Hubris.co.nz

Jimmy Supergood asked me the other day why I wasn’t updating Hubris anymore, and I had to tell him that it wasn’t really intentional, but I’ve been waiting to finish writing about my American exploits, and those are such long stories that I haven’t felt up to writing them, and I haven’t wanted to update until I got myself up to date, and oh the vicious circleness of it. So here I am, updating. And I will tell American stories later.

Firstly, sorry to Shayne Carter for making him feel violated (or, apparently torn between violated and flattered). Secondly, The Wellingtonista of which I am of course part, have launched their First Annual Wellingtonista Awards for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence so it would be awesome if you would go and vote for them, and also if you should feel like it, join us for our awards ceremony on December 1, in a secret venue which we will inform you of when you vote. And it’s totally not secret just because we haven’t picked a place, oh no. That would suggest a level of casualness and uninformity of which we are not at.

Sentence construction is a little hard for me now as I have been sitting on the front steps all afternoon basking in the gorgeous sunshine, aided by one admittedly large vodka lime and soda and so I am more than a little dizzy – and also in need of a good neck massage but I suspect that’s on a different note. This weekend has been fairly low-key. On Friday, all our managers were away on a retreat, so we got an email about “when the cats are away…” which meant BYO food and drinks to our communal eating area. It was bucketing down with rain which meant I walked through Kirks on my way to Rumbles to buy booze, and was drawn into the chocolate and wine shop hoping for free samples of chocolate. Instead I was waylaid into doing a tasting, and when the man said “I make the wine..” I was like, oh, it’s the actual winemaker, I suppose I should buy a bottle then. And of course Kirks are too wanky to put visible prices on things (as I told someone later that night, the last time I actually went into Kirks proper instead of their related food shops was in sixth form to buy stay-up tights for the ball, and they looked down their noses at me so much that I resolved not to go back ever) so I ended up buying a $29 bottle of Tohu Pinot Noir when really I was after something for around $12 that I could leave behind. Stink. Of course, that meant I had to stay and drink it all, which was good in a way because it meant I talked to many people I’d never talked to before, and apart from people talkijng about my father (because where I work is a place that people work for for life, and so therefore even though Daddy hasn’t been there for ten years or something (someone asked me why he left and I know the answer is for Mum)) I learnt lots about other people. Still no rich husband prospects though. I guess I should expect that, working for the government and all.

Consequently, having drunk all but a glass of that tasty tasty pinot noir within an hour and a half (I shared the love), I was a trifle tipsy by the time I arrived at Tupelo to meet Karen and Dylan, but I think I managed not to come across as such too much. Karl and Amber joined us later and had the brilliant suggestion of going to umm Siam Reap (?) for dinner. They were full at the time, but took my number and said they’d call in a half hour or so, so I suggested we go grab a drink at Mighty Mighty, which I’d (of course) just found out about on Wellurban. Guess who I’m voting for as best Welly Web Writer? Mighty Mighty was very cool, and I got to wave to my old flatmate Justine from Newtown there. I like that they offer about four kinds of house wine named only by kind, and that you can also get cask wine for $5. And it’s so green and pretty! And the bathroom is painted the same cotton candy pink that the bathrooms at Occam are. Yes. And then we got the call from Siam Reap so Karen and I went to buy wine while the others finished their drinks, but motherfucking Starmart in Manners Mall had its locked-up screens down becasue the guy behind the counter looked younger than 18. That’s so fucking lame, and made me rully rully angry. Luckily the restaurant was licensed, and with an $8 per bottle corkage, it probably wasn’t much more expensive anyway. I’d never been before, but holy fuck it was tasty. My medium beef salad seemed much hotter, but my curry main was much easier eating. And so damn tasty, oh yes.

Afterwards Karl and Amber went home and Karen, Dylan and I went back to Mighty Mighty where we found a wide windowsill to sit on and proceeded to make fun of people for what felt like a couple of hours. He was all “it’s so funny how nasty girls get as soon as they see another girl in a miniskirt” so we took the time to explain to him that it wasn’t just that this girl’s skirt was so short we could see out her nostrils, but also that it looked like a pillowcase and that it had obviously been a really nice knee-length frock that she’d tacked up inside it. So it wasn’t just the tartiness of it, it was also the ugliness. We were less chastised for making fun of an older lady who was pulling people onto the floor with her scarf and making them dance with her. I was rather inclined to tap one hipster on the shoulder and say “dude, you’re going home to a sweeeeet threesome!” when his girlfriend was kidnapped away from him, but I was afraid he would think I was including myself in the equation. I also saw James who edited Salient this year, who with a couple of bear hugs made me feel much better about whoever the anonymous person posting nasty comments about my skills as an ad manager being responsible for VUWSA’s financial difficulities on another website (because yes, I never said I was a good salesperson, but seriously, if you’re going to write something like that then get enough fucking balls to put your name to it, lamer), and tried very hard to avoid the attention of The Mime, although it was amusing to see him as it inspired a whole round of “help me, I’m trapped in a box!” type posing. Then we spotted a guy with a German flag badge on each shoulder and for some reason that just really got my goat, so I encouraged Karen to teach Dylan the phrase “Do you have an old washing machine?” in German to ask the boy, in some kind of “Ha! You’re like, not even German!” cheekiness. I didn’t hink Dyl was actually going to get around to asking him, but he did, making the boy even more confused by miming a cigarette while asking. The boy was like “Huh?” and brushed him aside. Ten minutes later on our way out I decided to repeat the experiment, without the cigarette, and was rewarded with a “oh, Deustch, nien!!!” combined with much miming and pointing to his flags and shaking of his head. He he he! Oh II adore the fact that I can now often keep a straight face even whilst doing very silly prank type things.

On Saturday I had brunch with Anji and Delwin at Mojo, and then for dinner Lisa and I went to the Mediterranean warehouse where she became obsessed with the Pinnochio figures. We watched Thirteen and I didn’t blub nearly as much as I did the first time, although there are still many many things about that movie that hit home with me. Today I have sat in the sun and read Q, and did two lots of washing. Yes, it’s big time excitement around here indeedy. But I must wholeheartedly recommend Neil Jordan’s Shade to you – as a reviewer says “Why does he bother writing movies when he can write books this well?”, and just as another example of how late to the party I am (have you heard about this awesome new band called the Arcade Fire?), I also loved The Great Gatsby as well. And that’s all.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Despite the $50 bar tab hangover that I have (I got Daddy to come to quiz night last night so we came second), today is fucking rad. The sun is shining, ‘Float On’ bubbled through my earphones (apparently today my iPod battery has decided to work) and I ate fish’n chips in Waitangi Park with Noizy and Tom. I found out that I got the pay rise that I asked for (which is twice as much as I actually wanted), and I have exciting plans for the weekend (party in Aro on Saturday and the first meeting of The Country Club on Sunday at my house – we’re wearing togas, drinking wine and watching Caligula – you’re invited as long as you refrain from pointing out that ‘Rome’ isn’t actually a country), I have a new old mattress and I vacuumed under my bed. Life is pretty sweet right now. Did I mention that Bic Runga offered to buy me a drink? Cos she did. And that’s RAD.

Last weekend was very very choice. On Friday night I went with two cow-orkers and three ex cow-orkers to Tupelo, which freaked me out a little with its redness. I left at 8.30pm when Kate picked me up, and they apparently stayed out until 4am, so it is just as well that I left when I did, especially since Kate and I went home with quadruple chocolate ice cream and Hairspray. Now we both want to learn how to do the mashed potato and other assorted dances. Hairspray is total radsicles (and radsicles is the new awesome – it’s like popsicles but cooler. Hehe). In the morning I made Kate pancakes and used my good china, even going to the extreme lengths of putting lemon juice in the little sake pot. Suck on that, Martha Stewart. Later I put on my pretty new dress that very few people have complimented me on (what’s up with that?) and met up with Lisa Fur and Brad to go to Bic Runga at the Michael Fowler Centre.

*Insert wide-eyed awe and aural orgasms and much spine-tinglingness here.*

She was playing with the whole band who played on Birds and played the whole album, so I might just pop up my review of that from Pulp now and then times that by a thousand and add in the goodness that is Neils Finn’s stage banter, and the amazing hotness of her base player who had his bass at exactly the right height – two inches lower and he would have been a nu-metal wanker, and five inches higher and he would be a geek – for maximum sexiness, and the total adoreableness of Annika Moa and the wonderfulness of our seats right by the sound desk, and the incredible aura and Strong Pixieness of Bic and and and wow. Just wow. I was dazzled. Simon Sweetman, you can suck a fuck, because of course it was polished. They’re the top fucking musicians in the country – how could it be anything but? I do wish that she’d played a couple more tracks off Beautiful Collison like the title track or ‘Election Night’ but that’s okay. It was still wow. I was moved pretty much to tears.

And then of course Jessie was there, and so the lobby was a lovefest of everyone I know – Jimmy and Esther and Ash (who Lisa ran away from when I was like “she’s from the internet” and it made me laugh a lot) and and Amelia, Jess Clayton and um some other people maybe? So I invited everyone to Rome, and was responded to enthusiastically. Me and Lisa and Brad headed down to Good Luck via Lisa’s car to drop off posters, to await Jessie. A couple of drinks later, she texted to say she was at Motel with the band, so Lisa and I went there. The bar was insanely full, and I was intimidated by the beautiful people, and while yes, I have occasionally entertained thoughts of being pressed up again Shayne Carter, it was always in more intimate settings, so I paniced when I finally fought my way to the front to get a drink and didn’t want to ask for a menu but I knew that I wanted a drink that would last a long time, so I remembered Wellurban and ordered a dry martini. I forgot that I haven’t drunk martinis regularly for quite a while. It was definitely a strong drink. It was the right thing to order though, because after that I saw it was what Bic herself was drinking. She came and sat at our table and I squeed, and Jessie told her that I really liked Jessie’s haircut, and I said that yeah, if that whole singing thing didn’t work out for her, she could have a career as a hairdresser, and then encouraged by her laugh, I said that that concert was amazing, and that two years ago when she played the cathedral she’d asked the audience if we liked her tights, and I did like them. And then I realised that despite having said earlier that I didn’t, holy crapping fuck, I was talking to Bic Runga, and she was just so nice that I genuinely did like her tights. And now I will stop using italic tags and just reflect on how stupidly starstruck I felt, but how much I basked in her glow. And of course, it was very very rad to see Jessie again, and her hair is so cute it’s ridiculous. Everything was so wonderful, I was just walking on air.

On Sunday I played Domestic Goddess and shopped and cleaned and cooked dinner for my whole family, which they’re still telling me was great, even though it was just the exact same food that I served my dinner party that one time. It was a very pleasant night though. On Wednesday Anji, Karen and I had dinner at The Last Supper Club, and while the food was tasty (although I asked for my fillet steak to be medium rare and it came out blue), the waiter was smarmy (sample line: “there are three mints for you on that plate” – oh really? Is THAT what they are? Cunt.) and we really didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as last time. Then we went to V for Vendetta which was awesome and left me dreaming of nuclear warfare and being all alone when the bombs started falling and crying cos I’d left Sebastian outside.

Yesterday Mummy took me to lunch at Captiol to thank me for doing some design work for her. I had bruscetta and pasta with zuchini and ricotta and a French wine that was a combination of reisling and pinot gris and very tasty it was too. The waiter asked me if I was Joanna, and I said I was and he pointed out that he went to high school with me, and I laughed and said oh yeah, and pretended to not know what he’d been up to for the past couple of years. It makes me happy though that so many of the beautiful people from high school are still working in hospitality. I am so shallow. Last night we went to the quiz at the Realm, and I had too many beers and sucked at pool so I went home and then Del let herself in and her friend in knee high white boots trimmed with oversized laces and fur accosted me asking for hugs and snuggles. Maybe I shouldn’t have judged her so harshly based solely on her boots, because she said some slightly intelligent things about the Gilmore Girls that I was trying to watch, but she was very very drunk and loud. It was like Courtney Love coming to stay. I sent Bart a text going “come home NOW”. He was very apologetic.

Today there is the goodness that I have already described, and in an hour I’m going to go and have a drink with Sarah, and then maybe stare at all my workmates as they have their netball team dinner, but I should really go home and chargrill the kilo of red peppers that I bought for $1.95 at A-Mart instead. See you tomorrow night or at Rome.

Oh, and also, something I forgot to mention was how great it was to finish something creative that I’ve been working on for ages, and the end product of that is 101 Stories That I Want to Tell You, which you should get, if you want it.

I have dreamt about Bic Runga two nights in a row now. I blame my friend who emails me with tales of woe like “I have a blood blister from playing Foozeball with Bic. I am sore from playing soccer with Shayne”. Not that dreaming about Bic Runga is really that bad, but I was just disappointed when I woke up this morning and realised that I wasn’t actually working on my first solo album.

You know who should go solo? Like, in Antartica or something? The guy in the hat at the Pluto gig who was TALKING THROUGH THE WHOLE GIG. Up the front. Near the stage. In the sad songs. If punching him to knock off his hat and pissing on it wouldn’t have been just as distracting I would have gladly done it. Pluto have played better gigs, but I didn’t say that when Karen and I were retroly having cake at Midnight Esspresso (retro cos we used to do that in the olden days after seeing Garageland or Superette or the 3Ds at the old Bodega) and Milan came in and sat behind us and perked up his ears at what I was saying (mostly about how gleeful I was that they’d played ’8 O’Clock’, and how annoyed at Stupid Talking Guy I was. Then I saw Miss Lucy_Fur walking down the road and I waved but she didn’t see me, so I called her cellie cos it’s very amusing to watch people do the “ooh is that my phone ringing?” look, and then the mad scramble in the bag to find the phone. She and her friend Dawn came back down to the cafe to say hello.

Now, a confession: I am sometimes somewhat lacking in self confidence! No really! Sometimes when I meet them I don’t know if people actually like me, and I feel a little iffy around them. It took me ages to realise that Heather could actually stand me, and then the same thing happened with Jessie (I was like, wow, she must really like eating roti and must dislike being alone) and it just goes on and on. I am a spazz.

Anyways. That was Friday night. I stumbled home drunkenly around 2am and knocked over everything in the house, but didn’t wake Anji up, excellent. I cleaned on Saturday. It takes me like half an hour to vacuum both the couches. No it’s not just Seb-shed, it’s funny rub-off chenille stuff, and hair and tangles. Yum. I hope that once my couches are less new they’ll be less sheddy. Then KateB came over for takeaways and gossip and wine and we watched Mean Girls and then she left for like, a year. With a dagger.

Last night Dave and my parents and I went to a Serisen Wines dinner at Capitol. Holy crap it was amazing! We had Moana bubbles to begin with, then a first course of salmon gravlax with crumbed oysters and a lime olive oil matched with a limey 2004 Riesling. I don’t like salmon, and I’d never eaten oysters before. I figuratively licked my plate clean. I suppose pretty much anything tastes good when it’s deep fried, but the oysters were light and fluffy, not sluggish like I imagined that they’d be, and the salmon was paper thin, and didn’t smell or taste fishy in the way that salmon so often can. Mmmmmmm. The next course was bass and chive ravioli with clam sauce, matched with a chardonnay. I don’t know how clammy the sauce was – it seemed more buttery than anything, but it was really really nice. I don’t think that the accompanying clams were much good, but that is of course coming from the perspective of someone who doesn’t like shellfish. I don’t like cheap chardonnay either, but this stuff was lovely. The courses were pretty small, and spread out well, and the wine glasses were topped up too, which was fantastic. Then we ate duck confit with mushroom and potato pie and muscatel jus, and a Pinot Noir. Oh my god, mouth orgasm! The dessert, really simple grilled pineapple and marscapone with a late harvest Sauvignon was like TRIPLE MOUTH EXPLOSION ORGASM YUM. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. For $85, this was bloody excellent value, and I’m looking forward to going to the Ata Rangi one. Oh yes.

In other news, because I am furious with the temporary editor of Pulp who was in place for one issue, I may very well put up the FULL text (which doesn’t make me look like some kind of retard who doesn’t know that the Spice Girls had a second album before their third album, plus with bonus witty subheadings) of my story tomorrow. Also, I am moving offices to be with the Hott Young Things where I can be better utlized. Two people told me on Friday that I was doing a good job, woo! Of course then I went and fucked up majorly. Nevermind, it’s all half fixed now.

Also, I am in love with the new wallpaper and chandeliers at Indigo, and I may very well marry them, as soon as I get a divorce from the pineapple and marscapone that I also plan on marrying. Oh! And Auckland: I’m coming baby, oh yeah I’m coming real good. Haha. Also I’m visiting Auckland on the 9th and 10th of September I believe, and I intend to have drinks in my suite, assuming I get a suite, or something, and it would be lovely to see you then okay? Choice.