Sophie Monk Says NO NO NO To Camel Toe

People! Bad news! Sophie Monk has vowed to start dressing in a less slovenly fashion this year. More specifically, she has said NO to camel toe in 2012. Deep though my respect is for the woman, this irritates me no end. Still, remember when she signed up to be a spokesperson for PETA and was caught buying KFC – twice! -  in LA after doing an ad – a naked pin up, of course, because a. it’s PETA and b. it’s Sophie Monk – and releasing a companion video in which she specifically named and denounced KFC: “I think the message to KFC eaters [is that] you should think about what you’re eating. If you’re eating deformed animals that are being induced by hormones, you know, it cannot be good for you.” And remember how she said she was “buying it for a homeless guy”? A three-piece dinner?!! As excuses go, that one is fucking excellent. And by excellent I mean awful, obviously: crushed like a bug beneath the cold boot of truth. Sophie Monk, as I have previously pointed out, is slightly unhinged. This is good. (See: Courtney Love, Billy Bob Thornton, Britney, etc.) She’s also a raging bogan – the type who consider Summernats an example of high culture. This too is good. She is a national treasure.

Anyway. Before my mind snagged on the thought of Sophie Monk rendering her camel-toe obsolete I was intending to focus on more substantial and immediate issues…. Like the fact that my best friend has left the country. This is completely unacceptable. She asked me to go and I said no and she went anyway and now I miss her terribly. Here are the most recent top two reasons why she is my best friend.

1. She sent a card addressed and written entirely to my most treasured cat after he underwent traumatic and invasive eye surgery recently.

2. She started a conversation recently with the words “So I was watching Antiques Roadshow the other day….”

This year we both turn thirty. God.

Now I’m not saying that one thing has anything to do with the other, but it has recently occurred to me that there exists the very real possibility of slipping in the shower and breaking my skull open like a dropped watermelon and lying undiscovered and unconscious in the resulting emulsions for days. Not the most comforting of thoughts. Still, it’s pretty much the only concern I have with living alone and having a near total aversion to people so I guess it’s okay and anyway I’m half trying to bring myself to buy one of those grotesque sticky non-slippy rubber shower mats, which, along with those orthopedic beaded car-seat-cover things and Payless shoes, are just fucking tragic in the ‘I see dead people – most of them are still alive’ sense but the thought still appalls me so I guess I still have some work to do on that front. Whatever ‘that front’ is. I do know that I don’t like my feet to be exposed to strange textures and sensations within the home. I think I have mentioned my carpeted en suite which my mind cannot and will not accept and forces me to spurn it as I would a rabid dog?

Yes, it will be a dark night of the soul if I ever buy and install that fucking shower mat. 

Anyway, she turned thirty a few days ago and I am thirty in six months and while she seems fine (not surprising) a dull sense of agitation is infusing the air around me (not surprising either) but, y’know, I’m not one for wild over-reactions and hyperbole so despite this looming birthday being the occurrence that well may cause the four horsemen to saddle up just let the buzzards do what they will to my carcass before adding my old bleached bones to a collection of sacred relics and continue on with your rank and perky lives now won’t you KAY THANX. 

What? No I haven’t been watching bleak Danish films, but I did watch The Wedding Singer yesterday and that does seem to have laid bare the chilly clockwork of my life somewhat…It’s the Steve Buschemi character, he does it to me every time. “SELF TAUGHT – NO LESSONS, THANKS POP”

Anyways, this has gone way off track. Happy birthday, baby. Mazel tov. A new decade. You are the best bitch ever. Stay in my depressing disaster of a life forever. 

Canberra: so help me god

This time last year.

Last year, Friday October 8 was moving day and I rode out of Canberra in a two car one truck convoy. This was significant because in Canberra I had run my ship up onto rocks, and after eight months of being beaten around by the tide the Hume Highway was like a rolling ribbon of light leading someplace...else. Canola fields were flowering in buttery waves, and everything I saw flashing by me seemed sharper than usual, more meaningful.

Now, a few memories are as clear as laser-cut crystal, but most are streaky and scrambled. Great gaping holes were ripped in my head. No air passed through the holes, but water seeped in, got stuck and stagnated. It swished around for many months. The sound filled my ears, some days it was all I heard.

I have to look back in my black notebooks from this time to remind myself of things, and tend to mostly only really remember the things I wrote down. It's different now, though. When I moved here a draining process began and the water started dripping out like sump oil.

Friday the 8th Oct 2010

-"It's like someone took a knife baby edgy and dull/and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my skull"

-Richie in the car at Hertz, excited: "I got myself a Police CD!" - 7:25am.

-Susu came round to Eric Northman, as I knew she would. We slept on the mattress in the lounge room and watched episodes 8, 9 and 10 til late and I dreamed about Brett Morris and that I was in confined quarters with like the entire NRL and was too shy to talk to any of them except B.Moz and he was so adorable and sweet that I became paralysed with shy awe all over again. Which sounds about right.

-Hurry up Richie where the truck at already - 7:45am.

-Maybe this time next week I'll be sitting in a wicker chair on my new front verandah. Without this freight train running through the middle of my head.

Saturday the 9th.

-Back in Canberra to clean the house.

-Whippersnippering is boss - venegance is mine. It was like I was cutting down Canberra cockheads with every swipe - i.e. the young couple in matching brand new yellow hi-vis vests and round scout hats doing their mowing and gardening in tandem at the bottom of Waller. I WANTED TO FUCKING KILL THEM. I really really wished I'd had a gun. I would have fucking utilised it without hesitation. Instead I drove to Dickson for fuel and credit and freaked the fuck out in the supermarket and spilt coins in my panic. Everyone, all fucking pigs. I didn't want to come back here today. Grey horror.

-The fucking flesh is in danger of sliding off my fucking arm because I splashed fucking Ezy Off Bam oven cleaner up it. Bitch is bubbling and blistering. William texted and made me laugh: 'another night in the Kings X, another stretch hummer...", and then Richie, who said, in all seriousness,
-"maybe I should open a pie shop..."
-"have you ever made a pie?"
-"no..."
-"so why the pie shop?"
-"well, a lot of people seem to like driving to pie shops to... eat pies"

-The cashier at Tarcutta servo: "Oh a panel van! I haven't seen one of them for years! The truckie standing chatting to her: "What, the inside of one?"

-I stopped at Yarrawonga and shit was real. Saturday afternoon. Stoners in loose trackies and slides, and hooligans in tiny obscene white footy shorts. Good people. Racing down the Hume spooning warm yoghurt from a tub gripped between my legs was pretty real too.

Sunday the 10th.

-Ok hey. My new home. Finished up with the lasts/started in on the firsts.



Among the many things about Canberra I failed to understand while living there was why the majority of the pouplation hadn't experienced mental collapse. How had they as a people held it together and not just flat-out fallen apart and become incapacitated en masse? Were they drawing from some deep well of ancient knowledge, these native Canberrans? Did I just miss some kind of essential, psychic memo? There was a fucking ocean breaking inside my brain the entire time I lived there and yet - and yet - tens of thousands of people were managing to go about their dreadful daily business unencumbered and apparently untroubled. This seemed impossible, far beyond the realm of possibility, but then these kinds of things always do to both the chronically maladjusted and the very clear-eyed.

Two quotes - exchanges between a man and his small daughter - from a beautiful Bukowski story:

1.

-"There are many people who pretend that they are happy"
-"Why?"
-"Because they are ashamed and frightened and don't have the guts to admit it."

2.

-"Because if I do I might get caught and put in jail"
-"What's jail?"
-"Everything's jail."

Well anyway, who really knows what's happening with anyone? We're all in airplanes, we're all just flying over. This is the reason that we so commonly hear words to the effect of "they kept to themselves" and "they seemed like nice people" and "I never thought anything like this would happen in our street" from shattered neighbours speking to news crews after some kind of savagery has torn apart the fabric of their suburb. This inevitably encourages a series of unhealthy comparisons pertaining to questions of 'could that have been me?' and 'how did I not know?' that are probably best avoided. Our present social structure is in no way equipped to deal with questions of this kind, best to keep the eyes ahead and the blinds drawn and the great wash of humanity at bay.

Canberra is a city with a firm grasp of this concept. The streets are always empty, and it's obscenely clean and orderly. It has no dark, squalid heart, no filthy corners, and, crucially, no central rail service. The impact of the absence of trains and train stations is arresting and immediately obvious - no graffiti and no hobos. No city, no city at all.

My neighbour; a criminal lawyer named Mark, told me that the lawyers he dealt with in Sydney sounded spectacularly relaxed over the phone: "they even call me mate!" This comment put me into rapid shift and tilt. The place had me. I didn't stand a chance. My girl Susu drove down from Byron to bundle me out of there. This is one of the greatest things friends can do for each other. Another is to shout a booking for a colonic irrigation across a crowded room full of swivelling, scandalised eyes, and she's done that on my behalf too. She solid.

It doesn't surprise me now that I found it impossible to maintain mental and emotional equilibrium there; what with the heavy nothingness that hung in the air, but at the time it was confusing and confronting and cast a very long dark shadow.

One year on and even though walls still surround me and I still have an oily high-water mark inside my head I have that wicker chair I sit in on my front verandah and I can't even begin to tell you what a satisfaction it is to be able to say that I no longer live in Canberra.

Home. Sweet Nothings.

The best thing about going away is coming back.

Leaving Australia is nice, but it's returning to Australia that unleashes a hot streak of happiness in me. It crinkles the corners of my every mundane movement for days afterward, sometimes weeks. Small acts of casually liberated abandon such as stepping with certain feet onto my own bathmat or stepping out into my yard in my underwear of a night to look at the stars fill me with a sense of golden gratitude and gratefulness. Yes. Home is the place. Home is where it's at.

Also, I find there are far less legitimate opportunities to work myself into a froth of indignation and irritation when overseas. This occupies a fair to large portion of my time at home in Australia so I tend to find myself with quite a bit of vacant mental real-estate when away. This makes me slightly uneasy. I'm not entirely at home with the inside of my head resembling a place of golden splendour and serenity. I mean, you've read the rest of this blog, right? Exactly.

In fact, here is a direct, horse's mouth quote (in which I am the horse), indicating the extent to which my cranial chambers have been troubled only by the occasional rolling tumbleweed these last few weeks:

"My mind's relaxed too......it feels like a field full of wheat with the wind blowing through it.......whoooossshhhka"

I actually spoke these words after receiving a massage. This is significant in itself as I have historically had some trouble receiving massages. I don't know, I'm just not that into dropping my trousers for people when there's new age music wafting in the air - even when there's a well-established pretext and financial framework in place. Especially when there's that, actually. I'm funny like that.

Anyway, I was indicating that I felt loose of both body and mind. Or something. I guess something about it (AND I CAN'T IMAGINE WHAT) struck Susu - the lucky recipient of 17 days worth of my preposterous waffling - as absurd and she dissolved into giggles. As in, she kicked her legs in the air and squealed and everything. Hummmmph.

And that massage? It was something else. My flesh yielded to it as it would to the advances of a mouth-breathing football player. I was fluid, liquid, mercurial. You know, as opposed to feeling like a marbled slab of meat, or a greasy chunk of tuna laid out on a table, head installed in a hole, vaguely troubled by the knowledge that the masseuse's inviting smile belies her internal dread at having to lay her lovely hands on the knotted, bed-sore ridden back of another dishevelled and decadent western wayfarer? Anybody? No, massages are not for me. Of course, this attitude doesn't stop me from having them, no. It just causes me to seize up somewhat and become rigid, so the inevitable outcome is that I lie there like a partially defrosted leg of lamb for the massage's duration. I'd probably be more relaxed being chained to a rock and torn by vultures. It would be less neurosis-inducing, and I imagine I could at least keep my pants on for the most part.

Sam de Brito....ye gods.



Visual representation of inner turmoil: (Mine.)


Something alarming happened today.

Something that gave me the unpleasant feeling that there is a weakness in the very fabric of the world.

Something that made me think that some Rumplestiltskin like creature unscrewed a panel in the side of my head, reached in, and tore out a handful of Very Important Wiring while I slept last night.

How else to account for the fact that I just read something by Sam de Brito and found myself nodding assent?

I know. It's scandalous. Either I'm in worse shape than I thought or....... no. The alternative (that Sam de Brito is capable of making some kind of sense or striking some kind of chord is too terrible and destabilising a thought to entertain, so I won't. Ever.)

What is it I don't like about the guy, you ask?  (And by 'the guy' I mean his columns, obviously; and yes, I am completely comfortable judging him solely and with extreme prejudice on the basis of his weekly columns, what of it?) Well, everything, really. In his by-line photo he wears an expression that says "and I don't even work out". Everything about him screams "I watch Q&A." Basically he comes across as a deadset dickhead AND he's always talking about his herpes. Not just in passing, either. No, he talks about his herpes like he's the fucking Rosa Parkes of the STI movement.

Sometimes, for a change of pace, he talks about his hemorrhoids*. Now, let the record state that when Nathan Hindmarsh discussed his hemorrhoids on The League Lounge I was charmed. I did my happy, trained-seal-on-stage-at-SeaWorld flipper clap and I probably murmured "Oh, Hindy" approvingly too. You know why though, right? Because Hindy is infinitely likeable. He called one of his kids ROWDY - for reals - and he's still  hugely likeable. Sam de Brito, though, not so much. By which I mean, uh, not at all.

"Bondi", Sam?  It writes itself...

Nathan Hindmarsh's Arse. Don't ask me how or where I found this.

Anyway. Earlier this year my best friend told me that I needed to "get out there". You're familiar with this expression, yes? It's slightly abstract, granted, but it means getting oneself out on the scene, amongst it. Or something. I think it also means you don't wear moccasins in public, stuff like that. I personally can't hear or read the term without thinking of George Costanza, when his shrew of a mother, newly seperated, tells him she's getting an eye-job because she has to look good: "I'm out there now." This is upsetting for George, who is also 'out there': "YOU'RE NOT OUT THERE. YOU CAN'T BE OUT THERE - I'M OUT THERE!!" etc etc.

Well, Sam de Brito is 'out there' too. I learned this from reading his column, when, in between trying to squeeze in as many tragic refences to "truckie speed" and - I die writing this, I DIE - "disco biccies" he started writing about the trials of having to re-learn the rules of one night stands after breaking up with his girlfriend. Well, I'm with George Costanza on this one. I really don't think I can be 'out there' at the same time as this guy, frankly. It's irrational and absurd, but then so am I. Susu, if you're reading, I intend to stay 'in here' until Sam de Brito is no longer 'out there'.

This could take awhile.


Oh yeh, the column that had me nodding scandalised assent? It's really not important, but it was some shit about love and vulnerability, and it had a lot of sentences starting with the words "research reveals...", which is probably why I found it so readable and downright, surreally agreeable, actually. Here's a sample sentence:

"Research reveals that the single thing that keeps us from love and connection is believing we're not worthy of love and connection, and have I mentioned my raging herpes lately**?"

Say it again, Sam! It's good stuff, right?


*Behold: my first written reference to hemorrhoids - a milestone I thought worthy of special mention. It has an extra poignancy for me because I have no spellcheck on here, I had to look up HEMORRHOIDS in my Oxford. Is it not the hardest word in the world to spell? Harder than 'rhythm' or 'rhyme' or 'probably' even, GOD.

**Disclaimer: The last 8 words in that sentence may not have actually made it to print in Sam de Brito's actual column. HE WAS THINKING THEM, THOUGH.

One last thing. A post peppered with repeated refence to hemorrhoids and herpes? The Dream. I'm livin' it.

 See?

Bad Times (& a boil) at Brookvale

.............and so the endurance test that is watching the Raiders struggle through 80 minutes begins. At Brookvale. God. In summary:


 Last year at Brookie they played their guts out and pulled off an upset that kicked off their late charge for top eight glory. I don't expect the same result tonight.

As in all facets of my life, I seem to have substantially lowered my expectations.

When I tipped against the Raiders for the first time this year I don't know that I've ever felt so cheap. Not lately, anyway. Then I got to thinking that my tipping against them would force some kind of 'ye of little faith' cosmic justice system into action whereby my lack of loyalty would be punished but ultimately rewarded by them winning. Didn't happen. Fuck the cosmos.

I feel more of the same hurt in my heart when Laurie Daly says, re. tips, that his heart says Raiders "but I just can't do it". I feel you Lozza, lord do I feel you. Suffice to say, being a Raider fan throws up challenges to one's faith and sanity nearly beyond endurance.


News breaks that Dugan has been withdrawn from the game at the eleventh hour. I assume it's his recalcitrant calf but find out that HE HAS A BOIL. Under his arm. That has withstood two lancings and become radioactively infected.

It shouldn't amuse me but it so does. Aside from the humour of it all, however, I fully support serious medical intervention into all things boil related. Both my dear friend Susu and I have had the experience of taking up with men who have had, at the times of meeting, flourishing, festering boils. Like, big, cavernous ones. Hindsight tells us that we both would have done well to recognise early in the piece that the presence of such well-established and free-ranging boils really served to signify a certain lack of order and ambition in other areas of the host's life and self. In light of this, I feel no ill will toward Dugan when they cut to him sitting in the coaching box with Furner.

Anyways. It's raining like a bastard at Brookvale, which is, thrillingly, the worst draining ground in the NRL. Sloppy times ahead.

Orford slips over kicking off. Stewart slips over catching it and knocks on. Watmough coughs up the ball and Tongue offers a concilatory pat on the chest. He's nice like that. He cares not for team colours. Orford looks to be setting things up adequately and I'm experiencing semi-friendly feelings towards him, until he kicks straight into Watmough's open arms with several tackles still up his sleeve.

It's a festival of slips and spills. Wet white shorts are unforgiving and I approve of them entirely. Ferguson does some creative things on the right wing. Come the 17th minute and Manly score through the gaping hole in the Raiders middle. Fucksake. I'm no stategist and even I can see that alls they need to do is push up hard and square. They don't get the memo. More awkward kicks from Orford go awry.

Some bloke called Jamie Buerer is playing for the Sea Eagles and every time the commentators say "Buerer" all I hear is Bueller, as in "Bueller.... Bueller.... Bueller?" It's very distracting.

I don't see how it happens, but in the 22nd minute Matai is suddenly down on all fours clutching his heart and looking just like a bison. All play stops and everyone wanders over and gathers round in interest. It appears no one has seen Matai down and out like this, ever. Get a good look people!



 The Bison in better (upright) times

Brett Stewart gets over in the 23rd minute. I can't resent the guy. A minute later Lyon breezes through the non-existent Canberra line to streak away 30 or 40 metres and I get that all too familiar feeling. The one that indicates impending ugliness. Manly don't make it over but it starts my eye to twitching, a sure sign of the onset of a violent tension headache. 
Speaking of twitching, the Tele reported this week that Furner made the Raiders sit down for a three-hour session with a psychologist in an attempt to snap them out of their slump. I don't know why but the thought of a roomful of Raiders and a psychologist having 'a talk' really breaks me up. I just can't imagine guys like Dane Tilse and Trevor Thurling taking anything much away from such an encounter, y'know? God knows I never have. It also makes me think that Furner is even more of a knob than I thought. He may as well be Uncle Rico strapping them into internet-ordered time travel devices:

After oranges, Brandy wonders whether it's "ever rained this hard, anywhere, EVER". Canberra's sets of six go from shabby to plain shit. Brandy blows everyone's (my) mind when he says that the Raiders have had thirty (THIRTY!) tackles inside Manly's half and have nada to show for it. Except, it's worth noting, a look that is more commonly seen in refugee camps.

Incredible. To compare and contrast, Manly have had just seven tackles inside Canberra's half and have still managed 10 points. This is the point where my brother would say that the Raiders are "playing like a busted arse", and also the point where I would agree.

Tony Williams throws up some gang signs from the sidelines. Just kidding. They banned him from doing that. Bitch please, you play for Manly. South Central it aint.

Just as my eyes start to glaze over, Brett White pulls off a late-looking hit on Keiran Foran. I like him. I like his Hasler-esque hair, and I like that he's Mitchell Pierce's boyhood friend. Curious really, considering I don't much like Mitchell Pierce, but there it is. Foran flares up in the scrum and screams at White. Brandy paraphrases and provides us with the cleaned-up version of : "is that all you've got? You're a front-rower aren't you? Why don't you try running the ball see how far you get?" Fair call. I haven't seen White do one notable thing whatsoever since that Origin brawl when he laughed at Justin Hodges through a mouthful of blood. One of the single hottest/wrongest/best things I've ever seen, btw.

Behold: a less-hot/still wrong Brett White:

...and again

The Hasler-esque Keiran Foran

20-0 at the siren. It irritates me to see Orford embracing his old teammates and grinning. I feel this is neither the time nor the place for fraternising.

I can't believe I'm saying this about a football game - any football game - but thankgod it's over. It really is far more fun seeing teams you don't much care for being thrashed. I definately twitch a lot less.