and I liked the cross-legged sitting thing too. What the hell is wrong with me? Maybe I spent too long in Japan.

Patrice – ‘Somebody to love’ by Jefferson Airplane: I dig on this song an awful lot, so despite Patrice’s tacky string top, this is possibly my favourite performance of the night.

Magni – ‘Satisfaction’ by the Rolling Stones’: When Magni introduces himself as one of the top 10 most recognisable singers in Iceland, I start on a path of “aren’t there only 100,000 people there anyway?” chain of thoughts in my head, and start wondering if he’s the lead singer in the Rasmus, and then I remember that they’re from Finland, and then I think that maybe he’s in HIM but they’re also from Finland, and then I think that maybe he’s from Sigur Ros and that thought makes me laugh and laugh, but not too much to notice that he’s got an awesome voice, but seriously dude, stop big-upping yourself cos you’re a fucking looooooooser. And also a tighter as well. Heh.

Zayra – ‘Bring me to life’ by Evanescense: I was making popcorn when she did her piece to camera, so did I miss something – is she like, from a wacky foreign language speaking country? And is Dave Navarro? Wacky. You know that I secretly love people on Idol singing Evanescense, but why for the love of god when you could do any song in the world cos you’re not appealling so much to the 8 year old audience would you pick this monstrostity? Especially when she can’t even hit the notes and sounds out of breath? And isn’t Jason already married when he asks her to marry him?

At this point I’d like to ask you how many of the girls Tommy’s already slept with.

Jenny – ‘How you remind me’ by the ugliest band in the world: Note to Jenny: it’s a good idea to wear a skirt that’s longer than your guitar, if you want to be taken seriously. Now I feel bad because I’m just criticising the girls’ wardrobes and not the boys’, and where has the girl power in me gone? After all, I hate this song so passionately that I should want to bludgeon every man in the world to death with his own foot just in case he turns out to be Chad Kruger. Stupid Canadians from Canadia.

Josh – ‘She Talks to Angels’ by the Black Crows: When Josh wears his cap he looks like JD and when he sings he sounds like Maroon 5. What a winning combination. I don’t think he really has any idea what soul is.

Matt – ‘Yellow’ by Coldplay: hey, who said Michael Murphy would never get anywhere in life? Look at him all up there on stage. Aww. Guys called Matt don’t live in the real world. I don’t anticipate this guy being around all that long. However, he’s one of few people to sing any kind of contemporary song, and that worked out pretty well for Marty Casey, as you may recall…

Dilana – ‘Lithium’ by Nirvana: I’m pretty much not that keen on anyone who starts out whining about their hardluck stories, and I texted Anji going “Didn’t Jordis fucking ROCK at this song? Why would she do it?” and I’m a little bit like “oh please, you’re so unnatural” as Dilana stands there looking all Intense And Brooding And Powerful ™. But then I realised that hey, she looks just like Angry Ginger Spice and I’m a little more liking of her.

Dana – ‘The Only One’ by Melissa Etheridge: And again with the doubling up of songs! I can’t remember the name of the Rockstar wannabe who sang this last year, except that she was blonde and wearing brown suede pants and she did it pretty well. Dana interviews about being a good sweet southern girl, and I bet that Tommy Lee’s already busting out his rophys.

Phil – ‘Cult of Personality’ by Living Colour: NO NO NO NO NO! Why the FUCK would he pick this song? Ty sang this, and when Ty was on, he was on. It was definitely a stand-out performance, so I can’t understand why Phil would think we’d forgotten that and wouldn’t compare. I mean, it’s not like Phil’s even trying to play the token black card by picking token black songs. Anji texts that he looks like Jarvis Cocker. This really is not good.

Jill – ‘Piece of my heart’ by Janis Joplin’: Jill is apparently 4’11, and she looks haaaaaaaaggard, like she’s 45 at least and totally muttony. Plus she’s the same height as Dave Navarro, right? She looks like Shakira, and shakes like Shakira, but she sings pretty well. I don’t think she’s a rockstar, but I bet she makes karaoke nights on Long Island more interesting.

chris – ‘Roxanne’ by the Police: Chris is wearing reaaaaally nice tight black pants, but the striped shirt and tie are a little too Anthony Kiedas for my liking. Plus he makes what’s actually an awesome song despite it being by Sting really incredibly bland. It’s like 48 May boiled down into a one-man flavourless jus. It’s nice to see someone being told that they sucked after all the heaping praises.

Lucas – ‘Rebel Yell’ by Billy Idol: Oh how I want to hate Lucas with his stupid white tuxedo jacket and make-up and his “I live on the streets, maaaaaan”, cos isn’t that what JD said, but then it’s so synthy, and you can’t even understand half of what he’s singing, but I don’t care, because it’s fun and it’s a performance and so it was a good note to end on.

Who’s going to go? Chris or Phil, I’d say. Fingers crossed. No one deserved my 99 cents on a text. There was no one that I instantly loved like Jordis. But then again, Marty made me cry twice last year and I didn’t like him at all at first, so we’ll see how it goes. Good times.

Now give me your thoughts and feelings, please…

This whole not having a computer at home thing is pretty sucking. I mean, I can check my emails on Smoo’s computer (which is actually my old one), but it’s at a funny low table, and the monitor is 14 inches, and I asked him if I could rifle through his panty drawer while I was in there, and he said he didn’t have a panty drawer; he has a panty floor. So you can understand why I might not be so keen to do that.

And I’ve been crazy-busy at work too! On Monday and Tuesday I went to Moodle Moot 2006 up at Vic Uni, which is every bit as geeky as it sounds, but parts of it were actually interesting, and important for me to learn. And I got sandwiches. And felt like puking when I went into the Student Union building (and then I laughed because I spent so long wondering why some of the people there didn’t like me, until I realised that actually, maybe it had something to do with me actually not liking them, actually). For the past couple of months at work I have made the mistake of saying “I need some more work! I need some more work”, and now all of a sudden I’ve had four projects dumped on me. One of them involves becoming an expert in Moodle pretty much last week. Awesome. Another involves me actually project-managing various things. Luckily most of what I need to manage is myself, and I’m crap totally awesome at that. Honest. You should see how on-to-it my project plans are, if by that I mean “what project plans?”. Come back Peti, all is forgiven! Even if the temporary scheduler has declared that I am her favourite project mananger on account of how I’m not asking for any resources ever.

Current things apart from Moodle that are high on my list of things in my brain right now is about a thousand tons of MSG from lunchtime yum cha with Cinta and Dave (“Oh, they’re white people, well I suppose we’d better bring out the deep fried stuff”), a thousand tons of bad pirate jokes for Saturday, and a bunch of anxiety about the weather and the likelihood of playing mini golf not being very high, and also stressing about whether or not people will actually come to the Caribbean, and thinking about how much cleaning I have to do before then, and how much money and time I’ve spent on food for the event and oh oh oh, I’m just typing way too quickly now because I need to have this entry finished in four minutes so I can make it home and put on my pjs and do some cleaning and also rejoice in the glory that is Rockstar being back on TV.

I had other things to tell you, no doubt, but I can’t remember for the life of me what they were. Oh yes, I’m going to be in Auckland on Wednesday-Sunday, and I’d like to hang out. I’d also like someone to go to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs with since Lisa can’t make it. I mean, I can go by myself, of course, but it’d be nice not to have to.

Oh, and one of my other new workmates knows Annabel. Damn small world.

So you know how I said that I’d try to update every day this week? Well, okay, so I’ve royally sucked at that. But it’s not my fault! Anji blew up my computer on Tuesday night when she was over to watch The Amazing Race so I couldn’t. So that’s what I’ll be doing this weekend – trying to track down my warranty and a place to take my computer to, which hopefully won’t involve driving out to Johnsonville where I originally bought the computer.