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”.

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?

1. I really, really wish that Holly and Hef were still together, and that they’d get married and have a baby.
2. I am not that ashamed to say that really like the movie Titanic, mostly because it reminds me of being 17 and going on the ferry to the Gathering,
3. Unless something happens in them, I change my sheets once a fortnight, even though I have so many sets of linen that they fill a large filing cabinet.
4. I haven’t smoked pot or done any illegal drugs since 2005, and I won’t be doing any ever again on account of being crazy, but I miss getting stoned, a lot.
5. Although you wouldn’t be able to tell from the state of my desk and bedroom floor, I can be really anal about my possessions, and really like to keep my books, DVDs and music in alphabetical & chronological order.
6. Right now I have at least six types of moisturiser that I use regularly
7. I have editing rights on about seven different websites, or maybe more.
8. I am still in contact with only three people that I’ve had sex with.
9. At last count (which is right now) I have pashed 33 people, or it might have been 43 because I was adjusting my stereo and messed up my hands. No wait, it’s 34/44. I _always_ forget one of the three people who I’ve had sex with that I’m still friends with (sorry!). Of those 34 people, I don’t know the names of two of them – the girl on New Year’s 2001/2 and the woman I kissed at Kowhai’s party last year.
10. I often struggle to understand why anyone would be friends with me.
11. I am really amazing at guestimating the perfect pours when I am making cocktails. What I put in the shaker will fill however many glasses I have at whatever size they are perfectly.
12. My least favourite phrase right now is “value for money”.
13. I vote Green to ease my guilt for not doing enough good deeds with the privileges that I have in life.
14. When I was 12, a friend of my mother’s grabbed my ass and winked at me in the way that you should not wink at a 12 year old girl. I slept with my pocket knife under my pillow that night. Now he’s on a Lotto ad and my parents make jokes about him. I do not appreciate that at all.
15.My iPod has three songs by 30 Seconds To Mars on it. I’m kind of embarrassed but I love My So-Called Life so dearly that I can’t not. Plus it’s Bambi’s fault.
16. If you forced me to choose only one Daily Show correspondent to watch for the rest of my life, apart from Jon Stewart, of course, I think I would have to go with Demetri Martin, but it would depend on whose piece I had seen most recently.
17. There are empty coffee cups that are at least six months old in my car.
18. When I used to see a counselor in Newmarket, it was $130. My counselor in Wellington is $85 when she’s not covered by work, but my psychiatrist who wears vaguely Cosby-as-done-by-Hallenstines-in-1998-sweaters is $170.
19. I am now physically incapable of sleeping without the aid of zopiclone. This worries me a lot but I am too crazy right now to try and come off it.
20. Although I am still angered by the stupidness of their ads, I buy Colgate Triple Action toothpaste. I will never buy a Nair product again though for the way that they state that you can’t be feminine and hairy. For the record, I am hairy like an animal.
21. I worry that if someone was attracted to me it would be because they have a fetish for fat chicks, and then I judge them for that, and I judge myself for judging them. It is fun times.
22. I frequently find myself wishing that I had the power to snap necks when people keep talking and annoying me.
23. I often don’t rinse out the coffee plunger at work. Yes, I leave it for the cleaning staff to deal with.
24. I like my coffee as a large latte, my white wine aromatic, my red wine boisterous, and my cocktails strong enough to overpower an elephant.
25. I have had almost a bottle of wine tonight and I suspect that at least one of my answers has made you very uncomfortable that you asked.

When I was about seven or eight, my family were traveling from somewhere to somewhere else, and we stopped for dinner in Taihape. I think it was probably a diner-type place, I don’t remember exactly. What does stand out in my mind though is that with our meal we were brought a stack of white buttered bread, which confused the hell out of me. As a grown-up now, I’ve since found out that quite a few New Zealanders have this with every dinner (thanks for the education, flatmates!) but we never ever did. As it was so foreign to us, we speculated that the same bread was placed on the table for every customer, and we thought about taking a bite out of every piece of bread so it couldn’t be reused, and then someone, perhaps Karen suggested that we take off the top slice, cut out the insides of all of the rest of the stack, and then put the top slice back on top, for the next unlucky customer.

Do you see where we’re going with this? That’s right. That theoretical hollow stack is my new metaphor for me. The top slice is on, so you can’t necessarily see the hollowness inside, but it’s drying out and turning up at the corners, and probably attracting flies. If we wanted to go with another metaphor, or story, if my life right now was a Michael Gondry film, it’d open with a tiny tiny little girl spooning a lifesize cat, in a lifesize bed, who tries to tunnel her way out of an ocean of duvets and pillows, and then finds she can’t step out of bed because of the height off the floor that she’s at. And then it’d flip somehow and you’d realise that was just her perspective, and she’s actually a big big girl in a normal bed with a normal cat, and all the barriers are in her head. And it’d go on to show the farrow dug between bed and the couch, and at some stage you’d see her head light up at night and render sleep impossibe because of all the random stupid shit that goes on and on and on.

And then we come out of the Michael Gondry movie to where I failed to go and pay for the tickets to Samoa Karen and I wanted, and where I failed to go to my daddy’s birthday brunch yesterday morning, and where I failed to go to work today, and where I fail to return emails, and where I fail to make an appointment to go see my counsellor because I don’t want to show her what a fucking failure I am, and where despite all the stuff going on in my head I’m pretty sure that if I pull up the duvet over my head it’ll all go away and I won’t have to deal with anything. But that probably won’t happen. I’m praying for my period. Perhaps that’ll make it better. Or maybe the sun’ll come up tomorrow. Bet your bottom dollar.

EDIT: Now that Amy’s been and gone for PPP doings, I can happily announce our Three Month Anniversary Party – if you’re girlie, you must come along! Here are all the details.

Oh boy, have I ever been busy! Where to start? Perhaps with photos. On the 14th of July, Bart had a party at his house, which was Rubik’s Cube themed. We were instructed to dress in all the colours of the cube and try to swap with others to end up in just one colour. Thinking that it wasn’t likely that I’d find anyone to swap clothes with, I hit the $2 shops in search of multi-coloured accessories, and wore them with all black clothes. It proved to be a great idea, as this photo that Lani took will prove:
l

As befits the party host, Bart went all out with his costume:

Gradually people built up their costumes:

Bart, Dylan and dirty Shirley

I was trading my mardi gras beads for looks at boy titty (and also for those hot pants that Dyl’s wearing in that photo). At the start of the night we hid out in the kitchen because people were watching rugby in the lounge, so I hijacked the stereo and tried to play the cheesiest music on Bart’s ipod. At one stage I ended up wearing a flower garland, but it was covering up my cleavage so when I saw a boy wearing a Hawaiian shirt I asked him if he wanted to get leied. He was confused then, but of course, after many more drinks I found myself downstairs in the hallway making out with him. As there were many people up on the landing above us, I tried to move us into the gap between the stairs and the wall, thinking it was more out of view, but instead I found myself lying on my back, looking up at people looking down on me while he tried to take off my shirt. As texts from Lani later in the week (she went to Auckland first thing in the morning) said after I accused her of being a pervert & always watching me when I was trying to celebrate hooking up someone without her walking in on us – “LOL i wasnt the only one wtching!” (who else was watching?) “I dnt knw sme rndoms. I jst cme 2 c wat they wre lking at lol” AWESOME. Anyways, the boy and I went into one of the bedrooms down there, and made out a bit more – strictly second base only and then Bart walked in and looked really shocked and I felt terrible because honestly, so tacky to misappropriate someone else’s bedroom for your pashage. Of course, later when I apologised to Bart via email he said he knew what was going on and just thought it would be funny to walk in. Anyways, we finished kissing (*) and I went back to the party and hit on Lani’s cousin, apparently. Much later, I really really needed to pee, but people were in the bathroom talking, and I was like “what the hell?” and since the door didn’t lock, I barged in. The guy I’d pashed was sitting in the bath talking to some other guy who was sitting on the floor, and I was like “I NEED TO PEE!” but they showed no signs of moving, so I went ahead and urinated anyway. That’s right, I’m Robin Tunney in Empire Records. I’m hardcore, yo! The party was a tremendous amount of fun. At the end of the night around 4.30am I was left with Dyl and Smoo and Bart who were playing yelly metal in the lounge. Bart disappeared to go buy cheeseburgers (I can has?) and Smoo tried to hit me when I tried to wake him up to take a taxi home, and Dyl had much the same reaction when I tried to get him up off the lounge floor so I left them and went home to giggle about how that makes three pashes in six weeks and at this rate, I’m going to kiss 26 people before I turn 28. Hurrah!

I am allowed to play silly buggers on the weekend because I had a very grown up week to follow that. I met with four recruitment agents! That’s a lot of having to get out of my pyjamas and comb my hair! Apart from that, I also went to the VIP night at Beckon where Hadyn, Amy, Tom and I all won spot prizes, and I took this fantastic photo:

Karen came to meet up with me and she and Hadyn and Amy and I went for a very pleasant meal at Longxiang afterwards:

I liked the orange beef best

The next night I went to the Ponoko beta product launch night at the Paramount, with the lovely Sue and the very intelligent Alan. Sue gave me an awesome bunny necklace, and I gave her some scrub in return. Then a group of us went for dinner at Royal India and I bossed my way through ordering for everyone like I tend to do.

On Friday I saw people from the Wellingtonista yet again, on our big night out, first at Vintage, then Hawthorn and then of course Boulot. And all I can say is that it’s just as well that Martha is my BFF, or she’d be in for a serious talking-to.

MG plied us with wine

Kim and Tom held court

Martha is queen of the dramatic

My mouth is the size of my head. Photo plundered from Stephen

And then on Saturday I called Karen many names because she wouldn’t surrender my copy of Harry so I changed my sheets for nothing. I got him on Sunday but had to go to Ngaio to do washing and to print out a presentation on how the government could use YouTube. I had two job interviews on Monday that I heard back from straight away, and started a six-week contract yesterday, and received a verbal offer from the other this afternoon. Fingers crossed that my references check out and the paperwork comes through!

Yesterday I was on fire. I discovered that my doctor had given me a three month prescription so she obviously doesn’t think I am at risk of taking all my pills at once.I went to the gym and wore a singlet instead of a tshirt because it was so fucking hot, and you know what? The world didn’t end. After work I met Karen and Anji and Lisa down by the lagoon. It was my intention to dive off the plank that’s up on the wharf there, but it was surrounded by squealling teenagers and much higher up than I realised, so Karen and I swam from the floating dock instead. The water was reaaaaaaally warm and nice and it was fun. But there were SO MANY PEOPLE THERE, I felt kind of watched. Eventually I decided that I’d hate myself if I didn’t jump off the plank – especially since it was my ambition to give it a go whilst sober and it being light outside in preperation for inevitable drunken night-swimming, but when I swam to the ladder I discovered that it didn’t go into the water and I didn’t have the arm strength to pull myself up onto it. And it would have been a dreadful hassle to go all the way around and back over the bridge just to jump in again, and while I am becoming more confident, the idea of that much walking around in my togs – hott as they are – in front of so many people wasn’t too appealing. So instead I will steal a photo that Lisa took to show how beautiful it was down there in the water:

Lisa is teh awesome photomagrapher

Then it was 6.30, so Lisa and I went up to the Boatshed for the Great Blend. It was too hot inside, so I got a glass of wine from the ladies at the bar who got nicer and nicer as the night went on, and while I shuddered at the fact that they only had Chardonnay, at least it was unoaked, but I will still blame it for my feeling so seedy today, and we ran away to sit in the shade outside and await Martha and talk about Hanson for some reason. We couldn’t think for ages of what the name of the ugly one was, and Lisa called him Baboon Face. I said that if there was a Q&A session in the talks, and they said did anyone have any questions, I would stand up and say “what is the oldest Hanson brother called? Can you tell me? No you can’t, because you don’t know, you don’t knooow oh oh oh” and then I laughed at myself lots, partly because I had some wine at work before I left. As it happens, Lisa was right and his name was Issac, which I didn’t think it could be because there was a Zack, but that’s short for Zachary. And then we went to meet Martha. I was briefly dismayed at how quickly she brushed me aside to go and meet a puppy-eater, but she came back and fufilled her BFF duties. Plus, she introduced me to fun people like Sally and Sue. And Glen bought me a glass of wine when I already had one, so I quickly looked a lot like a lush. Which is of course not at all how I really am. I talked to Tom and Kim about the magical transforming properties of a lei to make one fit in a tiki environment, and made fun of Stalker. The Back of the Y stuff was hilarious, and it was interesting to see what they’d done for MTV in the UK and how it was exactly the same stuff but much more expensive. I remembered watching it when I was living in Mt Roskill and thinking how awesome it was. I laughed a lot. The second panel was not quite as interesting to me, so I spent a while whispering stupid things to Sarah like “you have to marry one person on the panel – who is it?” (the answer is of course the guy who works for Google, cos duh, rich), before I decided to take myself outside and stop annoying her. So I talked to Joel for ages about what year a particular magazine was worse. We had very different opinions.Mostly I just drank and told everyone how much I wanted to jump off the plank. Sue told me she liked my blog and I was like “!!! I don’t have a blog!” but she redeemed herself instantly by saying that she had ordered the same swimsuit as me because it is so awesome. I introduced myself to Russell and also asked Che about his heart. Good times. The bar ladies seemed to love me even more. In fact, I’m pretty sure that everyone was digging my vibe. Eventually I slipped into the bathroom and slipped into my togs again, so when I left with a group of people I’d just met (I think), I strutted over to the plank and plunged in, followed by Sally. Hurrah! Night swimming is the most awesomeness. Sue carried my bag down to the lower dock for me, and I got changed in public. Lovely.

Then we went to Mighty Mighty and once again more good times were had. I wasn’t even embarrassed seeing Baby Hitler there and remembering how I’d asked him to dance and told off the DJ. Feeling good about yourself really does have positive flow on effects, it’s quite perplexing. I mean, it’s entirely possible that everyone did think I was a dick, but I don’t think so. I had lots of fun. On an extension of that topic, a while ago someone tried to insult me by leaving the comment “but I was just expressing my dismay at your blog [sic]; the purpose of which seems to documenting your desperation for a meaningless pash” and I was like “umm… duh! That’s the whole point of having an online journal, right?” – so in that vein I should declare that I “shared a taxi” home with a boy, which meant he had to wait with me on Ghuznee St while I called a Combined Taxi and babbled about my bad experiences with other companies. Later on the boy told me he saw my left boob when I was getting changed on the dock, which struck me as a most amusing thing to say, and then I laughed at him for a while teasing him about how he didn’t evne know what my name was – before I admitted I couldn’t think of what his was either. And tonight I bought Smoo pizza to make up for the fact that he said he’d gone to sleep with his eaphones in playing music and yet we’d still woken him up. Heh.

Maree emailed me this afternoon to rave about the article in Next with me in it that has apparently come out now, but all I could find was the February issue, not the March one. She said I sounded intelligent and that the photo was gorgeous. Hurrah! That made things more gooder today. I was grateful that I had many mindless web updates to do (adding in div id=”page” tags to about 20 pages and so forth) because I was somewhat tired and not feeling in the best health. I also seem to have bruises on every part of my body, a hole in the bottom of my foot, a cut-up toe from last Friday night when I peed under the X-Air hump, and a lump in my arm. I also had a couple of knots in my hair about the size of my fist that took half an hour of brushing to get out. I like salt water in my fringe, but man, I really should have combed my hair a little more often this week. Tomorrow Lani’s moving in, hurrah ,and then I am going to Ngaio for my Mummy’s birthday party. All in all, things are pretty fucking awesome. Everyone loves me. Including me, right now.

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

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.

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