People are fucked

"If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn't part of ourselves doesn't disturb us." (Herman Hesse)

Hesse is fucking wrong - how could anyone do this shit?

Heehee

What My Father Said About Thanksgiving, What I Thought, and What He Meant.

1. I invited an orphan to come to Thanksgiving dinner.

2. A young boy with no family will be joining us. He will look like Oliver and wear those cool gloves with no finger parts to them. We will give him "more."

3. I invited a homeless man I met at Starbucks to come to Thanksgiving. He's, like, 40.

(No, I didn't write this. I've got nuthin' but follow that link to the people who did.)

Is it election time already?

Gosh this sounds just a teensy bit familiar.

I really don't get paid enough for this.

There are plenty of things that I do in my job that aren’t technically part of my job description.

Dealing with angry residents who either want the paper and don’t get it delivered or those who don’t want the paper but do get it delivered is one. Dome runs for hot chocolate/mocha/coffee refills and/or muffins is another.

And counselling sobbing callers? Yes apparently that’s right up there too.

Now I now there are a lot of sad people out there but, still, this week I have had to deal with THREE criers. Three. And two of them were fine: I was interviewing them about sensitive subjects and it got a bit much. Maybe a little Un!Comfortable (TM Sars) but still.

But today.

Uh… no.

Please no more.

Allow me to recreate the scene.

Crazy-Caller: (Opera music playing in the background) Hello I’m calling because I’m upset about a story I read in the paper.
Me: Uh huh, and what was the story about?
CC: It’s this article about the school principal who is a finalist for an award.
Me: Well what seems-
CC: I mean I don’t know this guy and I’m sure he’s done a good job (muffled sobbing starts) but, shit I mean, think it’s ridiculous to have this award after all this crap (punctuated by loud, wet sniffs) with outcomes based education and the principals who have ignored the wants of the teachers and parents!
Me: Well yes, I mean obviously we don’t have any control over-
CC: It’s like rewarding them for being fucking nazis (not so muffled sobbing)!
Me: Uh well it’s obviously something you feel very strongly about so would you be interested in writing a letter to the editor?
CC: I’m sorry, I’m sorry (more sobbing).
(Meanwhile the opera music playing in the background has become increasingly loud and is now almost deafening)
Me: Yes, well with a letter to -
CC: I’m sorry, I’m sorry I can’t hear you!
Me: (Shouting over the music) Would you be interested in writing-
CC: (Shouting and crying) Wait! Wait! I’ll turn the music down.
(Time passes. Eventually the music is turned off.)
CC: Okay I’m back.
Me: (Repeats line about letter to the editor)
CC: (Immediately starts crying again) I don’t think I can, I don’t think I can. It’s just, I wouldn’t even know where to start.
Me: (Trying to be soothing) Right, right.
CC: (Relentless sobbing, interspersed with gasped apologies)
Me: Uh...
CC: I’m sorry, I’m so sorry to bother you with all this shit (bawling by now), I’m so sorry. I hope you have a great day.
Me: Uh don’t worry about it, I mean we always appreciate feedback-
CC: Thanks, I mean thanks for talking to me. (More crying)
Me: Don’t worry about it, uh, try to have a good day...
(call ends as CC goes off to kill himself and I eat another biscuit)

UPDATE: This guy just came into our office and asked to see me to give me a letter to the editor that he’d written and I did the responsible and mature thing… by pretending to be out on a job.

Token Smokin Hottie: Rufus Sewell

I could say a few things about Rufus Sewell. I could talk about how he rocked one arm and a slightly dodgy haircut alongside James Franco in Tristan and Isolde (shut up, you know you’ve seen it). I could talk about how cross dressing never seemed so hot until I saw him in the BBC modern adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew last week.

But seriously: take a look at him. Chiselled cheekbones? Check. Brooding eyes? Check. English accent? Check and check. This shit writes itself.

You know what really grinds my gears?: Smock Tops.

Why are they freaking everywhere all of a sudden and who exactly are these tops flattering? I mean, I know they're comfy and so on but seriously - who?

Because any item of clothing that can make Rachel Bilson look like a dump truck is not doing your average consumer any favours. If I wanted to look like a knocked-up teenager at a pool party I would have gone to Rockingham High School, okay?

Hey I abdicated a long time ago...

The Washington Post has published the winning submissions to its yearly neologism contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

Read them and weep:

1. Coffee (n.), the person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted (adj.), appalled over how much weight you have gained.
3. Abdicate (v.), to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade (v.), to attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-nilly (adj.), impotent.
6. Negligent (adj.), describes a condition in which you absentmindedly answer the door in your nightgown.
7. Lymph (v.), to walk with a lisp.
and... Frisbeetarianism (n.), (back by popular demand): The belief that, when you die, your Soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

Greg, if you're reading this: call me.

Generally speaking I like my Scottish indie bands playing in small, intimate gigs where you can play the 'my favourite band is more unheard of and obscure than your favourite band' game. Clearly that was never going to happen with Snow Patrol, who have gained much of the fame they deserve in the last year or so. Instead the show was sold out and Belvoir amphitheatre was packed last night for their first Perth show in... er god I don't know but possibly ever?

Anyway, they were fabulous and it put the cap on a series of great gigs. Thanks largely to my new (sort of) job and my new years resolution I've recently notchced up a few great ones inlcuding, in the past week or two: Angus and Julie Stone (fab), Faith in Plastics (from what I remember they were great), Ballet at the Quarry (I thought two of the four were average but one was the most HoYay-laden thing I've seen since Yu Tu Mama Tambien... or at least Veronica Mars).

New new years resolution: see more. This follows on from my new years resolution of a big fat pay rise to pay for it. Obviously.

An open letter to two people who should have known better:

What a pair of tools you are.

No, really. A pair of stupid fucking tools.

I would hate you both but can’t help feel a bit sorry for you.

In five years time your friends (by which I mean the people working at the checkout on either side of you) will be laughing themselves into a coma when you tell them who you used to play with and who you screwed over.

While you’re dashing out in your lunch hour to get the doctor to conform if it’s just a weird itch or another STI you’re going to be walking past fucking billboards of some incredibly hot musician who looks just a little familiar.

And if I ever get to witness either of these two things happening I will laugh like a bitch.

Because the thing is, and I'm sorry you have to find out like this, but people don't really like to play with jerks. Or be around them. And you guys are, I'm afraid, total douchebags. Maybe if you had enough talent you could smarm around and be some bastard tool like (allegedly) Chevy Chase and everyone would tolerate you because when you were on form you were a smoking hot genius.

But... yeah not so much.

I know, I know, it hurts.

But seriously, dudes, I’m not made of stone. When the girl you used to play with is playing in, I don’t know, some big fuck-off venue in Vienna and you’re pawning your instruments for crack and a light bulb just give me a call and I will totally hook you up with an ushering job or something so you can catch most of the show.

But in the mean time I won’t be braking if I catch you on the road so step smartly kids.

Love kate
PS - one of you is a skank and the other is weak as piss - can you guess who is who?

I have seen the future… and it is Ugly.

Every so often as I rub together the two pennies that constitute my weekly wage I think about the future and my job prospects, or lack thereof.

More to the point I think about how I could possibly make enough money to fulfil my desire for a little home in the city, two cats and a dog, a hybrid car, a house in the French Pyrenees and personal shopper who knows his way around the ladies department.

Inevitably I end up at ‘get a job in PR and suck it up, bitch’.

And sometimes I look at my bank balance or listen to suspiciously thumping noise coming from my car’s engine and I think yeah… maybe I could…

But no. No, no, nooooo.

Today the office was besieged by Channel 7 promo floozy’s flogging off Ugly Betty t-shirts and cold pig-fat-filled treats. And I know that not all PR people are required, you know, legally, to wear blue capes and big smiles and be about as shiny as something that is very, very shiny but… blech.

I wanted to vomit in their shiny mouths and hang myself with their blue capes.

But it’s more than that. I don’t ever want to have to be in an industry where I have to suck up to everyone and can’t tell someone to fuck off when they deserve it. (Clearly this is theoretical. In reality I remain like some kind of super breed of wallflower with an inferiority complex and a dislike of confrontation).

I really don’t want to be part of an industry that just sells good news and, yeah, I know it’s not quite the Washington Post over here, but we still get to piss people off, stick it to people who need to be stuck and stand up for people who are getting walked over.

I want to be on this side of the fence instead of the PR wench peddling innocuous three-sentence statements about how fabulous this Minister or that council is.

Of course I’m a moody beast so when I show up to work with a bed sheet tied around my neck and a sparkle glinting off my teeth you can probably assume, at worst, that my car has self destructed or, at best, that I need some new shoes.

Now that's entertainment.

There are those who say I watch a lot of shit on TV but they are talking out of their arse. I watch almost no TV these days - it's all DVDs because everything on TV is pants - but this week, and for the forseeable future, I shall make an exception.

Because Bones is back. And a more awesome show you cannot imagine. This show about a uh well I guess she's an anthropologist or something (hey I just work here) and an FBI agent who work together to solve murders (c'mon!) has everything. I bullied people into watcing this thing when series one was on and... god you actually have to see it to believe it.

First of all: Flesh eating bettles. I mean that's just the teaser right there. I won't even say how they're used and what they can do but, really, I mean they're involved that's all I'm saying.

Secondly: David Boreanz. Never was an actor less capable of doing an Irish accent, controlling his hair or avoiding the buffet table. I was never a huge Angel fan and I didn't care for him much in Buffy but in this he's... he's not bad with the comic timing and all. And when he is bad he's so bad it's sort of great. What's more, have a drink with your TV hour and he doesn't look that.... hideous. He's sort of almost cute. If he turned the lights off first I might actually go there.

Thirdly: A 3D holographic machine that recreates crimes based on some ludicrous "formula" and "data" that the writers go to absolutely no effort to explain or make believable. It's so great it kills me.

Fourthly: The low pitches. I mean it: this thing is practically a ground ball they aim so low with the complexity of the cases and wrapping it up ridiculously cleanly. Case in point: in one episode I remember clearly Boreanz and the chick have just arrived at this guy's house, who they suspect might have attached a bomb to some other dude's car some time ago. In thirty seconds of rifling through his house they come up with the following:

• A Muslim prayer mat hidden in a cupboard somewhere (the guy had previously told them he was a peace-loving Christian... i know, i know).
• Bomb making materials. Just, you know, laying around.
• A copy of a car manual relating to the make/model of the car that was blown up. Better yet the manual has well thumbed pages in the relevant sections for where the bomb was found.
• A diary with a giant red circle around a date and a time pencilled in to mark the date/time of his next attack.

How many times can I say awesome? Plus it's on right before Family Guy so the promise of hilarity will stop you from killing yourself if you respectively disagree with my endorsement.

Don't leave yoghurt in a hot car... and other things I have learned this week.

1. Don't leave yoghurt in a hot car. No I mean really.

2. Don't take a wussy poodle prone to faking an injury with you to the park if you want to run - you will end up carrying that bastard home.

3. Do take a wussy poodle prone to faking an injury with you to the park if you don't really want to run.

4. Don't steal a bike from a shed when you're at a party. Er, it probably doesn't belong to who you think it belongs to.

5. Don't send very drunken text messages. To anyone. Ever. Not only will you probably say something very dodgy but you probably won't remember it. They will.

6. Don't wear a low cut top when you're having your company photo taken. Oh sure it looks fine in the mirror but when the photographer is halfway up a ladder and shooting down at you? They look like two hills and a crevass. Wear a habit if you have to.

Maybe I Shouldn't Have Let Him Borrow All That Poe

Overheard in the office (seriously why aren't you reading this):

Librarian: "Have you met the new assistant director? He reminds me a lot of Randy -- you know -- Ralphie's little brother from A Christmas Story. Nobody wants to hang out with him. The other day I asked him how he was, and he actually held up a piece of rope and said, 'Oh, I'm hanging in there!' and gave me a creepy smile.

60 7th StreetGarden City, New York
Overheard by: Grace

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" (Edmund Burke)

I don’t know what was more depressing.

Seeing ten year old kids firing machine guns into crowds of screaming, running people or the part of my brain that, even while I was watching these and other seriously horrific scenes unfold onscreen, was thinking “gee that Leo Di Caprio he’s uh he’s looking um pretty good these days.

Yes I saw Blood Diamond last night and yes I have blogged about Di Caprio before so I’m not going to go over old ground… however talented and built that blonde, rugged old ground might be… and I uh... sorry, just took a cold shower and I’m back.

Actually today’s blog has nothing to do with actors and everything to do with my new New Years Resolution to make a (small) difference. I’m not getting all preachy because god knows I could do a lot more and if I hadn't seen this damn movie last night I'd probably be blogging about, god I don't know Footlose or something... but it's true that most of us really do have it pretty freaking easy when you look at the rest of the world and I, at least, don't don't nearly as much for other people as I ought to.

So if you too are high on a temporary state of idealism brought on by, of all things, a Hollywood movie, the enthusiasm for which will probably die long before the image of Di Caprio in camos does, you can check out these sites below and do good things. Some of these involve cash but all have things you can do without shelling out a pretty penny and lots of them you can do in a coffee break today:

Stuff you can do with Oxfam
Letters you can write for Amnesty International
The RSPCA
Don’t support conflict diamonds

7 Things I wish someone had told me before I rented Flashdance

1. There’s not a lot of, let us say "dialogue," "plot" or "character development".
2. There is a lot of dancing...
3. ...most of it is very bad
4. ...a lot of it is performed while wearing lycra
5. There is at least one scene in which women “work out” while listening to Joan Jett and make their ‘O’ face. It is unclear whether this is being played for laughs or not. Assume it is or your brain will explode.
6. That creepy dude with the hair is the love interest. No seriously.
7. It blows

The Good, the Bad and the Fugly

Some interviewees are very, very good and some are very, very bad.

The very, very good ones mean you pore over the article, trying to translate their personality and talent into print. I have been lucky enough to have had a few of these recently. I have also had two very, very bad ones.

The doctor I interviewed who lectured me for what I kid you not was at least three minutes about being sure to repeat my phone number SEVERAL TIMES when I leave a voicemail message could be forgiven. He is, after all, a doctor who didn't ask to be in the media spotlight and does spend the rest of his time, you know, saving lives.

The band member, however, who turned out to be a complete doucebag has no such excuse. I know that people in the music business must have to do a lot of interviews with a lot of different publications and it's only natural they get bored by what must be repetitive questioning. But then they're not performing brain surgery up their on the stage.

All references to their 'art' or 'craft' aside, saving lives they are not: they are entertainers and should, therefore, at least try to be a bit fucking entertaining.

Are you now or have you ever been...

Okay I really can’t tell if this website is legit or just taking the piss. I need help.

“Are you struggling with undesired same-sex attractions? Maybe you have
been a Homosexual for a long time, but now are searching for a way out. You have
come to the right place! Love God's Way is offering hope and help to people
seeking freedom from being Gay…

“I know how horrible and rough that road can be. I have been called a
"Faggot". You are not alone and guess what, God Loves You even if he hates your
Homosexuality. You just can't stay that way. Let me help you love
yourself.”

It sort of seems like it could be horrifying genuine but then the list of ‘gay bands’ and ‘safe bands’ to guide parents in what their kids should listen to has to be crazy… I mean, it has to be… oh god I hope so.

Anyway, readers’ opinions appreciated and, case you were wondering, if you listen to Wilco, Eagles of Death Metal, Le Tigre, The Doors, Morrissey or Sufjan Stevens you are probably already gay. Seriously if you look carefully I think you will find you’re having sex with a same-sex partner right now.

I'll be the one throwing my knickers onstage from the second row.

For the second time in a week I'm excited. One of my comedy idols, the drunkenly dishy Irish comic Dylan Moran, is coming to Perth in April. Now obviously I do realise he is probably in town to do stand-up at the Perth Concert Hall on April 29 (see BOCS for tickets - $50) but surely there is just a chance he is, in fact, here to fall hopelessly in love with an innocent young Perth girl who he will whisk back to Dublin and hole up with in a pub somewhere, living only off booze and the stale crisps behind the bar while they write a sitcom together and talk about James Joyce.

Note to self: finish Finnegans Wake. By which I mean start Finnegans Wake.

UPDATE: Apparently one of the shows has sold out but they are putting on a second one.

FURTHER UPDATE: Excitement. Dylan ("you don't mind if I call you Dylan, do you?") is performing in our paper's distribution area so I have put in a request to interview him... ideally in his hotel room obviously. Fingers crossed.

Call me for my theories on Snape.

It's sad is what it is how excited I am by the news that the new Harry Potter Book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, is due out on Saturday, July 21.

I freaking love Harry Potter and I don't understand people who rag on it. Of course it's not the most amazing writing every put on paper but it's incredibly entertaining, super tightly plotted and I actually think the writing's not half bad. For those yet to get onboard I suggest blowing through the first two books at great speed (they're fine but.. eh) and tucking into the rest, which are super entertaining.

Yay, this news is almost enough to erase the (incredibly scarring) image of seeing Daniel Radcliffe naked from the waist up on page three of The West this week. Dear god, I still think he must be about 10-years-old. It's like walking in on your 12-year-old cousin naked and fellating a pony. Ew.

Take a picture, it'll last longer

Because my life is so rich and full that I need not just one but two blogs I've started up a bit of a photo gallery. This is pretty much for the people in the photos, namely because anyone else will surely be bored to tears by its contents. Anyway, so far so few photos but I have a bunch more to go up at the weekend.

How to clinch the rock and seal the deal.

Strange things are happening inside my brain.

Five years ago the words 'marriage' and 'babies' sent me into convulsion of terror. Hell, you could replace 'five years ago' with 'two weeks ago' and you'd still be on the money. But in the last week two things have happened.

First of all I had my first ever wedding-daydream. I know, I know, and I can’t even defend it. Walking down the street listening to a live version of Ring of Fire very recently I found myself thinking 'gee this would be great song to walk down the aisle to'.

Hmm. To. Walk. Down. The. Aisle. To.

I might have chalked this up to hormones, a moment of insanity or a recent re-reading of Maurice (guaranteed to turn me into a mush-pile) except that…

Today as I listened to a workie talking about her nephew I actually thought 'hey that kid sounds kind of awesome'.

Yes, I, famed for my inability to connect with kids on absolutely any level and my dislike of, nay hostility towards, anyone under the age of 15, had a nice thought about a tot. I don't care for kids and I never have but this is the first child about whom I've ever thought 'hey I could handle having a kid like that.'

Of course it helps that the kid sounds like a cross between the lovely Emma Brennan and Quentin Crisp (read: slightly barking) but still... this is some freaking progress.

But.

Before I start knitting a pair of booties or bust out 8 yards of silk for my wedding dress, which I will creepily hold on to despite not being anywhere close to engaged (seriously anyone who rags on The Bachelor does not know what they're talking about - I could tell you some stories about the nutters on that show) I should point out that perhaps I'm reading too much into this.

An appreciation of the music of Johnny Cash does not, after all, a marriage make. I mean, at a certain point, the song ends and you’re stuck with a husband and a ring you’re forced to wear until one of you dies.

And on the child front… well I think it really says something about me that the only child I can stand is:
a)One I’ve never met.
b)One I’m never likely to meet.
c)On the other side of the world.

So, despite the pro-marriage/children thoughts that might occassionally wander into my brain and the fact that my heart of stone might be slightly less, er, stone-like, I don’t think it’s time to abandon my 'how to become a crazy old cat lady in 50 years or less' plans anytime soon. I'm sure you're glad to hear it, Sach.