Hubris.co.nz

On Thursday night I had my first summer ale and then yesterday I had my first swim of the summer. Around 1am. At Oriental Parade. In my panties. With my now ex workmates and Bart. It was awesome, and not very warm. Luckily the booze in me kept me warm.

Today, consequently, has been rather slow. I spent a couple of hours at Elements in Lyall Bay eating, drinking latte bowls and reading the paper very very slowly. Now there’s been Thai takeaway and Fred Prinze Jnr movies on the television. And my laptop that I picked up from the shop last weekend is STILL ticking and overheating, but I know that htey must have done something to it because now it says ‘Packard Bell’ on the screen the second time I turn it on. It’s an NEC though. And I say second time because the screen stays blank the first time, every time. Good times.

What else should I talk about? I can’t start my new job yet because my security clearence still hasn’t finished. This is a good thing though because it means I get to have a couple of days off first, wahoo! I can go buy some fancy schmancy clothes to match my fancy schmancy new offices down Lambton Quay way. I’m proud of myself for running around in my underwear last night. It makes me feel more prepared for New Year’s, and it also reminds me of the good times skinny-dipping in KateM’s dad’s pool with not a care in the world, or the olden days when I was regularly doing bad things with bad people when I’d get up and walk around the house butt naked and go read magazines in the lounge – if I knew Clayton was out, of course. Or open the curtains if morning sex was to be had, for the benefit of people in the office building across the road. Heh. My self esteem has been very weird lately, I had some total wigginsing on Thursday night, even though I knew at the time I was just being a dork. If only I’d never gone to that damn talk about Myspace!

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Now it’s Sunday, and today would have been Oma and Opa’s 60th anniversay. To celebrate, we got together at my parents’ house and scattered their ashes together around a magnolia tree we planted. That sentence does nothing to describe the comedy of errors that the occasion actually was, with the unmowed lawn all wet and long, and the bugs biting me. The containers with the ashes in them didn’t want to come open for a long long time, until finally Cousin Andrea cleverly pointed out that there were latches on the bottom that could be open and the ashes shaken out. There is something a little bit strange about shaking out your grandparents like salt and pepper, passing the containers around so that everyone could have some time with each of them. But the tree – once we managed to get it staked – is really pretty, and I think it was a nice thing to do. Afterwards, we watched super8 home movies that my parents, my uncle and Oma had all shot in the seventies. The clothes were fabulous, and we were all such fucking cute kids (yes, I wasn’t alive in the seventies, but I whined enough that we got out some ’80s footage too). Mum and Aunt Diz were running around in bikinis and looked hot. My dad was in a floral speedo and despite his womanly hips he still had a good body too. Also, eww, did I just say that? The whole effect was a litle bit like watching many many L&P ads. Or perhaps looking at current fashions. Or super 8 footage played behind the Phoenix Foundation…

I also grabbed Deuchlandriser, which is a board game in which you travel around Germany, and also some large beer mugs. Germany is on October 14, the day after Dimmer, and I’m so very happy because Jessie may be at it. And also I’m very happy that I will finally get to see Dimmer. Assuming that it hasn’t sold out yet. Woo!

Oh, and one more thing that I wanted to talk about was how nice the goodbye speeches for me were, and how genuine they seemed. And also, the best part about them was that they were surprisingly similar to my answers in many job interviews lately about what others would say about me – my ridiculously large banks of trivia in my head, my dry wit and my social skills. If I hadn’t put my card in Bart’s backpack along with my purloined coffee cup (shoosh!), I’d put in actual quotes. But yes, very very good times were had. And everyone who left their computers on will be looking at my face when they get to work as their desktop image…

Little things that make me happy

1. My kitchen is all sorted out now. This was a bigger task than you might think, given that we are now officially (OFFICIALLY) the coolest flat in town with two fridges and a full-length freezer. Badoom Chish.

2. My books, also, are all sorted out on a new tall black bookshelf that Briar brought with her but won’t be using because she said she’s not really in to books. And they’re all alphabetical, and chronological by author, and it makes me happy. Except when they’re all sorted out like that I can tell instantly how many of my Douglas Couplands have been appropriated by evil borrowing fiends, and that makes me sad.

3. The leaving beads around my neck (three more sleeps!) go really well with my black and white striped top. An emo is I!

4. Now I don’t have to worry about any more job interviews, I can finally get my hair striped blue-black/aubergine. But I need to get it cut first, since while Anji’s trim looked good at the time, the bluntness of those scissors has left me more split-ended than ever.

Big things that make me happy

1. It’s less than a month until I go to America. Fuck Yeah! Suggestions for what to do with myself in New York and San Francisco will be gratefully accepted.

2. It’s five sleeps until I start my new job!* I’m going to be Helping People. Or at least the government body that I will be working for will be. I will be its web coordinator for six months. And I will make more money than here. I will, however, be far away from Contours so I might have to join a gym down that end of town. Any suggestions?

*Contingent on my passing security clearence, that is. The form was about 30 pages long, and wanted to know such things as addresses of where I’d lived overseas, details about where everyone in my family works and where they were born and their nationalities, stuff about my flatmates, everywhere I’ve been overseas, my religious affiliations if my ties

At the Phoenix Foundation gig on Friday night, after I’d yawned my way through Cassette and found myself waiting for Magni to come on stage (yes, I’m obsessed), there were a lot of people talking. So much so, during the quiet under the ocean song, that I actually turned around to the British wanker behind me who was droning on about what a good song it was and how Kiwi it sounded and said “you know what makes this song even more awesome? Not TALKING THROUGH IT”. They gave me evil looks, but then straight after that Scott dedicated ‘Nest Egg’ to everyone who didn’t talk through it. Shout outs! Radsville. The gig made my feet hurt for a long time though and I was disgusted with myself because I found myself racially profiling taxi drivers on my way home since I didn’t know which company the skeezy guy last week worked for and I wanted to make sure I avoided him.

I felt not unlike this on Saturday. Almost everyone had a reason – although many of those reasons were “I’m too hungover/tired” but the fact that not a single person from the tripleK came to our party made me more than a little unhappy. Yes, I have too many parties, and timing was off, and they’re not responsible for my insecurities, and I’m just being a dick, but ouch. Still, mad props must go to those who did actually make it, and I had a thoroughly amusing time, most of which seemed to be spent talking about circumcision. And distributing 105 vodka jelly shots. And the house didn’t get trashed, and I didn’t punch Bart in the face again (in my defense, he apparently asked me to, and I said that I didn’t hit boys with glasses so he took them off – you can’t get more asking for it than that, except of course if you have the misfortune to be a woman), so that’s got to be good, right?

I have yet to find a job, but I have found a bach for the tripleK for New Year’s, and I have found a flatmate, so that’s 2/3 and we know how Meatloaf feels about that. And he was in the greatest movie ever made, which we may watch when we do the UK for Country Club, assuming I still keep doing Country Club, which I’m sure I will as soon as I do some cardio and shake off this funk, and so therefore it must be okay.

I am looking forward to the summer, especially the four nights that will be spent in the Orongorongos. It’s also only FIVE WEEKS til I go to the States. I think I’m going to buy a new mp3 player before I go, just a 1gb $99 one that I can give to Karen for Xmas afterwards maybe, or keep because it’s got a dictaphone built in. Assuming I’ll actually get my laptop back before I go, of course. Bah. Both the dictaphone and the laptop are essential for my New Master Plan. There’s a part of me that thinks that knowing your opinion on 101 is also important (and maybe I’ll find out in 2009), but that’s probably also the part that listens to Lukas singing “you make my head spoon” and enjoys it – ie the twelve year old inside of me. And yes, maybe I should let her free, but if it’s good enough for the Czechs then it’s good enough for me. Or was it the Austrians? I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore.

EDIT: Maree had a baby! A girl named Isla. Awwwwwwwww!p

Right now I am looking for these things:

1. A new job. They announced my resignation at work so I get to wear the leaving beads now. The leaving beads look like Mardi Gras beads but I’m pretty sure I haven’t shown my boobs to anyone here at work in order to earn them. Unless there is actually a camera in the hole in the ceiling in the bathroom. I’m looking for writing/editing/web/communications type work, so lemme know if you hear of anything that’s going.

2. A new flatmate. Bart’s going off to find new adventures on the other side of the tunnel, so if you know of someone who’d like to live in Sunny Hataitai and pay $120 a week for a good room in a great house with Smoo and Seb and I, then please do send them in my direction. The ad is up here if you want to perve at photos of our lounge and dining room.

3. A bach to stay at over New Year’s eve. There will be six or more of us, and we want to be close-ish to Wellington and on a beach. Yes I know we left it kind of late.

4. People to party with at our ‘Meat Market vs Bart’s Goodbye’ party. It’s on Saturday, and it should be fun, and you should come, and you should bring some people we haven’t met before.

Things that I have done lately that have been of some sort of note:

1. Looked for jobs.

2. Looked for flatmates

3. LiveAid for Africa – despite its sparse attendence we raised $100 which was enough to buy two chickens, two AIDs awareness kits, some farmer training and soap for ten families. Go us. You can see some photos of the events in my flickr space, but if you are too lazy to click a link, here’s a photo:

4. The drum & the bass. At a party, and then at Indigo San Frindigo Bathhouse on Saturday night. I had forgotten how much fun it could be. I especially liked the guy who bumped me, and then went to pat my shoulder in apology but grabbed my boob instead and so we had an “it’s okay dude” hug. I was somewhat less fond of my taxi driver who seemed to mistake my slight interest in why he chose NZ instead of Norway as a refugee as interest in him, and decided to ask me out for a drink then and there. At 4am. Really really inappropriate and sleazy, and it made me feel so uncomfortable that I got him to stop a half block from my house.

5. Dinner parties. Food Baby was at my house last week, and so I went with my staple beef burgandy and mashed potatos. Last night I went to a potluck dinner for Lisa Fur‘s birthday, and I made apple crumble. Another one of her friends had made a crumble too, but mine was better. Heh.

6. Had my last boxing lesson. I want to do more, but my trainer’s having a shoulder operation (as if I didn’t already feel bad enough about punching towards a tiny little blonde girl), and I have to control my finances (sort of) until I get a new job, and then my membership is up in November, and while I will be continuing to go to the gym, my new job location might dictate somewhat the gym that I join. So it is all to be confirmed later.

7. Obsessed over Rockstar: Supernova. I don’t know what I’m going to do after Thursday when it’s all over.

Reality / Performance / Results

Reality

Previously on Rockstar I lost all respect for Gilby and instead fell in love with Jason when he cried as Storm sang ‘Wish You were here’ and I cried then too, and then cried when Storm was kicked out. And then I spent the week listening to Storm and Lukas’s originals.

We’re all voting for Magni this week, right? But not because we want him to win, but rather that we’re buying into the conspiracy that T’Lee hates him and we want to piss off T’Lee.

Toby says he can’t believe he’s got a car, and according to the internets, somewhere Mig is saying “you know what, I never got my car”. The rockers talk about Storm, and it makes me sad, but then Dilana is interviewed and I get angry again and want to give her a double jab, cross, jab, right uppercut. Magni goes over to the piano and starts playing ‘Karma Police’ and Dilana comes over and starts rasping with him and I’m like “SHUT UP BITCH” but then luckily Toby slips her a pie and so she shoves it in Magni’s face. And I won’t talk about how much I’d like to lick him clean again because I don’t want to cheapen him.

But oooh, speaking of Mig, he shows up to give Toby the keys to his HONDA ELEMENT. Because what the world.. needs now… is S. U. Vs. They’re the only thing that can kill… all the trees. Hehehe. Mig forever shatters the stereotype of Australians being dumb by saying “One of you is going to be the lead singer of Supernova…. but three of you aren’t”. That’s some smooth mathing, Mig. But then he proves why Rockstar is a thousand times better than Idol, by also warning them that they’re not very likely to get record contracts just like that. Oooh but he signed with Universal and his album is going to be out in January 2007. Nice plug there.

Lukas interviews that as soon as Mig said “you might not win” he switches off his mind because he wouldn’t have come here if he didn’t want second place. Toby says “I won a car!” like he no longer cares about winning, which is funny because he’s the only one I can really see fitting into Supernova. Plus as the forums have cackled, Lukas couldn’t win the car because even an SUV isn’t big enough to fit in his ego.

The rockers then go crazy because their photos are hanging in the song selection room. Toby’s, naturally is one of him surrounded by girls. He says to Magni “She’s from Melbourne” and Magni’s all “How do you know that?” and Toby says her name is Ashley. Magni incredulously is like “Oh my god, you know their names!” like Toby is a total horn dog into the groupies or something (fact: he’s the only single person in the house, apparently, although Ryan started big rumours of a relationship going on with a girl who had a partner and someone else. Many speculate it was Lukas and Patrice, although she had a girlfriend. I like to picture IceStorm/Stagni but have too much respect for both of them to think it’s true. Let’s move on).

Dilana says their pictures captured their personalities. Oh really? Cos I thought that pictures capture the soul. Magni says the pictures are more important than the cars and clothes and phones that they got (and he avoids product placement), while Toby laughs at Lukas’s fishmouth in the picture and says it’s humanly impossible. Heee!

For song selection, they’re singing their originals again, and then they get to choose through the whole music library of the season. As Paul said, the house band have had to learn 200 songs for the season. <3. They're so awesome. Anyway, as the rockers read out the names of the songs they remember all the ones who have left, such as Magni saying "Duran Duran anyone? Matt, I still love you!" and calling Phil crazy, and Dilana telling Toby that if he's going to sing 'Jenny 7568' he has to wear the outfit, and Toby's like "Pffffft (evs) yeah totally". Hehe, I'd like to see that. And they laugh about 'Born to mild', and then I almost wet myself at Magni's impression of Lukas singing 'Don't Panic'. Lukas, however, does not look nearly as impressed. Hahah suck it, Lukass.

Oh, then they find four new songs that haven't been played yet, including 'Fix You', which is of course O.C soundtrack music, and I have a special kind of hate in my heart for that song, because just before Xmas my Oma died, and while Anji and I were sitting at the hospital with her waiting for the rest of the family to show up, and I’d already been feeling like a TV show – specifically Willow in ‘The Body’ episode of Buffy freaking out about how I was in a singlet and sunburnt and it was so undignified, I heard ‘Fix you’ drifting in from a radio somewhere, and I was Not. Happy about the soundtracking of my real life.

But we will ignore that in favour of going squee at Magni singing ‘Comfortably Numb’ with his accoustic guitar. And now Dilana and Lukas are both wanting it. Magni’s like “we have 150 songs and everyone’s fighting over one”. Magni pushes ‘Fix you’ towards Lukas and starts strumming, and they sing, and Lukas gives ‘Comfortably Numb’ to Dilana. And then he interviews “if you can’t sing any song – and literally we had every song, then why are you here?”. Literally. Every song. Ever. I would have liked to see him bust out ‘Tu teramai nga iwi’ if that’s that case, but EVS. And then of course Dilana decides she wants to go for ‘Roxanne’, which of course Chris fucked up so bad at the start of the season that it became the new JD doing ‘We are the champions’. Dilana singing ‘Roxanne’ sounds okay, but mostly because Magni’s in the shot playing his guitar. And so no one sings ‘Comfortably Numb’ – and I think I agree with a poster on the TWOP forum who hypothesizes that Dilana has never actually heard the song in the first place. Except for maybe the Scissor Sisters version. And then Dilana decides she’s super proud of herself and her supersoul because at the start of the season she wouldn’t have taken that song.

And after Lukas sang ‘Headspin’ (which I think is not a very nice song) about his mother, he’s singing ‘Fix You’ for his father, and hopes he’ll see it and the song will fix their relationship. Riiiight. Dilana meanwhile is doing an unplugged version of ‘Roxanne’, saying that Chris rearranged it and fucked it up and she’s not going to do that. And we get an interview with Paul who is struuuuggling to remain diplomatic while basically saying she’s a total fuckwit. He conveys that with a “………. I personally don’t really care for her arrangement, but music is a subjective thing”. Dilana, of course, however, interviews “if I get crucified for my arrangement, then whoever crucifies me for it needs their head read, because it’s stunning the way I’m doing it”. Hey interwebs, let’s grab a hammer and some nails eh?

Over audio of Toby singing ‘Karma Police’ Magni says he’ll miss the guys in the house, but he misses the people back home. So i guess he’s packed his bags and isn’t expecting to win then? Dilana’s all “they’re the family I never had!” which is why she’s fucked up so badly I suppose. Lukas says it’s all overwhelming man, in just a few days man. Toby folds up his Australian flag. I just figured out that he’s actually Colby from Survivor. And then there’s a long shot of them all leaning on their guitars looking at the pool. And we only hear Lukas and Toby talking about how they might win this thing. Hmm….

Performance

First, an announcement. I’m going out to Food Baby tonight, as I generally do on Thursdays, so please don’t text me spoilers. Please please please.

Second. I want Toby to win. I want this because he’s the best fit, and because I want to piss off Dilana. I want Magni to come third, because I want to piss off T’Lee, and also because I want him to get the credit he deserves. I want the band to just ‘fess up about how they don’t want a chick singer and just send Dilana home first. And if you want another reason to laugh at Dilana, check out her solo video.

Third, the performance show! We get some oh no not at all biased cut (it skims and hugs all your curves!) footage of the rockers’ journeys to the final four, mentioning Magni’s two trips to the bottom 3 and implying that he only got his groove on when he did ‘Fire’ (umm, hell the fuck o, what about ‘Dolphin’s Cry’? Bitch made me cry. Or even that he got the encore in Week 3), but saying that Dilana went from strength to strength. Riiight. And Toby gets a buildup story, while Lukas has a reigning champion type one, although I think those actual words were used to describe Dilanadrama, not him.

But before we get down to them actually singing, we get a special encore performance voted for by people with VERIZON WIRELESS CELLPHONES. And while I was hoping for Matt or Dana, and the TWOP forums were calling for Zayra, it just so happens that Mark Burnett is producing a certain R.Star’s record, and so of course, it’s Ryan who comes back to announce that he’s put out an album called Dark Horse. OH. MY. FUCKING. GOD. This man thinks that irony is that thing on the periodic table represented by FE. After a pukey pukey “thanks for this amazing oppotunity Supernova” speech as if he didn’t make the goodbye that he did, he sings ‘Back of your HONDA ELEMENT’. For the first time (because um, i haven’t listened to this song a fuckload or anything. Ahem), I realise that he’s singing about having the sexing with a lady in the back of her car, and yet he’s singing “you won’t be sad, but you won’t be satisfied”. Ha HA! I suppose at least he’s honest. Maybe more people should use that as a pick-up style. “Hey baby, you wanna come home with me? I’ll tweak your nipples like they’re a volume dial, make a couple of cursory stabs at your vag with me fingers and then stick my cock in, pump for about thirty seconds then collapse on top of you. It’ll be AWESOME!”. And Ryan gets a car too, and it appears that Lizzie Grubman did the PR for this show, since the car is parked in the middle of the audience. Hahah, seriously, this recap is very funny today, with that and the bias cut joke. I’m on fire. And I’m not just talking about my loins every time that Magni is on stage.

Once we return from the ads, Toby does ‘Karma Police’ and I’m like meh, this is like a singalong around a camp fire. But then Magni joins him on guitar for the oh oh oh oh song, and, as the TWOPers say, it is a performance full of what they term ‘HoYay’ or “hurrah for homosexual undertones” as Toby cuddles up to Magni to sing and write “EVS” on the back of his head. Gilby talks about the energy that Toby brings to the stage and Dave also gives him a tongue bathing. And the person in the audience holding up a “Rand Wagon!” sign makes me both throw up a little in my mouth and wet my panties in delight at the stupid but perfectness of it as a team name. And speaking of throwing up in my mouth, Paula FUCKING Abdul is sitting in the audience, and gets cut to quite often, leading Dave to say “And Paula’s here to see some real singing” – and perhaps to teach the rockers how to slur all their words. Of course, Lukas will have a headstart on that bit…

Lukas sings ‘Fix You’ and my feelings about this song have already been discussed. He cuts the really high part short to progress the song quicker to the rockier bit, and in parts he actually uses his singing voice rather than his growly voice, so it’s okay, but not outstanding. A forum poster pointed us to a myspace page of a woman who claims to be his vocal coach, who says that people who drop their jaws are more likely to damage their vocal chords, so it’s possible that he’s all conflicted, but who knows? He sings ‘Headspin’ with just an accoustic guitar, and while he sings a little better than previously, I really miss the rolling drum and the guitar parts of the myspace version of it.

And now let’s just take a moment to talk about that myspace page. I mean, it’s what the kids are down with, right? And so therefore should be a pretty good way to tell what the kids are into. So on Lukas’s band Rise Electric’s page, ‘Headspin’ has been played 36,373 times. That’s pretty sweet, even if 20 of them were me. But Toby’s Juke Kartel page shows that his song ‘Throw it all away’ has been played 45,862 times. But you know who has more than three times the number of plays than Toby, which sort of disproves the Mark Burnett conspiracy theory and supports him as a guy who’s somewhat on to it? Ryan on 159,854 plays. So Ryan’s top of the Rockstar game, right? Oh wait, hang on, there’s also a certain Miss Storm, whose ‘R’ rated version of ‘Ladylike’ has racked up 114,507 plays. Wait a minute, you’re saying, 114,507 < 159,854? Well how about the motherfucking TWO HUNDRED AND FORTY SIX THOUSAND ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE plays that the 'G' version has had? 360,682 > all the rest put together. Suck a fuck, Gilby Clark.

(We will be very quiet about the fact that the A M?ti S?l page shows only 18 plays of some random pop song that has parts that sound like ‘Luka’ and the rest is insanely sunny and just odd. It’s in fricking Viking after all…)

Remember how Dilana tore a calf muscle? She certainly doesn’t want you to forget it, as she makes sure she has a cane in sight whenever she’s sitting down. And yet, somehow as she performs, she can walk all over the place just fine and do her high kicks. (A TWOP poster says “I figure it’s like the end of Attack of the Clones, when Yoda hobbles in on his cane and he goes, “Count Dooku, calling you out I am.” And Count Dooku goes, “Bring it, beeyotch.” Then Yoda ditches his cane and pulls out his little green lightsaber and goes nuts.” Heee! Although I’m not a Star Wars geek, obvs.) I really really wish she wasn’t doing those kicks, and it’s not just because they’re dumb. Oh no. Tonight she’s wearing a dress that’s cut so I can see out of her nose. Up her vaginal passage. And you know that’s going to be an acidic journey to take. Shudder. Dilana of course sings better ‘Roxanne’ better than Chris did, even though it was pretty uncool of her to say so, and gives us a HoYay! moment with all the boys on backing. One of Supernova tells her that it was smart to make them her backing band, and she makes a face like “Damn, I wish I’d thought of that”. And then before she sings ‘Supersoul’ she impassionately says “This song is not a rebel song. This song is ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’” “this is not an angry song, it’s a freedom song” and everyone’s like oh yeah that’s right, we totally didn’t see you say that you wanted to write a fuck you to your fans and control alt delete them”. and she gets a tongue bathing that makes me nauseous.

Magni’s appearence on stage just makes me giggly and smiley and I lean forward to pay special attention and just bask in his glow because of his awesomeness and the way he just seems to be totally a part of the House Band. I know that they play extra specially hard for him because they feel his musicianship, and then I fantasize about them ‘feeling his musicianship’ as him and Rafel duel and have even more HoYay when they play each other’s guitars as he storms his way through ‘Hush’ by Deep Purple and Gilby looks on like “oh, is that what a good guitar play looks like? I must make a note of that”. His performance is utterly electrical, and so so natural. I can’t gush about it enough. His original grips me a lot more this time too, but then of course his number one hater T’Lee is like “I can’t even remember a single line of that”. Really T’Lee? Because I can’t remember a single supernova song, or a Motley Crue one other than ‘Girls Girls Girls’ and ‘Dr Feelgood’. You are so off my list of people that I want to catch veneral diseases from. And just for that, I spent half an hour voting for Magni online. I love you Magni. I hope you come here with the House Band. That’d be awesome. But of course, he will be the next to go home. Jason pretty much said so at the end with his “thank you for your closing performances tonight” speech. Waah.

Reality / Performance / Results

Results

Okay, here we go, Russell.

So. That was emotional. No really. I was expecting to watch Rockstar on tape after the usual Thursday Food Baby with many bottles of wine, but because Helen and Katy have been so busy lately with Real Hot Bitches lately, it got cancelled. So I took my red wine and my unset chocolate mousse (I overwhipped the cream and it started to seperate. Normally our family’s chocolate mousse is so sex that when I post the recipe I’m going to have to lock it down to Level 2 because of the indecent content) spilling all over the car seat to Anji’s house, via massive traffic jams through the Hataitai tunnel and a total lack of parking near Domino’s. I was having a very bad stomach pain day too, and when I got to her house the people who were moving in since she’s moving out were showing people through the house and they were talking and talking and it was a reminder of how much I need a flatmate so I was like aaaaaaaaaaaargh anyway and was close to having an anxiety attack and I was in a filthy bad mood. I appreciate this is supposed to be a rockstar recap, but I want to demonstrate the emotional state that I was in before we got started. Okay? Okay.

Now, I spent far too much time yesterday checking out previous Rockstar performances on Youtube, which has the advantage of not only showing the fucking annoying VERIZON WIRELESS commercials before every clip but also including the judges’ comments. You should look up Jordis doing ‘Baba O’Reilly’, which was the very first song performed and the one that told us that there was actually going to be some talent in this show. In fact, I was feeling so fucking nostalgic already I even watched Zayra singing ‘Jenny’ again. Yes, it’s been an obsessive winter. And that obsessiveness was enough to observe that Brooke was wearing the same marijuana leaf dress again, which means that the programme we were watching must have been taped on the Sunday along with the performances. Of course, the fact that in NZ we had a two hour finale, while in Australia it was 90 minutes and in the USA only one hour should have clued us in to the fact that we were just going to be getting a retread of what has happened over the season. This time though it was cut a little less biasedly. And I get to laugh at my bias cut joke again, and point out that if you didn’t know who Lizzie Grubman was in my previous recap you might not have appreciated that she was a PR bitch who drove her SUV through the crowd waiting outside a nightclub in the Hamptons. Um, not that I’m also obsessed with Gawker or anything, oh no.

Anyway, so we get a whole hour of nostalgia and me screaming “TAKE SOME FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR FUCKING OWN ACTIONS DILANA! This shit isn’t just happening to you, you’re causing it.” And like Willow in ‘Graduation Part I’ I even went “awww” at people I had disliked in the past, like Zayra. Anji tried to say that Patrice showed herself to be a catty bitch, but I don’t believe that’s the case. After all, she’s a lesbian. Although she pashed a boy in Vegas. Evs. Haha, speaking of evs, who else caught Lukas saying it really early on when they were writing songs together in groups? It’s weird to look back not just on the rockers but also on what I wrote about them at the time. I’m so sorry for implying that Magni was a member of HIM. How could I ever have doubted him?

And so we come to the actual hour and Brooke has changed her dress, and the set looks a bit different, like they’ve actually moved back to the Mayan theatre that they pretend they’ve been filming in all along. Except that at the start of the series Supernova didn’t look so fucking bored. And Butch Walker was there before he got pissed off about his helpful comments being edited out and refused to come on the show anymore although apparently he’ll still be working on the album. A producer called Butch? How do they expect to sell any records with a name like that eh?

Brooke tells us that Toby, Magni and Lukas were all in the bottom three at some stage. I’d just like to say that I am NOT. HAPPY about the amount of eye liner Toby has started to wear and Anji says that even Magni is wearing it, but I ignore her. Lukas, meanwhile has found for himself at the bottom of a box in an op shop in Eketahuna some WHITE-RIMMED aviators and is stupidly covering up his greatest talent – his purty eyeshadow application. And he’s wearing pale shiny lip gloss. It’s really not a good look. And I’m also unhappy about the white jacket that Magni is wearing, although luckily he’s not in the matching white pants. It is after Labour Day, after all.

The first person in the bottom two is Magni, and even though i knew it was coming I start crying because this means he’s gone. It looks like there’s something in Anji’s eye too, though she tells me to cry quietly so we can listen to him doing ‘Fire’ again. There is much much much HoYay! in this performance, especially when he hugs Rafe at the end. Oh man, he just looks so good with that band, and his performance is much better than Toby’s, who phones in ‘White Wedding’. But of course we know who’s going to leave. Remember how Supernova kicked out Dana by saying she’d come so far? And kicked out Ryan because he’d come the furthest of anyone else? Remember how they like to kick out people for the VERY REASON WHY THEY SHOULD WANT TO KEEP THEM? And remember how when Magni played with Supernova, he tried to interact with Gilby who just turned his back to him (well, maybe he was presenting his rear to be humped like Jill. But I doubt it)? Bear that in mind while Gilby asks Magni about how comfortable he looks with the House Band. Magni says he’s not playing with them, he wants to join them, and I gush all over my chair at the thought of a concert of just Magni (and Storm!) with the House Band. Gilby says that Magni looks more like a member of the band rather than a front person, and so he has to go. WHAT.THE. FUCK? I mean, I know Magni wasn’t going to win, but that is seriously the worst fucking excuse ever. Does SuperEgo really want someone that they’re going to clash and fight with rather than someone who’d work with them? Apparently so. Fuck you, Gilby Clark. Jason looks gutted as he well should as Magni makes a beautiful eloquent speech and actually looks really really sad. I’m guessing it’s just because he’s going to miss the House Band rather than that he actually wanted to be in Supernova.

(Apparently around this point in the show, American audiences saw a commercial for Survivor using ‘Headspin’ as the soundtrack. Hmmm, I wonder why that could be…)

So now the final three all give the judges a reason why they should win, which boils down to Lukas – “I’m ready to lead you”, Dilana – “I’m the one” and Toby – “I’m the tallest”. And of course they rehash another song Toby does ‘Somebody told me’ again, Lukas does ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and I am so over his voice, and Anji and I speculate about what Dilana’s going to sing because she’s all decked out in a bustled parachute for a skirt and we wonder what song that outfit goes with. ‘Zombie’ apparently. Yawn. I can’t believe I ever liked Dilana. But it’s Toby’s time to go, and I am rather surprised. Perhaps the rumours that Suzie McNeill started when she said her friend at Pulse Studios where she’s recording her album had told her that Lukas has been coming in to record the Supernova album for the past couple of weeks was correct. Dilana looks like she’s crapping in her pants. I guess she didn’t get the ‘Lukas has already won’ memo then. But when she’s told, Gilby adds “Dilana, for you, I’d like to help you write and produce your album” and the internets are all like “AHAHHAHAAAHA oh Gilby, if Supernova is anything to go by, your writing’s almost as bad as hers” (although apparently his solo album’s not bad. Well, not lotion/thong / control alt delete bad anyway. And did you guys check out her solo video on Youtube like I told you to?) and Tommy and Dave say they want to play on it. Jason, of course, is saving himself for Storm, as well he should. And it’s interesting that the focus is all on Dilana rather than Lukas, who just won and is supposed to be surprised and overjoyed. But he’s strangely calm. Supernova join him on stage and sing the hey hey hey ho ho ho song that Toby sang about the five cliches (and again I make my hillaaaaaaaaaaarious joke about how there’s only four of them on stage though) and then they sing the one that Magni sang last week, and I start crying again because Magni comes out on stage to play accoustic guitar with them. I say that having him come out must have meant that they practiced it and therefore Mark Burnett has just destroyed any last remaining illusion that the results were a surprise, but then I remember that of course Magni played the guitar in this song last week so maybe it was a last minute addition. Sob.

What the hell am I going to do with my life now, once I’ve finished reading all the forums? And perhaps more interestingly, 1. What the hell are ‘Supernova’ going to call themselves now that they’ve lost the lawsuit brought by another band called that? and 2. Who the hell is going to be up for the third season? I’m betting Mark Burnett is trying to slip Scott Weiland some heroin right now in the hopes that he’ll overdose…

EDIT: I know what I’m going to do with my life now – aid this poster on TWOP who said “And after JD last year, I’ve a mind to go to Toronto with a school bus and round up all the homeless musicians with pretensions of rockstar greatness and practice a little rendition of my own. I’ll lock them all up for a year in a secret prison in North Dakota where they’ll be forced to listen to an endless stream of polka bands just so someone else can win.” Hee! And also as Anji reminded me last night “Maybe someone will be playing in the States while you’re there.” Come on Storm, play San Fran between Oct28 and Nov 6, pleaaaaaase…

And if you’ll allow me one more edit: “Lastly, I think I want to go as Dilby for Halloween this year. Just add fright wig, and go door to door rejecting the best candies at each stop. “I don?t like your Peanut Butter Cups because the peanut butter meshes too nicely with the chocolate.”

Reality

Previously on Rockstar: Supernova Ryan gave the most awesomely egotistical goodbye speech, but it doesn’t get repeated.

Lukas says that he’s going to miss Ryan. Dilana says she wishes she hadn’t screwed up her song. Lukas says “you’re only human” which is fairly nice of him, since he’s not human, he’s a mole man, but naturally Dilanadramarama has to throw it back in his face and go “you did it on ‘Celebrity skin’”. Lukas isn’t happy about that at all, but as usual, Magni is there to break up the tension somewhat by pieing Toby. And so people throw their drinks in each other’s faces, Storm shakes up champagne to spray it around, and Lukas says that he needs to take off his jacket. Haha, you’re SO rock’n roll Lukas. Cos rockers care about their clothes. Oh wait, hang on, they don’t because they go jump in the pool in their clothes – except for Storm, who does a nudie. Awesome. And then Toby, sitting around topless, says “watch Lukas come down in a new tie and makeup” and indeed, we cut to Lukas reapplying his eyeliner.

They then get a new Supernova track to work with, which starts out like ‘Blind’ by Korn, and apparently it’s what they’ve all been waiting for, something dark and moody. And Toby interviews about how things seem to be working out for him quite well, and everyone on the interweb goes “yeah, we’ve been noticing that recently”. Dilana meanwhile struggles with songwriting, because hi, lotion and thong anyone?

Then we get some car pimping (honda ridgelines, everyone! And Gibson guitars! Just in case you didn’t know already) and now we’re going to get a songwriting clinic with Gilby. Because of course, he’s responsible for writing some of the best rock songs ever, like ‘Sweet Child’o Mine’. Oh no wait, hang on, that was Izzy. Silly me. Gilby interviews about how professional Storm is, and how she’s found the balance between getting the job done and having fun and it looks like they’re doing well, and having chemistry.

Magni meanwhile says he has a minority complex when it comes to writing English lyrics. Hehe, that’s so cute, a minority complex. I am so in love. Have I mentioned that lately? He says that basically 90% of rock’n roll lyrics have the same words and cliches. Gilby says he’s not sure if Magni is a creative musician. Umm, hi Gilby – have you even LISTENED to the crap that you guys have turned out so far? Hey hey hey, ho ho ho? Yeah yeah yeah? Yeah, exactly. Meanwhile apparently Lukas is very creative and doesn’t take the cliched route – so he’s obviously not right for Supernova. And Gilby’s pissed that Lukas only bothered with one verse and one chorus and thinks he can get away with that, and says “I believe he feels that this is his gig already” – which is what many of the internets already believe.

Gilby uses the word ‘cliche’ a thousand times more while talking to Toby, and says that he has a young energy that they need. Because they’re all a good twenty years older than him? Yeah. And he praises Toby some more and thinks he’s been listening to the whole package. And then he says he was curious to see what Dilana would have come up with, because they’re not sure where her writing is at. Well, apparently her writing is at the stage of calling the song ‘Metamorphisis lizard skin’. Riiiiiiight. That rolls off the tongue. And all the lyrics are ‘from the heart’. As oppposed to from her ass. And apparently “it’s about people on the internet who vote for us, you know, the fans, basically it’s a screw you kind of song”. And Gilby calls it a cliche. Hey Gilby, I have a Mr Kettle on the line for you. Hahahhaa Dilana wants to put in a chorus about “control alt delete”. That is so unbelievably bad it’s almost awesome. And she interviews saying that she didn’t know that there’d be a song-writing aspect to this gig, that she was there to be the singer. Aha! So it’s what we suspected all along. And that totally means Dilana is out, from the way they’ve cut it. It’s not a redemption arc at all.

Song selection! There’s five songs, and also everyone will be singing an original as well. Dilana pretends that she’s happy about that. They’re getting ‘sets’ which means they have to talk to the audience in between songs. Everyone wants ‘Behind Blue Eyes’. I suspect Dilana only knows the Limp Bizkit version. Because I hate her. And because I hate Fred Durst. And therefore they go well together. Of course, no one is ever going to look as hot singing that song as Giles in ‘Where the wild things are’ (yeah I know you probably won’t remember him doing it because you would have poked out your eyes at the amount that Buffy and Riley were humping in that episode). Magni gets Lukas to take ‘Living on a prayer’ by saying that he thinks it’d rock, and I think Magni actually means it, as opposed to when Dilana got him to do ‘Creep’ cos she thought he’d fuck it up.

Storm’s original song is called ‘What the fuck is ladylike?’, but she’ll be calling it just ‘Ladylike’. And interviews that she’s lost herself in the past couple of weeks trying to show a little bit too much flesh. Now I’ve seen a video of her singing it on youtube, and it’s a fucking rad song.

HAHAHAHAHAHA Dilana tells Paul that she only knows the song from the Limp Bizkit version, and I cheer because I was right. And Paul is piiiiiiiiiiiiissed off about it because she’s changing it up in ignorance. Awww Paul, your posts on TWOP were so gracious, if I had a chance I would punch her for you. She says she’s going to win back her fans, because she has to. She needs them and they need her. Umm, I don’t think that they do actually. Nor do Supernova. But we’ll see…

And then they show the rockers skipping, and Lukas’s pants fall down. Hahah. And Magni falls over. Awww.

Performance Night

So it’s performance night, and Supernova have been soaking in orange juice – or at least Gilby and T’Lee have, right? Or is it my tv? Everyone just looks so fucking orange these days. Maybe that’s a sign that I shouldn’t be watching The Apprentice. Brooke also announces that Ryan is at the top of the MSN download charts, so already his goodbye speech has come true. Shame I don’t think he’ll be getting any money for it but…

Dilana apparently ripped a calf muscle during rehersal (what? You mean they practice their stage shows?) so a big burly man carries her on stage to a stool. I think they should have got Storm to carry her again, that would have been awesome. She’s singing ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ and while the clips don’t show her saying she only knows the Limp Bizkit version, they do show Paul saying she hadn’t even heard parts of the song, and this is where I must put up my hand and admit that part of what she was singing sounded totally unfamiliar to me. But that must be because she sang it so crappy, right? Right. Anyway, when Dilana sees that clip, she gets VERY VERY ANGRY and it looks very much like she’s hexing Paul right then and there. Despite being stuck on a stool, she tries to rock out and Jim takes pity on her and comes up and riffs beside her. Don’t you dare touch my Jim, bitch. In her little talk she says her original is about “all this stuff that’s been happening to me lately” and I scream at the TV “ALL THIS STUFF THAT YOU HAVE BEEN DOING TO YOURSELF LATELY, TAKE SOME FUCKING RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR ACTIONS!” and Bart and Smoo look at me strangely. And when she sings her original which is called ‘Supersoul’ she gets up and hops to the end of the stage and jumps up and down on one foot. Oh she’s so rock and roll. Or not. Supernova are nowhere near as mean to her as they should be. As one TWOP poster puts it “this whole Emancipation of DiDi thing has gotten old”.

Magni does ‘Back in the USSR’ and as much as I hate to say it, it’s kind of boring. But I blame the song, not him. And his original, which he says he hurriedly translated from Icelandic is called ‘Your time will come’. Beat THAT, other Supernovices. Lukas didn’t bother to take the time to translate his song from whatever language it is that he sings. But we’ll get to that later. Tom says that “Whereas Magni’s song was like if Scott Stapp and Ed Kowalcyk made
friends” and much as I hate to compare my darling to those people, he could be right. Except that I’d take out Scott Stapp and add in Disturbed. Which doesn’t make it much better. But you can tell the houseband love him (and I’m happy that people have been giving shoutouts to the houseband so much this episode) because Sasha does a big waterspraying fountain for him. Someone take Sasha out of that jacket too please. He looks like a hired heavy. Supernova tell him that’s the most angry they’ve seen him, but Dave asks why both the performances were the same. Magni says “Well Dave, they were the same because I was singing them both” and all is forgiven as I flood my panties. Oh the cheeky deadpan, how you turn me on.

Storm’s wearing a buttoned up coat to sing ‘Sufferagette City’ which makes me happy cos I know she’ll be taking it off soon. Dave’s all “hey dude, I love that song man, can I play with you?” in a bid to appease all the people who hate on him in his blog for hating on her all the time. And they play together, and it’s pretty good, but then Storm takes off her coat and frees her Magni-ficent boobage, and annouces that she’s going to be singing ‘What the what is ladylike?’. Oh maaaaaaan, fuck the motherfucking censors. FUCK YOU. It’s WHAT THE FUCK IS LADYLIKE. FUCK! Okay, I feel better now. This song kicks some serious fucking ass, and if it came out as a single, I would buy it in a second. T’Lee has come in his pants about a thousand times and now everyone in a ten foot diameter around him also has syphillis. Dave tells her that he’s been up on stage with some of the greatest front people ever (really? He’s played with Robbie Williams?) and that playing with her (heh) felt like being up there with them again, and then he says that her original was the best original he’s heard in both seasons. That means it’s better than not only ‘Pretty Vegas’, and ‘Trees’ but also ‘Stop/Go’ and ‘bring your lotion and your thong’. Way to go Storm! I think her and I in my blonde wig would make a totally hot couple. You know, just if she’s reading this.

Oh, and another TWOP comment I really really really must repeat because it’s a Weddon line – “After the song, she kissed Brooke full on the lips. Using a parabolic mike, I was able to hear what TLee said to Gilby right after when the camera went to them. TLee said, ?I?ll be in my bunk.?” HEHEHEHEH. Oh that makes me so happy.

In case we didn’t realise that Lukas was emo, he’s wearing a stripey shirt (the fact that I’m wearing a stripey shirt today is well beside the point), a vest with a skull & crossbones on it (the fact that last night when I watched the show I was wearing my pink with skull & crossbones pjs is well beside the point as well) and he’s spent two hours striping his hair and combing it in front of his face (My side fringe and the two boxes of purple and blueblack hairdye that I have at home waiting for me to finish with job hunting are also well beside the point). I feel like my mother because I really want to get that fucking hair out of his eyes. He does a strumy solo electric version of ‘Living on a prayer’ slowed down, and I’m like fuuuuuuuuck I wish Magni was singing it, because I dig on the arrangement, but I can’t take his growly shouty enunciation. Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to sing with your mouth full, Lukas? And the same’s true for his original, which is called ‘Headspin’ and he says it’s about his mother having a hard time growing up (or something like that, I don’t speak French Canadian eh, and yes, I know he’s not French). The chorus is totally lighters-out anthemic, and I think I’d like it – if only Magni was singing it. (EDIT: I found it on myspace and it sounds much cleaner and I really like it). Predictably Supernova love it, and Gilby says that Lukas inspires him. Inspires him to obsess over his hair, according to the forums, who counted Gilby touching his hair 15 times in the eight minutes he was on camera in the reality episode, and one poster said that her roommate went to a taping and that Gilby got his hair fluffed (heh) in every break. Because you need to know these things. I’ve gone off Gilby since he’s become so orange. Plus, he’s wearing a jacket. Put him back in a tshirt and a cuff and we’ll talk. Oh and Dave and Gilby banter about how waving a cellphone around is the new lighter, and it makes me giggle.

I should mention here that all the rockers have been rocking out (haha) to each other’s songs – except of course for Dilana Dilana Dilana who looks PISSED OFF that others are doing well. I’m sure she might just be in a tremendous amount of pain, but meh. I’m a bit worried about her, I hope they’ve got her a psychiatrist to talk to because she’s crashing and burning so hard. And I must quote another TWOP poster:
“I cracked up when Dave told Dilana that her leg injury didn’t show in her voice.
The shin bone is connected to the
Thigh bone
The calf muscle is connected to the
Larynx”
Hehe!

Someone who’s been slowburning, meanwhile, is Toby. His ‘Mr Brightside’ is nothing special (remember Marty doing it accoustically?) but his original is very very clever, full of “oh oh oh” choruses. It sounds pretty much like Supernova’s stuff so far, and that’s very telling. Rafeal does a big guitar solo in it, and I crack up thinking about the bit in School of Rock when Jack Black’s all “I’m going to take a solo here, you can take one later”. Girls in the audience have written ‘EVS’ on their hands, and Dave says it’s not just a Melbourne thing anymore, it’s a worldwide phenomenon. Umm Dave, we’ve talked about this before, and remember, it should be attributed to Jessie, not Toby. Sheesh.
But Toby’s quite clearly demonstrated he would be the best man for the job and the initial ranked voting results show this too, with him in front, followed in order by Lukas, Magni, Storm, and Dilana. Does this mean Dilana’s going home? It looks like she’s going to have to pull out something truly amazing to save herself, otherwise her lack of songwriting skills (that Supernova so desperately need) might send her home, because her alienation of her fanbase isn’t going to do her any favours.

Wait a second. Stop everything. Storm’s myspace profile say that Storm and the Balls are “Metal / Jazz / Christian Rap” CHRISTIAN RAP? I want my three votes back, bitch!

Results Show

First up, I must confess that I spent much of yesterday hunting down both Lukas and Storm on myspace and listening to their originals on repeat. Yes that’s right, I just said that I listened to a Lukas song on repeat. And I’m okay with that. I’d still love to hear Magni sing ‘Headspin’, but the recorded version is much clearer, and I’m a sucker for the power ballad.

So let’s move on to last night’s reality show. Dave says to Brooke “let me be the first to congratulate you on your pregnancy” because apparently she hasn’t got a doctor. Or a partner. Or friends and family. And T’Lee is overjoyed to hear she’s having a girl because what’s hotter than a fetus? Pretty much nothing.

It’s Magni’s turn to play with Supernova, and he manages to pad out their sound a bit playing the guitar, but Gilby refuses to interact with him on stage. This may be because Gilby’s a dick, but is probably also due to a lack of rehersal time with Tommy being off playing with Motley Crue on the Aerosmith tour. Huh? I thought he couldn’t stand Vince anymore. I suppose all that fake tan must be expensive. Apparently Magni fucks up the lyrics a bit, and has them taped to the ground in front of him, but I don’t notice.

Toby’s original got the encore, because it was the song that sounded the most like Supernova. You could say it was as catchy as fuck, but you can also say that about syphillis. And I’m sure Tommy has. And he dedicated it to the Crocodile Hunter. What? Oh yeah that’s right, got to play up that Aussie thing. I was listening to Marty Casey on my iPod this morning (more on that later, no doubt) because Anji emailed me yesterday to say “I knew you’d prefer Marty’s version of ‘Mr Brightside’”, and the thing is that Toby sang the words, but Marty expressed them. Yeah. But wahoo, Toby wins a fuckoff big gas guzzler. How’s he going to get that back to Aus? Drive it on the bottom of the ocean?

Everyone was in the bottom three at some point. Apparently in Iceland Magni’s buddies have set up a tent with a wireless connection that everyone can take their laptops to and spend all four hours voting for him. That is so awesome. I wish I was in Iceland. And that I had my laptop back from the shop (which reminds me, I really must call them). And that my laptop had a wireless card in it. I know that I’m voting for Magni because I know he won’t “win”, and I’m glad about that because I don’t see it as a prize, but because I want to see as much of him as I possibly can. Same with Storm. And if by see as much of them as I possibly can I might mean “naked”, well that doesn’t make me T’Lee does it? Please?

However. Storm is first in the bottom three, and according to spoiler forums, she says something along the lines of “I’ve been singing what I thought you wnated to hear all along but now I’m going to sing something for someone else”, and she dedicates it to her (dead) mother. She sings ‘Wish you were here’ and while it’s not quite as moving as the Marty Casey version (although it’s more true to the original without the chorus and with the synths) it’s powerful, and real, and she’s crying, adn then HOLY FUCKING SHIT, Mr Super Tough JASON MOTHERFUCKING NEWSTEAD IS CRYING, and then I cry some more and Smoo mocks me so when he leaves the room I rewind the tape and watch it again. And now I’m going to watch the clip of it again.

When she says she’s doing Cheap Trick, I pray Dilana isn’t doing ‘The Flame’ because I love that song, and I hate her. She has decorated her crutches, but in being in the bottom three she still manages to do high kicks as she slaughters (in the bad way, not the good way) ‘I want you to want me’. And of course, in her very literal way, she says this is for her fans. You just know that Dilana’s the kind of person who would go “Oh man, I was so tired last night I was literally dead”. And what do we think of people like that? That’s right, we hates them, my precious. And yet Supernova are like woo. Whatever. Jason isn’t. He’s my favourite now.

The Rossi Posse fails and Lukas ends up in the bottom three for the first time and decides to give himself an encore, which is fine by me because ‘Headspin’ is my new guilty pleasure. But ‘What the fuck is ladylike?’ is a much stronger more empowering song. Did I really say that? Yes I did, and I’m happy with that. I read a great essay by Storm about her decision to get breast implants because she used to be fat with no tits, and basically, there is nothing she can do wrong.

Except, according to Gilby, she’s not allowed to be in the bottom two times in a row. Apparently that’s many, but Dilana’s twice in the bottom two isn’t. Fuck you Gilby, you can wear a tshirt and a cuff all you like, but I no longer find you hot. A rumour on the TWOP boards is that Magni is Gilby’s wife’s favourite because she’s insecure about Storm and also about the groupies that Lukas and Toby would bring to the band (And I am a little bit in love with Toby for saying “in ten years girls, when they scream). And that might explain the Jill grindage thing being so so wrong. Apart from just the fact that ewww, it was disgusting anyway. T’Lee is so upset that he makes Jason do the cut, and of course it’s Storm. Everyone but Gilby jumps up straight away to say that they’d love to record her original with her, and I’m like hell yeah, that’s the way it oughta be, them jumping through hoops for her. And then I cried again. And watching her really really gracious goodbye speech on the website makes me tear up again. Bye Storm, you were awesome. And according to my latest measurements at the gym, I’ve lost six cm on my thighs, and as soon as I can crack walnuts with them, I’m coming for you and we’re going to rule the world.

So tomorrow is Africa at the Country Club, and I will be asking people to make a donation. Then with the money collected from donations, I won’t be paying off the rest of the keg from America. No no. I will go to http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com.au/ and buy some things to the total amount of what we collected, and perhaps some more. I’m gutted that they’ve sold out of goats, but perhaps we can buy some chickens instead. If you can’t come to Africa, and I suspect most of you can’t, you should do the same, okay? Awesome.

EDIT: Mad props must go here to Robyn who bought a chicken. Yay!

I need to be careful with my money though, because I resigned from my job on Monday. Four more weeks and I’m out of here. I don’t know where I’ll be after that, but it won’t be here. If you know of any writing/editing/communications/web coordination type roles going in Welly, please do let me know.

I still have a food baby in my stomach from last night with the tripleK. Apparently I’m not supposed to call them that anymore, but meh, it’s just so good. And if they keep up with the lynching, I’m going to have to keep calling them that. Food Baby is at my house next week, which means that I feel better about being part of the group rather than just being a tagalong, and also I can drink instead of driving as I did to Brooklyn last night. In my car that had $583 worth of repairs and servicing yesterday to get its warrant. Right after that $200 fine. Good times. And my laptop is back at the shop. I have adopted a very mellow sense of calm about all this, somehow. I suspect it’s mostly brought on by laughing my guts out at Family Guy. And being proud of saving Magni. Mmmmmagni.

I thought I was going to cry again in my boxing lesson, but I didn’t. I mastered the right uppercut very quickly, but not the left one. Stupid left arm. It’s so useless, I can’t do anything with it. Why do I even bother having a left arm? Maybe I should cut it off and replace it with a hook. I bet that’d pull in all the chicks.

Also, in other social event news, we’re having a Meat Market on the 16th. Everyone should come, and bring some single friends with you. Woo woo. Remember the last meat market that I held? I was just saying to Tom (exactly!) the other day that 2006 was the new 2003. Except better. But without drugs and therefore with far less sexing. Haha sexing. LisaB was talking last night with all these new words like ‘performancing’ and ‘materiality’, and I was like “you are so awesomenating”. Except I didn’t say that, but I wish I had. It was such a change having civilised grown-up conversations instead of spending the entire dinner talking about butt sex as Eta Beta Pi tend to do.

Reality / Performance / Results

Reality

This is the first episode that I’m watching on my laptop at home, and I should warn you that it’s making a crazy ticking sound and is too hot, so I suspect that it may blow up. Bear with me.

Previously on Rockstar, apparently everyone did great performances and then Dilana said stupid shit everywhere. As a poster on the TWOP forums said “Her ‘oh I’m new at this’ carries no water, because wasn’t she like, huge in Holland?” – those wacky Dutch people. And Patrice went home, surprisingly enough.

I must also mention now my favourite new thing from the TWOP forums – Stagni shippers – or Ice Storm, which is of course people who dig on Magni and Storm, and possibly even the two of them together. One poster even said “they’re totally making this out to be like X-Men the good guys Magni Storm and Toby vs the baddies Dilana, Lukas and Ryan – they even have the costumes”. Haha it’s funny because it’s true.

Dilana says that when they got back from Eliminations, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife. Storm tries to drink to Dilana’s first spanking, but Dilana doesn’t want to toast it. Ryan says he won’t talk bad about people because he needs to sleep at night,a nd what Dilana says about him won’t affect him, it’ll affect her. Oh yeah? How about what you said about Dana then eh Ryan? She’s all “I was being myself, I don’t know what I was supposed to say”. She’s all “I’m just an imperfectg person”. Lukas wants to take it back for her, and that’s just his strategy talking. Apparently Supernova laid into her for a full half hour at the elimination taping, but you know what? Who gives a fuck? You’re a dick, Dilana. I’m all with the hating on you like the TWOP forums hate on the final episode of Gilmore Girls season six (with good reason, because WHAT. THE. FUCK. happened there?). But back on Rockstar, Magni goes to hug Dilana and she breaks her glass and storms off, and a bit of glass hits him in the face. Right, that’s it, bitch! You don’t cut up my Magni and get off scott free. Lukas is like “what if that’d hit him in the eye?” and they all go to see if Magni is okay, because of course since Magni is a grown-up, he has chosen to remove his bleeding head from the camera in order to try and tone down the drama. Awww, give him a cuddle Ryan. Lukas says “we’re all professionals and we should learn to govern ourselves properly”. Good fucking point. Also, have I mentioned lately how Lukas is like 2 feet tall?

Dilana gets to cry on Storm’s boobies, and how is that fair? Toby cleans up the broken glass, and Ryan says Dilana’s had the sweetest ride so far and yet she’s self-destructing. And to prove that, we see her sitting on a window ledge, wondering how she can fix it. Jump Dilana, jump!

But seriously kids, suicide’s not cool. Unless a rockstar does it first. But no rockers would ever kill themselves, right?

The next day, they have a photoshoot for In Touch and Dilana’s all “i’ve been crying all night and my eyes are puffy” because the world is like, totally ending. Storm used to model (dirty pictures, I bet), so she climbs straight up on the table and poses all hott and filthylike without any guidance. Toby’s all shy Australian, so he says he’s not so good at it, but he’s wearing a cuff, so he gets bonus points. Lukas wears a huge medallion, and talks in his non-English voice. Is he like, French Canadian? Or just drunk all the time? The photographer tries to get Ryan to smile, and Ryan of course looks all intense. Magni interviews that he’s done a lot of photoshoots before, and I remind myself that I need to search for his band’s mp3s since I’ve got my own computer back. He has problems with the photoshoot, because he is a genuine person and doesn’t want to fake it. But I love that this brings in America’s Next Top Model elements because that’s my second favourite reality show. Dilana’s all “I have so much going on in my head, but I have to be strong”. Oh gee, your life is so hard Dilana. Tell us more about the mean streets you came from.

Song selection is Fan Selection week, so the public have chosen what they’re going to be singing. I should point out, that song selection was limited to three songs they’d already sung and one song that someone else had sung, which is ass. Lukas gets ‘Lithium’, and some fan comments. He’s all “Maybe the fans want to see me show up Dilana and it’s going to be fun to see what I do with it. I’m not going to be wearing a hoodie and then exploding it at the end” Heh. People making fun of Dilana is funny. Magni gets ‘I Alone’. Storm gets ‘Bring me to life’ and says it’s hard. Ryan gets ‘Clocks’ by one percent ahead of ‘Losing my religion’, which is much closer than anyone else’s votes for a rehash.A fan says she wants to hear his falsetto, and he’s like “woah, this is what the fans say, and that’s important’. Dilana gets ‘Mother, Mother’ and she says it was chosen for her by her fans. Except that that’s what I voted for, and I’m not her fan. Hahaha, suck it, bitch. Woah, so angry. I need to chill out. Toby thanks Ryan’s mum for writing on all their fansites. Heh.

Lukas is playing his guitar on ‘Lithium’ to demonstrate that he’s a real musician, but he says he doesn’t even like the song. Umm, what the fuck? Did you really just say on TV that you don’t like a Nirvana song? That’s it, hobbit – you’re off my Xmas card list. And then he says it AGAIN. You’re stupid. And Paul interviews that Dilana loved the song and that made her better at it than Lukas. Dilana, meanwhile is trying to strum away at her acoustic guitar, and I’m not even sure that she can play. Oh okay, maybe a little bit. But oh the irony of her singing a song aboiut her mother when she all doesn’t talk to her, etc etc. So she gets her redemption – isn’t that convenient? They could have strung the villan arc out longer. Nevermind.

Reality / Performance / Results

Performance

So apparently there’s been a bit of drama in the Rockstar Mansion lately. Who knew? Well, you did, because you read it here. And you probably watched it too. But did everyone else? Just in case anyone missed it, and also because they only have six songs and are therefore in desperate need of filler, we get to see it all over again, Dilana’s “breakdown”, etc etc. Supernova make shocked faces, but only Dave talks to her about it, therefore allowing the band to keep themselves totally clean so that when they eliminate Dilana because dude, there’s no way that there’s going to be a woman fronting the band.

Anji says “EVERYONE LOVES A REDEEMED SINNER – is the theme of the show?. Do you thin kit was all a PR set-up to make people ?re-love? Dilana??!!” Gee, do you think, Anji?

Now, the more observant amongst you might recall that in week nine last year, contestants sang the fans’ choices as well as their own original numbers (And also when it was down to just six contestants is when we got ‘Wish you were here’ and ‘Imagine’, which have yet to be met). But do you think Supernova want to have their own poor song-writing skills compared to that of the rockers? Hell no. So instead, we get long versions of the six songs, which is nice as well, I suppose.

First up is Lukas singing ‘Lithium’, despite his Nirvana hatred. He makes it pianoy at first, but then it becomes more like the original. He sings in a cross between his singing voice and his growly voice, but still sounds a fair bit like Bobcat Goldthwaite, or however his name is spelt. Dave does that whole “You took a classic song and rearranged it to that?……………. I loved it” fake fake-out, and I’m like oh my god, you are worse at this than Joey on Friends, plus how often have you done that this season?

Anji says “Lukas ? why oh why the piano??!! Angie doesn?t like the piano! Is he going to get told off for closing his throat? I did not enjoy it. And Dave Navarro is soooo predictable. I don?t understand what is with the Lukas-love. Should I read something into it? Do they want him and only him?!”

Magni, replescent in a pretty white jersey and no bleeding from the head tells the camera that everyone needs to start voting for him even if they’re not from Iceland and he makes fun of the other boys’ countries of origin in a way that you know that he’s just gently ribbing, like I want him to gently rib me. Umm, sorry what? I was just drooling. He’s singing ‘I Alone’ and his veins pop out while he wanders around the audience. As always he is great, but I’m not big on Live, his accoustic version aside. The judges love him too, and Gilby says “I know you want this” in perhaps the only shout out to Dilana’s dickheadedness.

Anji says “Magni ? Magni ? he so funny!! Is he wearing eyeliner for the first time?? This performance and vocal effort is at least as good as Ryan?s. And he?s hotter. And he?s taking it to the boys ? smart career move! Nice work.”

Ryan starts out playing ‘Clocks’ on his grand piano, and ends up humping it and rolling around like he’s Michelle Pfiefffer in 1988. Innnnteresting. I think the piano thing was a mistake – not in terms of humping it, but rather how it shows Supernova that he clearly has his own thing going on with it, and Gilby isn’t Slash and won’t climb on top to solo (in fact, many people on the TWOP forums say Gilby can’t even solo at all, but I’m no guitar expert).

Anji says “Ryan ? I don?t like the histrionics at the beginning. His performance is great, but I think his falsetto?s pretty shaky. Not sure about sliding around on the grand piano like Michelle Pfeiffer though! He?s definitely in ? he?s pretty popular.” And I say ooh, is that how you spell Pfieffer?

Did you know Brooke was pregnant? Me neither. She’s having a girl, apparently, according to her their-space.

Storm does ‘Bring me to life’ in a red dress, but it’s not very good. Mostly because the song is a piece of crap, and also it so doesn’t suit her. Poor Storm. And Gilby even says that Toby stole the show from her doing the backing vocals. With suspenders hanging around his ass. Why oh why?

Anji says: “Storm ? She?s easily the best of the 3 attempts at this song. But I HATE the song! So that doesn?t help. It was good to have Toby though. She did start off a bit lower than usual, I agree, and it is also sadly true that Jill?s performance was more memorable. But I suspect that has more to do with the fact that this was a departure from Jill?s usual awfulness, and also she kicked Zayra?s butt, which is always fun! (if you can find it!)”

Toby then does ‘Rebel Yell’ and it’s very similar to when he sang ‘White Wedding’. He did sing that, right? At the end he hauls a bunch of girls up on stage with him (side note: the producers admit to paying 25 hot girls each week to be in the audience so that the camera has someone to focus on) and dances with them. Supernova naturally go crazy for this shit, and I’m reminded of how the TWOP forums are buzzing that maybe Toby’s the best guy for the job, because he doesn’t really have his own style, he’s just a great big larrikan and would certainly get on with T’Lee. He’s mallable and comes across as stupid as their songs. So maybe I agree. Plus, I don’t love on Toby at all, so I wouldn’t mind if that was his fate. He does get props for clearing up Dilana’s glass mess though.

Anji says “Toby ? Gotta love this song!! Nice crowd-wrangling (I?m SURE it was ?spontaneous?!!). Great singing and performance too. I enjoyed it a lot, and I liked his comment re ?id?.” id? Oh right, ID – T’Lee was like, “right, let’s grab those girls and go party in my dressing room” and Toby was like “maybe we should check some IDs first”. And I nearly fell off my chair in laughter. Nice work Toby. But yeah, I still wanna sleep with Tommy Lee and that disgusts me too, don’t you worry. Well, do worry if you like.

Dilana goes last, just for a change, and plays a flying V and I think that right there sums up her music credibility. She looks 54, not 34, and sure she plays okay but man, I just hate on her so much, especially when she climbs up a carefully placed amp to sit on the Russian bassist’s shoulders. So. Calculated. And I hate how this episode was all about her redemption arc. She so hasn’t redeemed herself. Puke puke.

Anji says “Dilana ? Very KISS. Nah, I think she sounds awesome. Her performance was a little bit manic, but her vocals rocked. I just really really like her voice. And it helps that I quite like the song.”

So Storm was definitely the worst of the night, but they’re not going to send her home yet becasue that’d leave just one woman. Instead, if my darling precious Magni hits the bottom three for the third time in a row, it may very well be him, which is why I voted for him three times to keep him out. Or maybe they’ll think Ryan’s thing is just too different from theirs.

Anji says: “My bottom 3 ? Lukas, Ryan & Storm. My picks for bottom 3 ? Magni, Storm & Toby”.
Reality / Performance / Results

Results

Previously on Rockstar, Dilana Dilana Dilana. And Brooke Burke says that Dilana had a heartfelt apology, but when they repeat what she said, it was all “I am a human, I messed up, but I’m back and I’m stronger”. Is that South African for “I’m sorry”? I’m pretty sure it’s not eh, so that doesn’t really qualify as an apology to me. In fact, it’s just more asshattery.

Supernova have found the solution to their crap lyric writing ability – get Lukas to sing. I seriously couldn’t understand a word he was saying, it was a whole new language. What a cunning plan.

Toby gets the encore but doesn’t bring the girls up again. Instead, he does what Magni wanted to do last night “but I didn’t want to get out of the stage lights” (heh) and prowls around the whole audience, revealing what maybe we weren’t supposed to know, which is that Rockstar is filmed in a CBS studio that’s been built to look exactly like the Mayan Theatre that the first episode of Season One was filmed in last year.

Brooke confirms what people on the TWOP boards had been saying as they had problems with voting, that last night saw the biggest amounts of votes ever, and I realise that I am a superhero because I voted for Magni ten times, and saved him while every single other person was in the bottom three at some stage. Wahoo! Although I’m disappointed not to get to hear him again, naturally.

Ryan is the first in the bottom three, and he tells Supernova that he’s going to blow their minds with ‘Baba O’Reilly’. He sprays convieniently opened champagne over the audience, and Toby jumps up to take the bottle over to the rockers. When he climbs up on the speaker stacks, we get a cut to Gilby leaning back in his chair going “clicheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee”.

Storm cheers when she finds out that she’s in the bottom three, and says she’s happy any time she gets to rock out with that band, and I’m like “hell yeah!” because more people need to give props to the house band. She does ‘Helter Skelter’ and spanks the snot out of it, running all over the stage, through the audience and jumping on the laps of T’Lee and Gilby (man, I hope she double-bagged it). This is as close to her ‘Anything Anything’ performance as she’s done, and it was such a good song choice for her, even if Patrice had already done the song.

And the final person in the bottom three is ooooooooooh Dilana, who says that this is her redemption. No honey, you don’t get to choose your redemption, the word you are looking for is penance. And you are still wrong. She perhaps has no idea about what the hell irony actually is either, except for that thing that Alanis sang about, and so she does ‘Psycho Killer’. And she’s in bare feet and a long skirt, and it’s just crap. At least, I think it is. But of course, Supernova aren’t about to send her home, so she gets to sit down first.

They say that Ryan’s come the most far (except that they even use worse grammar than that), but that Storm hasn’t progressed at all. Enough with the Storm-hating, boys! Just because she could spank your asses six ways til Sunday and would box the fuck out of you if you tried anything she wasn’t in control of. And then they say that Ryan has to go, without saying that he wasn’t right for the band, but we all know that’s true. He’s Intense, they are Thongs and Lotion.

Ryan’s wrapup interview is fucking AWESOME in its audacity. He says that he was the best performer, and again that Supernova could have had a 20 year career, and without him they won’t have two years. Then he bitches that when Gilby Clarke said his performances had been getting better and better he hadn’t done his research, unlike Jason, because if he’d ever seen him perform before he would never have said that. And he says that he’s going to release an album straight away and go to the top of the charts. Is that your tongue in your cheek, Ryan? Oh no, it’s just your oversized nose. Well, I’m still going to download ‘Back of your car’. One day. Until then, bye bye.

Also in bottom three interviews: Dilana says she wasn’t surprised, and that maybe next week she will climb on some amplifiers. Instead of the Russian bassist? Good idea. Or perhaps you could stop being an asshat and maybe people might vote for you again. Maybe. And Storm says that the bottom three is just another chance to rock out. That’s the spirit girl!

Reality / Performance / Results

So, if I was going to be Gwen Stefani, which I wouldn’t want to be except that maybe I wouldn’t say no to sleeping with Gavin Rossdale, and I kind of dig the Franz cover of ‘Whatchu waiting for’, plus I think that’d be a good song to add to my workout playlist, I’d say that right now, my shit is B A N A N A S.

+ Smoo said he’d pay me $50 if I took a shit in his mouth. Hahaha awesome. To be fair and contextualise it, he did say that when I warned Bart that if he told me who was going to get kicked off The Amazing Race I would come into his bedroom while he was sleeping and shit in his mouth. I warned Smoo that I have some serious lack-of-fibre issues, although that said, I think eating an avocado for dinner last night was quite a clever thing to do, and it counteracted too much dairy.

- I got a parking ticket. For $200. When I was parked outside of my own house, on my own street, in a quiet suburb. I wasn’t on the footpath, or facing the wrong way, or anything like that. I just don’t have a warrant. And the part irony of this is that Smoo’s been keeping his car in the garage cos he didn’t have a warrant either, but now he does, and yet his car was in the garage and mine was on the street, and I got the ticket. Yes, not having a warrant is badwickedevil. However, surely there are better places for parking wardens to hang out?

+ I did however, somehow apparently manage to save $750 on my laptop repairs by the guy at Bond + Bond “calling in a favour” as apparently the problem wasn’t with the power supply but rather that some liquid had got into the computer and corroded the motherboard, or some such happenstance. Of course, if they’d told me that the repair bill was going to be that much, I would have said “but I can buy a new one for a grand” and done that instead. But anyway, I very much snickered a lot at the way that guy on the phone was like “whoever is using the computer needs to keep all liquids well away from it”, all avoiding placing the blame on me, ala Fightclub’s “the dildo, not your dildo”.

-/+ My body is wacksicles. Because I have lost weight around my stomach (you probably can’t tell unless you spend as much time staring at me as I do, in which case I’m both creeped out and a little turned on) my pants are all about the falling-down-ness, but in a case of delicious deep-fried irony, they stay up by virtue of the total and utter lack of gap between my thighs. And now that I finally had a period, Mary-Kate and Ashley are deswelling, and my waist is becoming more and more prominent, and yet my under-boob rolls appear to be growing. It’s like having another set of tits, and it’s very very strange. They shouldn’t be growing. But maybe they just appear to be more prominent because my waist is getting smaller faster. But that’s okay, I can accept that I am a freakshow, and I will not drink Rum with Nate about it too much. Plus, I think I got the left hook last night, when I did a big cardio push and boxing practise at home last night. The bare feet help with the twist.

- Snakes on a plane is obviously a cultural phenomenon (and when I say “cultural” I of course mean “what some people on the interweb talk about), and yet I’m having a devil of a time trying to find homes for all the tickets that the delightful KateH sent me. It’s not that people don’t want to come, apparently, it’s just that apparently tonight is the busiest night in Wellington ever. Just to prove my point, check out this list of my friends and their diverse excuses reasons they can’t make it:

Anji: Spanish class

Brad: crewing for one of the plays at school (more about that later)

Chrisana: working

Karen: work meeting

Kartini: not fond of snakes. I think she’s okay with planes though.

Katy: Real Hot Bitches rehersal

Lisa B: working

Lisa Fur: sick

Peti: Packing

Sarah-from-work: needs to go hoooooome.

Smoo: working

Tom: teaching
I’m actually pretty sure that there’s a secret meeting of the No-Jos club. B A N A N A N A N A S!

+ But to prove that I do actually participate in real culture, last night Karen and I went to see Brad’s solo show at the drama school. There were four people doing their self-written pieces. The first was a guy who told the story of a typical night for a bartender, starting it with puking and needing a pie, and then going back to opening up the bar, and then the after-work drinks. He only played the one character, but it was really good in the “ahaha it’s funny because it’s true…. and maybe I should stop drinking” kind of way. Plus, he took off his shirt and showed his ass and he was built, so he gets bonus points for that. The second piece was about science, and it juxtaposed a high school boy now doing a presentation on atoms and his great grandfather working in the influenza epidemic in 1918. I especially liked the actor’s characterisation of the principal who made the audience clap nervously when he addressed the assembly. Brad’s piece started out comically with voiceovers about the African safari, as he was portraying a guy who sponsors five kids in Africa, which makes chicks think he’s adorable, but it turns out that he’s having some trouble with errections, as his monologued poems displayed. And then it got a lot darker, which was awesome, and also a little perculiar – I mean, Brad’s such a nice guy, and yet he was swearing, and treating people badly, and MASTURBATING ON STAGE. Or at least you know, miming it. Except without the beret. Those crazy wacky actors. The last girl did a more comical piece, which was highly reminiscint of The Nanny Diaries. It worked though because her characterisations were so strong, and because she staged it so well. And yes, so that’s me, at the theatre. Ooh la la.

- I’m shitty about a thousand things at work. This is mostly caused by the fact that I have almost no friends left here, and that sucks cos who likes being left behind, but there’s a hulk’o rage inside me for whomever it was that filled in the sudoku in the newspaper, and whomever it was that ran off with the front section, and whomever it was that decided that the watercooler tasted funny and put it out of action, and anyone who coughs and sneezes and gurgles at me all day, because OH GOD THE PAIN, THE PAIN, THE PAIN of it all.

+ Rockstar tonight! After Snakes of course, with Bart and Blair and Jimmy and some random guy from Anji’s work and his partner. If anyone wants my last double pass, you know what to do.

- My iPod has started to give me occasional electric shocks up the earphones. Huh? How does that work? Can someone explain it to me please?

+ My first Food Baby tomorrow, unless the No-Jos club declare it ain’t so behind my back tonight. I’ll be making lemon pie for it. Which reminds me, I really must start posting some Africany recipes so y’all can do Country Club with me around the world, yes? Yes.