« Time for some Concrete Dialogue | Main | There's a man with a gun over there »

January 18, 2006

Hopelandish adventures (I didn't say that you did, only that you could have)

Things to get in the way of anything like creativity, vol. 17. They fuck you up, summer colds. They may not mean to, but they do. And three hours of radio drag your throat into the pits of hell, with only some non-anaesthetic lozenges and half a pack of generic ibuprofen for company. Mid-January finds your narrator pretty much where he was in mid-December, only without an office, with a suddenly expert understanding in setting up offices for the postmodern workforce, with grant acquittals still not written, with a fully paid up membership of the writers' union after having one too many magazines fuck him over, and with a full season of Deadwood under his belt after Christmas DVDs, and thus an urge to say "cocksucker" more than he may have in the past.

He is looking forward to three gigs. Four, even. There's The Hold Steady and Les Savy Fav in early March, and Broken Social Scene the day after. On April 13, the good Mr Darnielle is returning once again for more Mountain Goats magic, and even if it's doubtful he'll have anything new out by then (although he's nothing if not prolific), he'll always welcome him back with open arms. After all, can't a man who's saved your sanity that many times play for you as many times as he damn well pleases? And then there's Sigur Ros, sweet, magical, transcendent, confoundingly brilliant Sigur Ros. He saw them not six months ago in an austere old concert hall in Melbourne, and the experience was so profound he floated back to Perth and saved the return air fare, but here they're playing the West Coast Blues and Roots Festival, on the same bill as Pete "Fucking" Murray. Halfway down the bill in the middle of the day outdoors somewhere. Some things in the universe, he decides, are just not right.

Today he spoke to the man who played the doctor on Northern Exposure after Fleischman left/went into the wilderness. He was told that Bob Saget is the rudest and crudest man in Hollywood. Evidence in The Aristocrats seems to confirm that suspicion. Perhaps, he muses, Full House was a subversive comedy masterpiece, and we just weren't smart enough to get it. Perhaps the Olsen twins were part of one of the greatest pranks in entertainment history. Perhaps. He also spoke to a man who had seen evidence that Osama Bin Laden is dead. He wondered how much that mattered, in the scheme of things. So he played some music, managed a seamless transition between Lucky Oceans and Modest Mouse, and wondered why he'd never fallen for Deerhoof until now.

In his fevered delirium, he watched movies on the Christian channel and realised, perhaps unsettlingly, that the line between Christian cinema and porn is a very thin one indeed. Now, he's not talking The Passion of the Christ here, and certainly not Mel Gibson. No, more the work of the Christiano Brothers, the Ridley and Tony Scott of the Christ worship genre. Or, at least, the Andy and Larry Wachowski. There's something in the acting and the haircuts of the actors in their films, the delivery of lines about a burgeoning need for faith, that always makes him think everybody's about to start fucking. In the mouths of most actors in a Christiano Brothers film, "it's time to let Jesus into your life" always comes out sounding like "I have come to clean your pool". If you ever get the chance, Crime of the Age may be the most entertaining thing you've ever seen.

He decided to cancel his Foxtel subscription, and couldn't figure out how to tune in the free to air channels on his TV. He looked at the manual, and wondered if he was really that old.

Posted by patrick at January 18, 2006 8:37 PM

Comments

Posted by: bec at January 19, 2006 10:08 AM

Posted by: ruby at January 19, 2006 8:13 PM

Post a comment

Name:

Email Address:

URL:
Remember Me? YesNo

Comments: (you may use HTML tags for style)