Britney is hot.

Seriously. Stark raving mental is the new black. Which was the new yellow for a second but thankfully that was a blink-and-you'll-miss-it phase.


But seriously, she's only getting hotter. Her star is only beginning to rise.



She'll be like Jesus, with less hair (you know what I mean...huh, huh).


She's set for such massive stardom that she'll eclipse the importance of our own families and jobs, and the Western world will grind to a halt. Then we'll get taken over by Britney-proof commies and we'll be sold for slave labour. THAT'LL learn us...

The Cinema Files Part 1

Just saw No Country For Old Men (2008). By myself. Behind me were two girls of the 'repeat-the-plot-out-loud-and-ask-dumbass-questions' moviegoing variety. Like "Is he the guy that killed all those other guys?" Y'know what sweetheart, we've been watching the same f*%king film as you - no one else knows yet either. So shut your cakehole and assume we're going to find out.

How you can go into a mystery film and ask those kind of questions is beyond me, it really is. Is it that these people have such a track record of missing the point that they're conditioned to think they must have missed some crucial piece of information glaringly obvious to everyone else? In which case, I should have more sympathy. Clearly then they've had a hard-knock life. But I suspect it is more a case of having no basic social manners and liking the sound of their own voices.

And the even worse culprits (although mercifullyy it didn't come to this tonight) are the ones who are indignant when you tell them to can it (politely of course). The I-paid-my-hard-earned-cash-to-be-here-so-I-have-a-right-to-act-like-a-tool mentality. Like everyone else in the theatre paid to hear their dim commentary.

As for the film...I didn't get it. Was it about the futility of pursuit, whether on the side of criminal or justice? Was it actually representing what it is to get old (a bit shambolic and very, very bloody)? Or whas it a great existential western on the page that didn't quite translate the gravity on screen? Despite near flawless performances from the entire cast (although I'm not sure Woody Harrelson has any scrap of acting credability left, even in a Coen Brothers movie), I wasn't on anyone's side. I wasn't afraid for anyone or frustrated with anyone or impressed or shocked or moved by anyone. The plot rolled along, people came and went and stuff happened in between. Strangely distant. A mystery without suspense. Or maybe just No Country For Generation Y.

The Earnest Guy

I realised from rereading my last post that I come of as one of those patronisingly earnest people who smuggle in doomsdaying and righteous pessemism under the cloak of upbeat irony or observational humour (although assuming my last post resembled humour is a stretch).

Think John Butler (of the John Butler Trio) or devil-spawn Michael Leunig. Both emotionally manipulative peddlers of depressing guilt.

So I'm nipping my membership to this rancid club in the bud with this simple segueway. How good are boobs. Discuss.

There. I feel so much better now. As you were.

How many roads must a man walk down... (hint: more than seven)

The mighty US of A has around 300 million legal registered residents. (According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the resident population of the United States, projected to 01/26/08 at 10:15 GMT (EST+5) is 303,309,531.)

And I’m not gonna go bashing them. Any of them. Well, not right now at least. But I discovered a US fact today that I couldn’t help but judge. (Just so we’re all clear, judging isn’t bashing. Its much more haughty and condescending than bashing.)

The mighty US of A has around 5.5 million roads. Roughly 5.5 million planned and constructed, engineered and named vehicular carriageways. One length of tar and paint and compacted earth per 55 people.

Think about that. How many people live on your street? How many people would live on a street in New York City? A lot right? So somewhere, in the burbs of the Midwest or the keys of Florida, there’s one family per street. And laying a street is no mean feat. I’m no engineer, but I’ve seen the army of machines roll in to level a patch of dirt into a gleaming strip of bitumen. It’s a lot. A whole Tonka range. Is it necessary? Even in the lap of luxury developed world, do we need to have everything so freaking accessible? Or should that read segregated?

Now I’m not sure if the ratio is any better in Australia (god bless google, but some searches just weren’t meant to be fruitful). The figure is probably similarly shocking. And I’ll admit there aren’t even any direct conclusions to be drawn. But for some reason this figure – one road per 55 people – brought home the grotesque affluence of the West more than anything else in a long time.

I take my life for granted and complain about the government and get road rage and lose myself in petty squabblings routinely. 1:55 pulled me out of that. Maybe for just a while, maybe for longer. But at least for now I know how lucky I am, and I remember the guilt of privilege, and hopefully some conclusions will come to me…

Umm, Like, Love Songs and Shit

Joan Wasser is responsible for what I rate as my favourite album of all time. Coincidentally (since I am not known for my musical taste or prowess) said album may also rate as one of the best albums of all time, according to some objective scale I'm clearly only guessing at. The album - under the moniker Joan As Police Woman - manages to be both wonderfully soaring and disarmingly intimate; playful and earnest; obtuse and immediate. At every turn it is utterly compelling.

Think Fiona Apple covering Springsteen's Nebraska, or PJ Harvey backed by Burt Bacharach. Actually wait. Don't. Joan is much too good for such facile projections.

And although the album is lyrically and musically miles away from [inverted commas] "ballad" territory, it boasts the most heartbreakingly beautiful love song I've ever wrapped ears around. The opening (title) track Real Life is shimmering and alive, reeling you in with the perfectly simple opening piano chords and opening up to gliding strings and almost tangible emotion. Close to the perfect love song already. But skirted over in her delivery, hiding behind grander lyrics, is the line that elevates this song above any other I have heard or can imagine.

i've never included a name

in a song

but i'm changing my ways for you,

jonathan

Stop the press.

No other names on the rest of the album. No other direct references to love specific. Just this simple, stunningly honest declaration. And every time I hear it, I wish I was Jonathan. Not Joan's Jonathon. Just someone's Jonathon - that I was the person they'd change their ways for.

Yep, I'm a sap, and Joan brings it out in force. I recommend you let her seduce you too. And crack out the tiny violins of love...

Don't ask me why it matters...it just does.

Sport.
Specifically, following a professional team.
Some people will never get it. Some people don't like exerting themselves in that kind of way. Or at all. Some people are so passively non-competitive that they shrink from the idea of any activity with scoring (although they may be content to pound themselves shorter legs on kilometre-plural runs, something I confess is completely beyond me. There are those who find a nice urban family game of soccer in the park on a Sunday - Secret Life of Us style - fun and diverting, but still can't understand the rabid, violent passion of a true sport fan.
My New Orleans Hornets (basketball) are 29 and 12 with the third best record in the league right now. MY Hornets. I've never been to New Orleans. I've never been to the US. I play basketball, but not terribly well. I just think its a cracking game to watch, and I chose to follow the Hornets because I THINK I'd dig New Orleans, and they have some great players, and I fancy myself as an armchair saviour - supporting the team trying to make it work in a hurricane ravaged city from the other side of the world.
The trouble is, even knowing how arbitrary the foundations of my support are, I am now a full-blow, obnoxiously passionate supporter. I've got the jersey. I listen to the games online. I check the scores of every other team to see how they compare. I read every related blog on the net. I exalt and I seethe. I blame refs I can't see.
And I wonder through it all "Is this healthy?" "Am I channelling some other buried and destructive frustration or passion through the artifice of professional sport?" "Am I a little bit mental?"
I know I'd get a lot more done if I stepped back from my flag-waving, but I'm unsettled by something deeper. I think I'm missing something. Seriously. Help me. I need an explanation. I need to know. Please...

What do you do with a drunken sailor?

So, I got fired. A month ago, but I'm only really gathering the steam to be truly, deeply pissed about it now that I'm back from holiday and looking for a new job.
The reasons given me when I got fired were almost verbatim the reasons I was told I was hired for three months before that.

Thinking outside the box.

A fresh take.

Passionate.

A little bit tongue-in-cheek.

Had become:

Too far outside the box.

Not on the same page.

Argumentative.

Cynical and patronising.

The steel they sought me out for turned into the sword I was to fall on.

Of course politics played its part too - whenever a superior repeatedly calls you 'bolshie' and 'cocky' without a trace of endearment, something is clearly rotten in the state of Denmark. But I digress...
I am now more pissed than ever before because I'm facing the very sobering prospect of returning to retail work. Or worse still (god help me) hospitality. I was dumped with no warning, and before I'd been at this monolith long enough to have a showstopping resume or the contacts to nepotise (?) my way into another gig.
But I've had the taste now, and the only work I ever want to do again is writing. Like half of the rest of the Western world. But I've had a taste dammnit! A taste!
Ah well, what do you do with a drunken sailor, eh?