eastbound

Yesterday my daughter had her first Christmas. Everybody says Christmas becomes good again when you have kids and they are right. it was a great day and i can see only better times ahead. i have freetime now until the 4th of Jan. the eczema is clearing now, i cant believe its gotten so good. No real estate stress, no work, nothing to bring on the scratching. often at work if i was in the middle of a disaster i would find myself hacking away at my shin, and if my hands weren't able, i would be dragging the back of my boots up and down it. it did a lot of short term damage, and i hope i can get it to the stage my ankle is now at. im just not sure now what i will do when im stressed at work next year.

tomorrow i hope to catch up with the boys for a session at the corner hotel. we did it last year and had a good catchup, however this year a few of the guys are away. im not sure what will happen tomorrow. it will probably just be less of us.

we had our christmas party last tuesday. it was a real clash of classes. it had originally been planned at a function centre in Brighton, but too many people thought this was too far from home and were unwilling to get the cab fare home. i personally think 10 hours of free food and booze? a $40 cab is something you just deal with. so Brighton was cancelled and we ended up at the Chelsea Heights public bar. 95% blokes 5% desperate women. depressing kind of venue, horseracing on the wall, jukebox playing chisel, you know, we've all been there. it was an ok night, but everybody knew that if the booze wasn't free, none of us would have been there. it takes away something from a night out when you know that. its funny how its turned out now. there were at least three massive bogans from work there. im talking bourban drinking, MMM listening, bad jean wearing etc etc, these guys are the classic bogan and these guys were on E's at the chelsea. these guys probably would have beaten you up ten years ago if they found out you were on E. its the new bogan drug, and i suppose its probably got a lot to do with the fact that i didnt see a fight that night.

im a bit off writing up my top 10's for the year, however the next week im away at a holiday house on the beach. i will think hard and post them next.

what i will say now is the best show of 2010 is once again from HBO. Eastbound and Down. if you haven seen it, or even if you have, check out this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GdB30O0zt4

otherwise happy new year.

scratchin'

i've got some bad eczema. i used to have it on my left ankle but that has gone now and moved onto my right shin. it feels incredible when i scratch, like nothing in this world. but i know the more i scratch, the worse it becomes. its a terrible affliction. i feel i can relate to heroin junkies now. it must be how they feel. when it was on my ankle i went to the doctor about it. he was confused so he took a skin sample to get it analysed. it was an unknown eczema, basically it had come about by my scratching, and the only way to rid it was to stop scratching. devastating news. no cream or tablets, just self control, in all its beauty. so i mastered the ankle. last year when travelling Mexico i was stress free, and with stress being a main contributor to my scratching behaviour, the rash diminished. upon noticing this i was encouraged and managed to avoid scratching it ever again. however since returning to my work, the stress levels have forced me to find a new outlet and i have simply transferred my area of abuse. im too embarrassed to wear shorts being how it is. now summer is coming up i have to do something about it. i mentioned in my previous post that we finally bought property. since then i have had one scratch session. i could possibly attack the area twenty times a day. this is a huge breakthrough. i just need to see it settle down now, the redness to lighten and im a chance to drop this mess for good. i relapsed once in this 9 day period. in the bath washing my feet i just let go. man it felt incredible. usually i would have just kept at it, but i pulled back and refrained any further damage. crisis averted. i might put up a picture next post.

so i've been listening to a bit on the Ipod of late. trying to get some runs in again, 30 minute sharp runs to the beach and back. its a great start to the day. i've realised that Waavves is in fact a good album. Pitchfork are right again. most of their 9+ ratings are spot on. but they are way to harsh on some very good albums. The X-X are on high rotation. Heard their cover of Womack and Womack's "teardrops"? its great

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrVgCCUQ3fQ.

they are playing at 2010 laneway festival. the laneway festival used to be in melbournes laneways. but because they couldn't organise it in the vicinity (i.e punters couldnt get to the toilet, couldnt see the bands they wanted) the organisers changed venues to a park in footscray. no laneways to be seen. the name really needs changing. should be fun this time though. a good lineup. will post a review afterwards.

so Christmas is upon us and i have 2 days left of work.

sweet.

i cant wait to spend unlimited time with my girls.

no longer homeless

we bought a house on the weekend. man its such a relief to not have that worry anymore. it was an auction fought out against an Asian couple. About 2 months ago we failed to buy at auction for a great little home in Brighton East. An Asian couple beat us that time. After that experience we couldn't lose out again. i was worried i might actually start becoming bitter and racist. i reckon we have spent the last 18 months looking at real estate. every day online and every weekend looking at properties. i expect we would have seen over 250 properties. we knew most of the agents by name. Sad existence. we don't know what to do with ourselves anymore.

think you've got it tough? i found out today a guy at my work lives in a tent. his paintings are in the factory because he's worried they'll be damaged in the tent. he was recently kicked out from his caravan. i dont know the full details, i dont think i want to. he works, must get $20 an hour so i dont really get how he cant find somewhere other than tent to live. he does look like a junkie, but i hate to prejudge.

thought: what sort of person puts an Australian flag on a mast and erects it in his front lawn? i noticed this today on the way home from work. i know i would have very little in common with this person.

Pitchfork has been banging on about Wavves. i downloaded it yesterday but on first listen didnt find it all too exciting. i think Pitchfork awards points for originality above listenability. Their critics are a bit to self indulgent too. i don't want to read two paragraphs about something they once did vaguely related to the band,before reading about the first song from an album. Everyone thinks they are Hunter S Thompson these days. Maybe they could do what he did in the end.

My daughter has been cast in a commercial. we never put her in this position but were asked by a friend from Sarahs' mothers group. she will be one of a few babies from the group. i don't know how i will react to seeing her on TV. She's our baby and not for the rest of the country to enjoy, but by the same token, she will look so adorable. little darling. she isn't crawling or talking yet, and thats the way i like it. these days are numbered.

i watched the Hangover last night. definitely one of the more enjoyable film of its kind over the past few years. When the doctor gives directions, i hope to make a response like that one day. Genius.

Im reading Nick Caves' latest novel. Its ok, but im getting a bit bored with oversexed, masturbating miserable characters. Amazingly, its so overdone. three quarters in and I'm more interested in the next book i have to read "the Road" by Cormac Mccarthy. this is always the case when i read. i just want to finish what i have so i can get into my next book.

i have about 7 days left of work. this year has broken me.ive taken on too much. next year will be nothing but work and fatherhood. and some good music, some wine and maybe a puppy.

a deluge of top 10's

i love a top 10 and i love december for this reason. albums, songs, moments, movies.
so its coming up and every time i hear a song on the radio i wonder if it could make it. most of them dont, so when i hear one i know when its in. top ten's are easy because whatever category you are working on there are very few that are good enough to be top 10. especially movies. top 10 movies for a year? you'd be struggling to think of 5. 6-10 are consolations at best. i might just do a top 5 of films. songs and albums though, ten. easy.
ive downloaded Tom Waits Glitter and doom live album. i heard a "Goin out west" and it blew me away.
its going to be hard to put it in the top 10 for the year when its been released in december. you can never take december released entries seriously because you know they havent stood the test of time yet. but i already know it will feature. Julian Casablancas Phrazes for the young and Fuck Buttons Tarot Sport have given the Ipod the biggest workout this year. Didnt see them coming.

for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaaKsg6n8Sg

Them crooked vultures? maybe the most justified hype for 2009. that could be a new category. although id have no chance of filling a top 10, id easily fill a 10 for 'failed to live up to the hype'
i could do a top 100.
i have some new opinions; people who use exclamation points do not have the ability to write.
i have a lower opinion of people who write LOL. and then follow it up with and exclamation points.
i hate it when women write AAAAWWWW under photos of babys posted on facebook.
i need to stay on facebook to maintain the rage. if you want me to respect you, which is unlikely, stop writing crap on your status updates. you will be deleted.
what ive discovered from facebook:
some people are so desperate that even after you delete them from your friends list they ask you back. Now, some of these people have 250 friends, how do they even notice i have deleted them in the first place. why would they ask me back? do they think that maybe i just fell off? no no no. i deleted you because i cant tolerate anymore of your mindless drivel.
thought:i will post a top 10 of my most hated facebook moments.
make that top 20.

my little girls sick again. she has been sick twice in her little life and spent nights in the hospital. it breaks our hearts. she battles to breathe whenever she gets a cold. we think she got another cold so we watch her like hawks. her sleeping this week has been bad and has been noisy as hell. i think the guys upstairs are getting over it. they dont say anything, nice guys but i know i would be over it. one of the guys is from a reality show. we havent mentioned to him that we recognise him. i dont think he really needs that. Colin Carpenter lives down the street and so does Jimmy Stynes. it will be sad to leave. we sold our apartment by auction last month. we dont know where we will end up. before the auction i went to a vendors night held by the real estate company. they handled the sale really well, a company of Jews. when i went to the vendors night it occured to me i was the only non-jew there. i weird sensation. it was fine though. while talking to a lady about my apartment, in between bites of a chicken sandwich , i noticed a wet piece of of food sitting on her chin. i had spat on her face. no doubt she felt it but rather than embarass me she left it sitting there. we both knew that we both knew.

generation stuck

i quit coffee for a month last year. As a physical experiment i learned very little, but as a mental challenge i discovered i had self control. That knowledge satisfied me for about as long as it took me to make an espresso. I drink coffee as much as i used to, yet i really don't care about that anymore. i didn't start this blog to talk about coffee. But i did start it talking about coffee.

I'm 35. its a pretty fucked up age: talk about being right in the middle. I'm a production manager, so basically I'm responsible for about 30 staff,of which half would be older than me, and the others younger. the older guys think I'm an asshole, and so do the young guys. i get pretty upset about both generations. By upset i mean i just dont get them. Lets talk music. Most baby boomers still listen to the same music they listened to when they were in the 60's. i just cant have this. i do like a lot of the stuff from that era, some of the best music was made then, but i just don't think i could choose to listen to 'Whiter shade of pale' on a daily basis like guys who listen to Gold 104 everyday. how do they do this?

Gen Y kids listen to songs that have completely ripped off everything that has come before it, and they are too stupid to notice. i mean "Flo rida", i doubt we'll hear from this prick again, but apart from the most lame sexually suggestive lyrics, doesn't anyone else hear Dead or Alive's "You Spin Me Around"? Both crap songs but at least one can claim to be original. These days bands get their music to the kids by major corporations offering them loads of cash to promote their product. Nobody cares that this is happening. I mean, i don't blame the artists. They don't sell the kind of volume of records these days like Brothers in Arms and Thriller. And to be fair, i don't know of anyone who actually pays for their music online. Its a bit rich for us to be up in arms when bands sell their tunes to Coke or IBM while googling our torrents. But kids, find your music, don't listen to the crap they pass off as new music on MTV and commercial radio. It will only lead to emptiness and depression, i can almost guarantee that.

thought: Pharmaceutical companies program commercial radio.

I watched Tom Waits on You Tube tonight. What a freak. He will die in 20 years or so and will get a small fanfare in the media. He has done so much more for music than Britney Spears or whoever the hell else. He played London about 5 years ago and Chris Martin was seen out the front desperate to get a ticket off a scalper. Possibly one the the most influential artists of the past 30 years. Raw, original, real. Saying that, it was odd to see him in Mystery Men. Anyway listen to his lyrics and you might get an idea why he has such a cult following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-pywHFUbGw
I went to the movies a while back. My partner and i now go solo due to the recent arrival of our darling daughter. We used to go every week. Our cinema is down the road from our apartment.

Have you ever been the only person in a cinema? i was, a truly surreal experience. The film was Anvil, the Story of Anvil. it was an amazing rock documentary about a shit metal band ( who i do vaguely remember from my teen years) who have refused to give up. They are in their late fifties now and as crap as ever. i mean, they can play but they just cant write a good song. There must be so many old guys from bands like that in the world. Just rubbish but oblivious to reality. their poor families. How do they cope when they work out they are no good? i sat their alone and thought about the number of people involved in me seeing the film. the ticket booth, projectionist, the usher. it was pretty special, if not intentional.

i don't know how much more Facebook i can handle. Although i cant bring myself to get off it. My "friends" are idiots. The more i think about it i think i will get off it. Only its such a great way to put photos up for friends overseas. But what is going on with status updates? if not a brag-fest status updates are the most inane natter ever written. i simply dont care what these idiots are doing and the more i read the less of these people i like. People really are idiots. They must be. Two and a Half Men is on every night on commercial TV and people love it. If people talk about this show at work they drop a notch of my respect. i was watching a show last year called Lead Balloon on the ABC. A really clever dry comedy with the English comedian Jack Dee. it was no "the Office, or "curb your .." but along the same lines. I mentioned to a guy at work about this show on the ABC and before i could finish he had already cut in with what he would watching on channel 9. He never watched ABC. Am i wrong to conclude the guy is an idiot? He's an o.k. bloke but i don't respect him and i think he's dim. He was talking about Beauty and the Geek this morning. He couldn't understand what the fuss was about with the blackface sketch on hey Hey. Enough said?

i will not just be blogging about music and Tv, but it is a great start in tackling the huge gap between Gex, Y and the boomers. My blog is about being born in 1974 and now being 35. My generation has seen more of the world than most of the Boomers and it cant help but make us feel smug. Gen Y'ers are happy to stay at home with their parents while writing personal diary entries online, with poor spelling. i don't get how there can be such a huge gap between us.

i hope my daughters generation look at these Y's in years to come and know they have their measure.

Tonight is friday night. my partner is out in town and i am home while my daughter sleeps. Sometimes she gurgles and wimpers. But mainly she sleeps.