Hubris.co.nz

Every year I answer the same 40 questions to do a stocktake of where I’m at. Check out previous years here.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

• Got made redundant
• Stayed overnight in hospital
• Lost items of value in a burglary
• Had my first threesome. And my second. And my third.
• Had an intern.
• Replied to someone on an internet dating site and then slept with them.
• Received over two grand’s worth of free stuff for being a blogger (the $1200 freeview box made up a lot of that)
• Went to Roller Derby
• Won a “Best Fan” prize
• Kissed 17 people in one night (hurray for kissing booths!)
• Had someone pay for me to get into a strip club, and also tucking money into strippers’ underwear for the first time
• Willingly (ish) went through a break-up.
• Had someone throwing me a surprise party.
• Worn red lipstick frequently and confidently.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for this year were about taking better care of myself, and although I did continue to sleep with the married man for a bit, we did indeed eventually break it off, so yay me. And then I resolved to never sleep with a married person again, which is a good resolution to have and I have yet to break it again. I also resolved to have breakfast with someone after we’d slept together, and while I thought I’d achieved that when I woke up with a boy for the first time since 2004, we didn’t actually have breakfast, unless you count helping ourselves to one another’s genitals again. Oh oh but actually, I did make wedges for a lady caller that we ate in bed together so I guess that counts.

My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Fucking buttloads of people had babies this year! Specifically Martha and Brenda and my best friend Penny from high school. Still more of my friends are pregnant right now, and it’s all a little bit over the top, if you ask me. I can’t have breakfast with a boy and you all can get married and buy houses and have babies? Unfair!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, but people very close to people I am very close to did, and all I could do about it was text stupid jokes every day and send care packages of Noel Fielding.

5. What countries did you visit?

Sydney for FullCodePress (thanks to the lovely Tash Mahal) and Vanuatu for fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Breakfast with someone, obviously, since I can now cook eggs. Also, a job. And let’s say a proper public relationship where the person I am with shouts it from the rooftops.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The Wellingtonista Awards again because of the work and the memories that I was a bit scared of. December 10 because it was my ten year anniversary of fucking. July 17 for my ten years of Hubris party and because it was when I relaunched this site in Wordpress. June 30 for being my last day at the SSC.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, I had a motherfucking buttload of bad shit happen to me this year, and so the fact that I’m still in good spirits, that I’m happy, sort of healthy and am able to keep going on, and that I’ve ended the year with all my friendships intact and even with new friends is pretty fucking awesome. Go me!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t have another job yet. I know that I am hireable, that I have many skills and talents and the fact that I’m still unemployed is really weird. I’m also disppointed that I’m not as over someone as I’d like to be, but that’s not something you can force and you definitely can’t get over someone by being under as many people as possible. I’ve learnt my lesson on that front quite a few times this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Depression as per usual, some nasty flus, withdrawl from zopiclone when I finally came off them, and also hospitalisation after an ingrown hair gave me cellulitis. But apart from that, no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop(s) that allow me to download and watch copious amounts of television. Also every present that I’ve bought for others that has allowed me to demonstrate even the smallest fraction of how much I care about them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family who have continued to lend me money and buy me things like a new laptop after mine got stolen and I didn’t have insurance, who paid my power bill for me so I wouldn’t get disconnected and who aren’t demanding that I pay them back for our trip to Vanuatu. Also everyone this year who’s bought me a drink or a meal in exchange for my company, especially Tom, who is insanely generous. My friends who’ve helped me out of emotional jams, listened to me bitching and moaning and kept me company through the long dark winter, Smoo whose quiet presence in the house is always welcome, and everyone who gave me orgasms this year and fucked me til my thighs ached.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Management at SSC and everyone else who didn’t hire me, people who think that hitting kids is okay, the cunt who burgled us, and anyone who has treated my friends badly.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Double rents and unemployment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Roller derby! Kat & Kane’s wedding! Harvestbird & Knedd’s wedding! People having babies!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

‘So here we are’ by Bloc Party becasue it played while I was lying in my lover’s arms for what we thought was the last time, and so that he wouldn’t see me crying I buried my face in his neck and we fucked because it fit the narrative structure that way. And also ‘Some time around Midnight’ by the Airbourne Toxic Event, even though or actually because as Good Tom says there’s far too much pathos in it for one song. It’s like the story of my life condensed down into four minutes. Oh and because it was so recent, ‘Halo’ is standing out in my mind right now too.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, despite all the crap. I am getting better at dealing with everything.
ii. smaller or larger? Larger, by a lot probably.
iii. richer or poorer? Much much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Physical activies and community service. Also, I wish I’d put more work into You Are So Entertaing but I still can!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on Twitter and Spider Solitaire and watching crappy television. Passive-aggressive texting and emailing. I sent some spectacularly nasty drunken emails this year and I am very not proud of them. My defense of being desperate for any kind of reaction is not good enough.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

My parents and Karen came over to my house and were joined by Bad Tom and Shirley and I cooked amazing food and we gorged ourselves and had a thoroughly pleasant time of it.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
WINZ. Heather and Kat <3.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I didn’t fall, I stayed in.

23. How many one-night stands?

Three? In terms of one-offs, there was a girl, there was Tingle and there was the guy from Internet dating. I did see the girl again though, but only in a friend capacity. In addition, there were multiple occasions with the married man, the duck and the crazy girl. Oh, and I had intended to have a playdate with the boy who’d watched me and the crazy girl in his hotel room, whose kiss made me a little weak at the knees, but despite some textage, the stars didn’t align. Which is probably for the best.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Dollhouse (!!!!!)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh god, have I actually done any reading this year? I liked Generation A but not nearly as much as Generation X. I don’t think I can remember any other books, really, which I know is pretty terrible. Don’t tell Karen okay?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm, getting a subscription to Last.FM? And taking all the contents of Emma and Lisa’s hard drives?

28. What did you want and get?

A laptop. To wake up in someone’s arms. Lots and lots of pashes. Amazing collections of friends. An overseas tropical holiday and some weekend jaunts other places. To get on the dole and be left mostly alone (well, I’d rather I didn’t have to, but it was a struggle to get here anyway). The ability to sleep without zopiclone.

29. What did you want and not get?

An invitation to Foo Camp – I worked really hard to prove myself this year hoping to get one and I didn’t. Sad face. Also, a new job, and at the time of writing, a full house. Paying extra rent is killing me. A real relationship. An ONYA nomination.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m not sure what movies I actually went to this year. There weren’t very many of them, that’s for sure.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my actual birthday I got free coffee from Green Land, I went to work, then I went to the Backbencher for someone’s goodbye drinks. I was feeling nauseous so I only drank gin. Then with my family I went to Elements for dinner which was amazing. Prior to that, my amazing sisters threw me a freak show surprise party! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I turned 29, which means I’m almost 30 now. Crikey!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finding a new job shortly after being made redundant with a bit of time for a holiday in between.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’ve got really into the Fatshionista community and started posting outfits of the day before my camera got stolen. I’m still trying to be Joan Holloway. I’ve also started wearing red lipstick, thanks to the lovely Megan.

34. What kept you sane?
My amazing counsellor, my family’s love and financial support and my fantastic friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Noel Fielding? Jon Stewart still makes me moist. As does ummm oh I don’t know. People? Stuff? Things? Tom Coates and that other guy from Webstock. Matt Bidulp? I can’t remember. Oh! And Victor from Dollhouse.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ridiculous bullshit redundancies, strangely enough. Oh yeah, ICT’s totally not going to be a growth area…

37. Who did you miss?

The secret relationship. All my friends who are in other cities, especially Heather and Kat’n Kane. Really angry I missed out on meeting Ghetsum again cos I was too sick. And Good Tom, who shouldn’t have left to go to America, fucker.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh my gosh, I met so many awesome people this year, like Kim and Laura and Amie through Twitter, Chiara and Theresa and Julie through Pretty Pretty Pretty and also my new flatmate Thigh Voltage and through her the derby girls. Also, I’d already met Megan before but I feel like we became really good friends this year and that’s always worth celebrating.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
The people that care about you want to be there for you. You just need to learn to ask for help.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I get by with a little help from my friends”.

I really have been having the most excellent week, and it’s kind of making me go “how did I get to be so lucky?” I love the post period period. Period. Lols.

On Wednesday night, I built myself a new site, based on an old zine of mine called You Are So Entertaining. Dot Com.It’s a party/recipe/stuff site, and I hope you like it. It will continue to grow. I could build another site based on my other zine, but really, this site is pretty much BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS BOYS and 101 Stories That I Want To Tell You anyways. And I don’t get to tell You & Me in the Last Days of Bush ever anyway.

On Thursday I headed out to see Martha at Wanda Harland and plan the opening of her new shop. You can read more about the planning on You’re So Entertaining, in fact.

Then I headed home to prepare Miss Fur’s birthday dinner. We had papas garbanzo, and Karen made PANDA CAKE (based on this bread) and Megan made raspberry umm cobblers, and Shirley just sat and looked pretty. Even though it was her birthday, I still beat Lisa at some singstar songs. Go me!

Yesterday I did some serious work on a comms plan for my old workmate Ros, faffed around with stockings and got dressed up, and then Miss Emma picked me up. I spooged coconut cream all over her house and we had cocktails. Simon did his sexy dance for Lisa, and went to spank me which I found rather awesome, except for the whole being someone’s husband thing. We had tremendous fun and I didn’t even have to use a coaster.

Today I woke up with a hangover and a big pile of compliments (god i ADORE Fatshionista so much! I’m having trouble keeping my clothes on these days). I had trouble starting my car because of the rain, which served me right for asking how many Brents it took to change a lightbulb because he was struggling to fix his headlights, but when I got to Hadyn & Amy’s there was coffee and pastries waiting for me, and it was almost like being in Vanuatu again, only with better coffee and less tropical fruit. Amy and I discussed secret PPP business (we’re coming close to 1000 comments and so the 1000th person will be getting an awesome prize. Also, we’re having another girlie party, possibly on Oct 17ish), and then she cut my hair. Hurray!

After that, she told me many things about her vacuum cleaner, such as how it has a motor in the head as well, that it can stand up by itself without needing to lean on anything, and that she can push it with just one finger. I was entralled. I know I am supposed to say that Beatles Rockband was much more awesome, but really, who doesn’t like a good suck?

Beatles Rockband was fantastic though. I like that there can be harmonising. I also loved singing ‘Here comes the sun’ because of the aforementioned happiness, and how it feels like the ice is finally melting and all. They bought me fish’n chips and I had a very long conversation with Amy about my uncomfortableness with any lack of financial independence, but she said that I give back with generousity. And I did a panda dance for her.

Then! I went out to Newlands to pick up Lisa and also got Shirley and we went to the James Cabaret to see HEAD LIKE A HOLE. Oh my, they were so very awesome after Luger Boa finally got the fuck off the stage. The crowd was all old school, and there were people stagediving, and the bass was all rumbling and my skirt was vibrating, and they played all the songs that i love, and they had a hot girl come out and play the trumpet, and oh, it was just the most giggy gig I’ve been to in a very long time. Love.

And yes, because of all the good feelings that I’ve been having lately, I’ve resolved to try and go a week without saying anything nasty about people I know. I can do this, right? After all, the things I hate the most in other people are the traits that I’m worried that I myself exhibit. And honestly, all this snarking that I do is partly because I’m trying to impress Megan and Emma since they’re both fairly new friends to me, but putting other people down doesn’t really make me happier (although it can be entertaining!) so I might make a conscious effort to stop, for a week, and see how I feel about that. Of course, this only applies to people I know. #TV3news is still very much an open target.

You guys like role-playing right? Okay, so let’s pretend for a minute that you’re Jonathan Davis of Korn fame. You’ve dealt with my urge to call you Jonathan Brandis, and you weren’t on Seaquest and you didn’t kill yourself. You wrote some tunes that some people stood around in a circle in a lounge in Johnsonville when the parents were away pretending to headbang to, and you wrote the soundtrack for a dreadful movie that Stuart Townshead wore leather pants in and looking very fucking hot and so much better than Tom Cruise in. So, your guitarist quits, and goes off to write a tell-all book, and become a born-again Christian. Do you use your down-time to help puppies and also to train your bassist to wear his bass up around his middle not his knees, or do you learn to play the bagpipes?

Yeah, exactly.

So I wrote a journal entry last night, as you have no doubt read. Since that time I had a nice sleep, I drank some coke, I watched some episodes of America’s Next Top Model (I am totally on Team Isis and love Faux-Kimora for her open mind. And there’s just been the Irene Cara ‘Fame’ song on TV and I’ve realised that pretty much the entire cast is Isis, not least because of their bad hair). Then I got my shit together and put on my old red dress and went into town and Cafe Istanbul for Megan’s redrunkening.  Her friends were mostly couples but I won’t hold that against her, and also I was amused to see the girl I used to work for at Ausm/Debate and we had a quick bitch session. I couldn’t believe how busy Istanbul was, and we managed to try to leave at the same time as another big table of cute lesbians so it took forever to do the bill and pay.

Then we went to the Taste of Korea to do karaoke. As is my way, I grabbed a mike and opened things with ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ as I always rock the fuck out of that on Rockband. Our Soju “cocktails” were neither strong nor actually cranberry flavoured (raspberry miranda is NOT cranberry) but people warmed up eventually and we all sang some more. I ended up getting another hour, and because I didn’t know the people I didn’t ask for any money, which possibly was not the best financial decision ever, but Megan got the first hour, so whatever. Anyways, so mostly I sang power ballads. I sang “Sweet Child’O Mine” because I now take any chance to exercise old demons. And then I sang ‘Careless Whisper’ but I am too used to the Gossip version, and also having the lyrics up on the screen was like a punch in the face. As these things go. But anyways, I fucking adore karaoke like so much. I could sing all night.

Except that we only had two hours and we finished on “We are the world” and most people went home, so I went up to Atomic to find Karen. I couldn’t spot her on the dancefloor initially, but I did spot Smoo and Blair out on the balconey so I hung out with them for ages,  before I went and had a sweaty dance (I was all in synthetic fibres, stinky) and found my friends. I alternated between dancing and hanging with the boys after that. Acgtually, I also managed to combined the two, making Blair slowdance with me to OMD’s “If You Leave” as a tribute to John Hughes.  Blair and Smoo had some guy with them who managed to believe that Karen and I were identical twins – after I sadi that I’d eaten all the pies. He did some clever detective work, asking me what my birthdate was, and then asking her, and strangely enough, she said the same date. Karen was in very fine form that night, saying that there had been quite a few young boys hitting on her that night, including the duck – “but then again, I am moving/have a pulse. Not that I think he’s that fussy.”. Blair and Smoo didn’t seem to accept “Not married!” as a justification for anything, and if you add that to the fact that Smoo has a cricket bat in his room for chasing intruders then you’ll understand why i left a note on his door when I got home telling him that I fricking adore him. And now it’s 4am, and kebabs have been eaten, so let’s finish this journal and maybe have sleeps, yes?

Auckland is always such a city of contrasts. I got to Wellington Airport with much time to spare, so I read the paper cover to cover, perching preacriously on a stupidly slippery stainless steel stool, after surrendering my armchair to an army of annoying angry women who surrounded me and chatted incessantly and loudly. Of course being there early meant my flight was late coming in, and so in a hurray I decided to take a shuttle to my hotel instead of the airport bus. $26 bought me a seat with nine others, a long trip through Grey Lynn past Heather’s house and Canton where I was due for dinner, and I was the last person to be dropped off. Dammit!

But there was no time to fume. The Quadrant’s lobby was stark white and filled with scented candles. I rolled my bag down the long white walkway through the bar area and into a lift that had an embedded TV screen playing Juice. My room was tiny but functional. I discovered to my perverse joy later that I could sit on the toilet, blowdry my hair, drink vodka and watch TV all at the same time. What more could anyone want? A quick shower later, I was in a corporate cab from the Hyatt next door on my way to Kingsland. The sun was setting and reflected in all the shiny new architecture along Symonds Street. It was a beautiful view, but holy fuck, $18 for that distance? That amount would have got me to Greenlane in the olden days!

I grabbed two bottles of wine from Weta Wines, pleased it was still there and still open, and headed to Canton. There were still people at the table I’d booked (bastards!) so I went and stood on the street outside. Bopha came up and left to get cash and wine. Amy & Ross came along and left to get wine. Then came Martina and Heather. Robyn and Heather’s b/f Ben eventually completed our party, since Clay and Nige flaked.

I had been salivating over the prospect of dinner at Canton since I booked my tickets up to Auckland, and while the large group and noise of the place made converastion difficult, the food didn’t disappoint. As usual, I was appointed/appointed myself chief orderer, so with some deference to Martina’s vegetarianism, we had: black bean hapuku, sweet & sour pork, sizzling venison with ginger & spring onions, crispy roast pork, special black chilli chicken, sizzling vegetables and egg noodles with fried veges. YUM! Two people took doggie bags home, and with tea and dim sum and rice and corkage, we each paid $19.25. So good!

Afterwards we were going to go to Ruby for more drinks, but it was too loud, and so we settled on the Kingslander for a couple more bottles of wine. There were television screens EVERYWHERE, it was most distracting. But good to be able to converse. I like my friends. I cabbed back to the hotel eventually, and debated ordering porn from the in-house video system, just because I could, but it was $17.95 per movie, so I settled for watching Wild On: Naked instead. Genius.

The next morning, I set my alarm for 10.30 so I could wake up to meet Heather who was coming to the hotel at 11. We discovered that breakfast stopped being served at 10am, so tragedy of tragedies, we had to go straight for bubbly and cheese. As we sat in the sunny courtyard and I started to burn, we heard someone playing an electric guitar, and the sound bounced off the building next door. Given that Heather’d spotted John Toogood and Phil Knight in the lobby, we were happy to think that it was Shihad playing in our hotel, but it sounded pretty terrible, so maybe it was Grinspoon instead, who were due to be opening for Muse that night.

Once the sun got to be a bit too much, we tried to pay our bill, which took forever (the staff were friendly but not highly competant), and we got changed and went into the spa. Hurray! Yeah, a spa on a hot day after drinking caffiene and alcohol might not be the smartest idea ever, but it was loooooooovely. And then it was quite obviously time for lunch, so we strolled down to the Art Gallery, hoping to have lunch there, but found it was shut. Luckily Rueben at the New Art Gallery was open, so we parked ourselves on one of the balconies there, I had an average lamb salad, Heather had amazing french toast, and we had a totally unnecessary but very happy bottle of Deutz as well. Mmmmmm indulgence! And then just to show that we’re not totally cultureless, we went around the art gallery too. Upstairs was an exhibition called Making Worlds, which was really bloody cool. They had a seven minute animation loop called “City Glow” going on in a darkened room, which I totally could have watched all day. Although it made me feel far too Jessica Simpsony lame and pointless when I saw it was produced by Takashi Murakami and I was like “He did those brightly coloured Louis Vittion prints!”. Like I need to know that.

Eventually Heather and I parted company, and I went back to the hotel for naps and snacks, before KateH came to pick me up in the evening. We went to her beautiful house which is down by the water, and had a few drinks while we waited for the Checks and Grinspoon to get off the stage. Drive-thru burgers from Wendy’s ensured that our timing was perfect to actually get a park by the Waitakere Stadium, and we’d only missed two of Muse’s songs. We’re both so old now that we didn’t mind that at all. When did I stop queuing for things hours before they began? Was it around the same time that my knees started to go? But anyways, the gig was AMAZING. So good. When they played ‘Hysteria’, I had an auralgasm of the kind I hadn’t experienced since Dimmer. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! Totally matched up to my dirty dream that featured it prominently in it. And we saw Amanda and Darren, which was nice, and left when they turned on the lights. And then we were naughty and had an after-hours spa back at the hotel, which was fantastic for sore feet and knees, especially since it was merely lukewarm. Best Friday EVER!

The next morning was Saturday, and I slept in, loving the bed, before I decided it was time to drag my ass out into the streets. I strolled down to Gloria to have breakfast, where my French toast wasn’t as good as Heather’s, but the coffees were nice and I read the paper cover to cover. Then I got on the link bus to go to the museum, but I started feeling all nostalgic and weird, because of all the memories of the route (which are detailed in ‘Link’ in 101 Stories that I want to tell you of course) and so I decided to just stay on the bus and go all the way around the city. Well, I got off briefly in Ponsonby to buy vodka and bread, but you know what I mean.

Finally it was time for me to meet Martina and David and also Karl at the Queen Street bus stop to go to the Lynfield YMCA for the wrestling. Oh yes. I went west, life is peaceful there. I went west, people had terrible hair. The ride on the 257 was pretty full of nostalgia too, given the two flats I lived in on/off Dominion Road. It was also interesting hearing other people’s stories, like where they lost their virginities. And drinking vodka from a ginger ale bottle made me feel like a fourteen year old again, and who doesn’t like that? We got to Lynfield with some time to spare, so we hunted out food for the boys, and I sang the YMCA song a lot with the actions, and we took this photo in front of the vets. And now I might just revert into a photo montage to sum up the awesomeness of the wrestling, and my brand new boyfriend with a spectacular ginger mullet.

After a cold long wait for the bus, we all started falling asleep on the back seat. Nevertheless, Martina and David came back to my hotel room for a while, and helped me polish off the remaining food and vodka, and I stayed up late watching E! again. Good times.

On Sunday I was expecting to have brunch with Bopha and Clayton, but she was stuck out west somewhere, and Clayton made other plans, so after checking out at 12 and leaving my suitcase with reception, I returned to Gloria to have a very very long breakfast by myself with the Sunday Star Times. Finally it was getting near time to find myself an airport bus, so I went to get my suitcase, and I asked them where the airport bus stop was, and they told me down on Symonds Street. So I rolled my case up to a stop in the hot hot sun, but couldn’t find any markings on it to indicate that the airport bus might stop there. I rang Maxx, and they gave me the number for the airport bus company, and I couldn’t find a human, but it did mention the route, listing the Hyatt which was right next to the Quadrant, so disgruntledly I rolled back up to the Hyatt, and the doorman told me the stop was right in front of the Quadrant. Cheers clever desk staff! So I was hot and stinky and smelly then, and worried that I might not make it to the airport in time, when a shuttle pulled up in front of me and told me he’d drive me to the airport for $15, the same as the bus, since he was going that way anyway. Yay! That shuttle totally redeemed the shuttle in. And so that was the end of my time in Auckland. Very good fun indeed.

I’m going to Auckland after work today. Tonight I’m having dinner at Canton, hurrah! Text me if you’re in Auck and I forgot to invite you. There’s a spare seat at our table. Then on Friday night I’m going to Muse. I’m up until Sunday, so please feel free to fill in my time table for me.

I have lots of stuff to write about but I haven’t got time, so very briefly:

1. The clever Alison Green has created an archives page for the Gathering (you remember that, right?) which you should definitely go check out and my story about long distance IRC love and bad acid trips can be found here.

2. Please go vote for the Wellingtonista Awards, and try to get into our Awards Night. I have a stunning pink dress to wear to it. I’m going to look damn hot. When you’re voting, I recommend voting for the poached pear punch at Superfino as the best drink, and of course for the Bowling/Quiz Leagues as best event.

3. I am so very in love with the new Q CD for the best of 2007, especially Hard Fi, Rilo Kiley and Jamie T – “I ain’t an abacus but you can count on me”. I’m pissy with PJ Harvey for coming to Auckland on the 13th of February when I’m going to be up there for the 8th. Err, presuming I get an invite to my cousin’s wedding, that is. Are you coming back for it, Cous?

Tonight, I had sex with Shayne Carter. Before you call the Sunday Truth (or actually, probably the Sunday Star Times is more tabloidy these days) though, you should know that I wasn’t the only one. There were probably about three hundred other people who did it too. None of them had as good an orgasm face as him though. And for such a rockstar, he’s not a selfish lover. He totally gave me aural pleasure.

I think if you’d been at San Frindigo tonight, you would understand why I am all about the comparing this gig to sex (you know, aside from intense sexual frustration, of course). It’s not a new thing for me to review gigs like sex – I started doing it with Shihad, but tonight Shayne’s face said “my guitar is a penis, and it is an awesome thing”, and it truly truly was.

Dimmer opened with ‘Crystalator’ (or as others have refered to it, the “reeeeeeeeeeeeh reeeeeeeeh reeeeeeeh song”), and has it really been TEN YEARS since I got that on the Pop Eyed Flying Nun compilation for Xmas? Holy crap! It was loud, so loud that I could have believed that the speakers had come to life and crawled in my ears. After a couple of songs from There My Dear on which the absense of Bic and Anika and Annna doing backing vocals demonstrated even more how Straitjacket Fitsy that album is, they played ‘Drop you off’. Live, it was perhaps a little less menacing than the video – trees out the back of a car window at night time, like lying in the back seat as a kid, normally makes it, but it was more pounding, and thrusting, and pushed and pushed and pushed at you, and my breathing sped up to go along with it, and the very strong coffee I’d made before I left the house and the nurofen plus worked together in harmony, and it was all washing all over my body. ‘Seed’ afterwards was even more thrusty, and it went on and on, and even in the bourbon-washed summer of 01/02 that I believe you are a star was on high rotate in my computer and I was actually literally fucking, I was never fucked as intensely as that song brought it tonight. Well, maybe a couple of times.

The only time that Shayne took off his ‘O’ face was when they played “You’re only leaving hurt”, the first chords of which made me well up, naturally. For that, he was cradling his guitar like it was the last dance with a lover, instead of the pornstar stance of other songs (and I mean that in the best possible way, of course). He said at the end “That’s a sad song”, and then said “this is another sad song” as an introduction to ‘Scrapbook’. I recently managed to find Siamese Dream on vinyl ($50 secondhand, mind you!), and so I’ve been listening to that quite a lot, so I can say with good authority that ‘Scrapbook’ reminds me (see, I told you I had authority) of ’silverfuck’ – most especially the pounding pounding pounding drums, but ‘Scrapbook’ manages to be a thousand times more bitter and powerful , the whole “bang bang, you’re dead” line aside.

The last gig I saw at San Frindigo was of course the Phoenix Foundation, so I enjoyed the contrast between the highly personable stage banter between Sam & Luke, and stony silence and the eyes of daggers it seemed like James was getting as he tuned his guitar. A couple of songs in, it seemed like someone flicked the “make smalltalk with the audience now” switch though, and even the way too fucking predictable wanker yelling “Play ‘She speeds’!” and the so very stoic “Ta” after applause didn’t detract from the overwhelming intensity of the gig. During ‘Scrapbook’ I even wished that it was Shihad on stage, because I so so wanted to throw some goats, and they’re the only band I’ve seen that you can get away with non-ironic goats at.

The last track of the two-song encore had huge rolling cymbals that were waves of sound, and the feedback was totally consuming, just flooding into every last inch of me. I’m sounding like some druggie loser right now, I know, but I’m not. On drugs. Except for the aforementioned caffeine and codeine, of course. I’m just all woah still. My head is buzzing, and there are oceans of feedback still playing in my ears, and every inch of me is sore from the dancing, and from the bass that rose up from the floor, but I don’t care. I came in my pants like a thousand times tonight.

And awesomely, I just got a text from my friend going “Do you feel like Shayne is making love to you with the music?” Hahaha! Yes, yes I do! And holy fucking shit, I hope it was as good for him as it was for me.

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

A while ago, I started a Mixtape Club on NZM. The first assignment was a mixtape based on other mixtapes you’ve received. It took a fuck of a long time to get everyone’s submissions in, but finally I (kind of) did. Here are the linear notes that accompanied mine, so you can play along at home!

1. Patti Smith: ‘Free Money’
This song should be on every mixtape ever made, it?s just that awesome. My number one fantasy until recently has been based around sitting on someone?s floor while they play me all their favourite records which would definitely include this from Horses. But then I decided to stop waiting for the fantasy and to just buy my own bloody record player.

2. The Dead Souls: ‘One More Little Death’
“Oh yeah Jo, we all know why you put this track on”.
“Shut up, voice in my head. I really like this song”.

3. Liz Phair: ‘Fuck and Run’
When I started ninth grade, the American school I was at had a Big Brother/Big Sister programme in place. I’d circled that I didn’t want either a big brother or a big sister, and had listed ‘Grunge/alternative/weirdo music’ as my interest in life, which meant that I got matched up with one Brittany Tobiason, who wrote me a letter going “you seem about as interested in this as me, so how about we team up?”. It was 1994, and Brittany was from SEATTLE. She was basically God to me, the way she wrote lines of poetry on her cigarettes, drank rum from a Superman drink bottle and discussed philosophy over endless cups of coffee. She also made me my first ever mixtape called Jerry, which introduced me to many bands that would be incredibly important to my development, like Liz Phair, and PJ Harvey and Hole. Brittany was so fucking awesome.

4. American Music Club: ‘Last Harbour’
I once received a 23 page letter from someone who reads Hubris who’d emailed to say that since he read my site every day and it made him feel happy he wanted to send me a present for my 21st. Some people would go “freeeeeaaaaak” in reply to that, but I said “hell yeah” and he included this song on one of the compilations he sent me.

5. Bright Eyes: ‘Lover I Don?t Have to Love’
As the divine Miss Fur said on NZM “It seems to win Joanna’s affections musically you need to include songs about sex… see Bright Eyes – Lover I Don’t Have to Love…” well, that?s what she did. I heart this song and while I am of course not a shiny Emo rockstar boy, I can relate somewhat.

6. Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood ‘Summer Wine’
All good mixtapes should have some auld-skool gem on it. That’s the rules. I remember singing this song on long long family car trips, and more recently I resurrected it for a compilation of summer songs I gave to everyone I was friends with that summer. I’m sorry if it puts Jessica Simpson in your head though.

7. Augie March: ‘Asleep in Perfection’
When my friend Annabel had to borrow an episode of The Secret Life of Us that I’d taped off me, she made me a mix CD called Cherries in return. This waltzy song from the Australian band who were played on the show quite a lot ties it all together.

8. Ani DiFranco: ‘Soft Shoulder’
“I will say I have saved / every letter you ever wrote to me”.
I am a prolific letter-writer, but what I hate is that if it’s an actual pen and paper affair, you give it to someone when you’re giving them metaphorical pieces of your heart, and then you don’t get it back afterwards, when it turns out that the letter receivee totally wasn’t worth your words. I don’t think the boy who used to play me this song ever kept my letters. He made sure I had very few physical momentos of him as well. But you can read all about that in my zine 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You. Haha, advertising myself in linear notes. So classy.

9. The Cure: ‘Fascination Street’
Yeah, you’ve probably heard this one many times before, but have you ever heard it loud enough? I don?t think I have. This is one of those songs that needs to be turned up so loud that all you can do is drown in it ? and “move to the beat like you know that it’s over”. It gets to be included here because the man mentioned in #4 put it on a mixtape (an actual tape!) of songs about lust. Ahhh long distance impotency, how amusing you are.

10. PJ Harvey: ‘A Perfect Day, Elise’
The boy from #8 gave me Is This Desire? with a note taped to it saying “Yes!” and I thought that was the most romantic thing in the whole wide world ever. Then he left, and I lost this CD, and when PJ played the BDO she didn?t play anything off this album, and for a while I started to think that maybe it didn’t exist at all. But of course it does, and this song is so awesome that it makes me hold my breath while it’s playing, and then I get all light-headed and that makes the song even more awesome.

11. Fur Patrol: ‘The Lover’
This song is so underrated. I put it on a compilation of all my favourite Nu Zulland Music for someone a long way away, and they said they loved it too, and that’s good.

12. Big Star: ‘13′
Phew! After all the intensity of most of the other tracks on this mix, I thought it’d be good to finish off with something incredibly sweet and simple. This came from a CD called Pimpu wa doko desuka? (Where are the pimps?) that arrived in my old work PO box, and I had no idea who the hell it was from for a long time, because it had someone’s real name on it, when I only thought of them by their online nickname. So there you go.