Happy Nu Yer

2013 is practically over. I'm feeling a bit of that old nostalgia, kind of melancholy, but also a sweet, healthy, warm glow, reflected off the year that just happened and how much I lived. Last night I had the kind of night that I dream to have one New Year's Eve; I had dinner with my girlfriends from highschool and the Indian restaurant that we've been going to since we were sixteen, then I drove off to the house that Lewis is housesitting where a small lil group of us lazed about talking politics and Kanye West and playing Slenderman in a pitch black room. The boys were giggling like little kids, holding uncooked sausages in either hand and pointing in the air to the music we all love, where it goes and how it moves, why is it how it is and why do we love it so much.

I wish all New Years' could be this way, at home, comfortably tipsy, close to my love, talking about music and life and the year that just happened. Being young is complicated but I wouldn't swap it for anything; 20 has been a silly time for me, but my god, it's been glorious. 

Here's to New Year's Eve - I'll be thinking about all of you, readers, you are in my heart always. It sounds dramatic but it is true; this blog has been mine since I begun Year 12 which is now a long time ago, and as I was saying to my friend Kate last night, I forget that I'm not the only one who actually reads it. Last night we spoke about one tumultuous evening at the Evelyn Hotel earlier this year where I stumbled out of the bathroom and straight into her arms. Last night she said she knew me better than I actually realised she did, because she had read my blog, and was happy that it just happened to be me who fell out of the bathroom stall when she needed someone to hug. My heart broke and healed itself all at once when she said all of those things last night because that's just what my dreams have always been for this blog. I document my triumphs and my happiness but I also document my struggles, my bad habits, and how terrified I am of life a lot of the time. I will always speak honestly and candidly and if you have never met me in person, I hope to be the same weird little daydreamer that I am on this blog - and if I'm not, you'd better tell me to straighten up and fly right. 

Have a safe and enjoyable night - do yourself a favour and buy a sack of Fruity Lexia before you get to the bar you're going to where there's no drinks below $10 because what the fuck you guys I'm a musician and you might have full time jobs but I am saving up for a Nord and they are so expensive especially when you only have three shifts a week at the cafe over summer and your car's bumper is scraping along the ground in a terrifyingly desperate manner..........

Happy 2014!

Thingz !

~ My friend Kitty talks about having gypsy blood to describe a feeling of restlessness and a desire to explore. I love that. I feel as though my own gypsy blood has been boiling over ever since I got home from the airport back in late July this year. I need to get outta here and visit all the places I keep hearing and reading about and tread over new ground, you know. I am being kept sane by the promise of the America trip next year, but that is in October which is soooo far in the future, and I wanna get out of here n o w ! ! ! Perhaps I will take a trip to the ocean, because it's been so long since I've been with it...

~ I absolutely obliterated a latte glass at work today, it just totally shattered in my hands into a billion tiny pieces and it was very shocking and also very irritating! I couldn't help thinking about how things can be whole, then so not, in less than a second, without rhyme nor reason...

~ I have been watching waaaaaaay too much Dr Phil send help ~

~ I love the dogs that come into work. Today I decided that from now on I will share the bacon I usually scavenge with the dogs that accompany their owners for breakfast and stuff (with permission o course) because dogs are so funny and loveable and I love it when they look up at me with their little tails wagging whenever I carry their owner's food to their table...

~ I generally don't like New Year's because there's this huge expectation hanging over it to be this amazing time when in reality it's stupid crowds, terrifying fireworks, it's impossible to get a cab, you can never be with who you want to be with all at once, and I hate the feeling of nostalgic melancholy that I get when the clock ticks closer to the end of the year, the end of the era, the end of my youth, the E N D . . . hate it. But this year should be nice; the Cactus men and ladies are doing a couple of gigs which I will attend and some parties have been casually implied and I am planning to spend time with a lot of the people that I love on the actual night so I guess we'll see how it goes.

~ This is me thinking about the crowds in the city on New Year's...~

Please don't mess with me

Wow. What a hectic week...Christmas happened which I always have in my head as this big holiday - which is absolutely is not - then James Brown tribute gig and Henry's Christmas/Boxing Day afterparty extravaganza which is becoming a funny tradition, one which I hope lasts many years to come. I love that god-awful Espy front bar on Christmas night, it's the weirdest, bizarre-est vibe but it's warm and light you know. We got in around 4am then we had a gig with Frida yesterday on Boxing Day, one which went along quite well....

I had work today (and the next two days...) and another gig tonight with Nebraskatak, and I'm hoping to also make it to The Cactus Channel gig at the Curtin which is ALSO tonight...man alive...

I love being busy, especially on the holidays. But the business of busyness is complicated for me because I also kind of hate it too. I feel as though it's very hard for me to be completely lost in a moment, because I'm always thinking about the next thing that must be done. And when I'm there, it's the next thing, then the next, and the next...it's endless. This, paired with the inevitable anxiousness that accompanies irregular mealtimes and large amounts of holiday food, plus the coffee that I am constantly guzzling in order to stay conscious during all these commitments, and I am a hurricane. 

I look forward to gigs because the only way to perform well is to be truly and completely in the moment. I can become who I need to be with little difficulty, because for some reason it's almost always very easy to become 'ready' to play a gig. 

Girls fucking hate each other for no reason!

Lewis was housesitting last night and I trundled on over after working my little fingers to the dish-washin' bone...I love having a house to myself, or mine-and-Lewis'-selves, because we can watch TV and play music and drink wine and play grown-ups pretending that we rent a little house in Northcote together and it's all a fuzzy fantasy you know. Like 'oh I'll just run down and get some milk for the morning' and stuff. Cosy. On a whim we decided to write some music so hopefully we finish what we started on last night.

I have been writing a lot, and here is a piece that I wrote the other day about that woman Jenna Marbles on YouTube (a lot of you don't know that I actually like YouTube very much. Like I subscribe to all the popular vloggers and watch them every day and know their names and their lives and stuff. It's really funny and weird and I love YouTube).

~ ~ ~

I am so sick, and so tired, of hearing the word ‘SLUT’. The thing makes me gag.

It’s bad enough to have it bandied around by men, torn between getting off on a woman’s sexuality yet also acting disgusted by it (‘be sexy but don’t have sex!’). But when women call other women sluts…that’s a really awful thing.

So when I was browsing YouTube the other morning over breakfast and coffee, I noticed a video by social media Titan, Jenna ‘Marbles’ Mourey, entitled ‘Things I Don’t Understand About Girls Part 2: Slut Edition.’ To be honest I was expecting some kind of preachy rant about how girls should just be nice to other girls and not impose these kinds of labels on each other etc etc etc. Jenna Marbles has a huge following (at the time of writing this article she had 11,737,292 subscribers on YouTube), and a lot of these followers are young women, even young girls. The content of the video was disappointing to say the least, and incredibly disturbing to say the most.

Jenna Marbles, in general, has some interesting and well-rounded opinions on being a young person in this day and age. She believes in financial independence, has a college degree, supports the legalisation of marijuana and gay marriage, and has no problem confessing her love for junk food and how difficult it is to stay healthy in the face of ‘temptation’. She has made several videos about the importance of being yourself and how you should not compare yourself to others. The video that shot her into YouTube stardom, ‘How To Trick People into Thinking You’re Good-looking’, even comments on the way women are expected to present themselves in society in order to be perceived as attractive and successful. Jenna Marbles clearly has her head screwed on straight.

That’s what makes this ‘Slut Edition’ so terrifying. This woman, who is obviously educated, intelligent, and generally logical, has some truly awful opinions on ‘sluts’, and has no qualms in using the word – repeatedly – to shame, and to humiliate, women who have ‘lots of casual sex’, as she puts it.

Jenna Marbles, the happy-go-lucky YouTube starlet continues to appeal to ‘sluts’, and like a true martyr, offers to befriend them and not let them ‘go get herpes and murdered’. Wow, Jenna, how generous of you to take all the SLUTS of the world under your wing and take care of them! Those stupid, sex manic girls that no one else will touch, like lepers, whose friends have all abandoned them, only you will look out for them, how tragic! Those fucking sluts, when will they learn that sexual pleasure and liberation is only celebrated in men?

She describes one night stands as ‘risky sexual behaviour’, which, in some cases, can be an unfortunately accurate description. But who is at fault here? Does a woman stand to be harmed if she chooses to partake in a one night stand? If so, why does the blame fall on her? I want to know when it became the accepted thing, to teach a woman not to get harmed due to her sexual behaviour, rather than to teach men not to harm the people they are having sex with.

This video exposes Jenna Marbles not only as a slut shamer, but also a massive hypocrite. What happened to the Jenna that pleaded with girls to ‘stop hating each other’, to stop comparing themselves, and to just be themselves? Why has she suddenly decided that a woman’s sexual choices determine her worth as a human being?

Sexual activity IS NOT EQUAL TO intelligence, compassion, self-worth – in fact, sexual activity is not equal to anything but itself. It’s just a thing that humans do and everyone likes it a little differently, just like our food preferences or how we like to dress each day.

I can’t believe in 2013 we still have to explain this. Slut shaming is alive and real and awful today. Unfortunately, women, just like Jenna, can often be the worst offenders.

~ ~ ~

Original 'Things I Don't Understand About Girls Part 2: Slut Edition" video from JennaMarbles:

Sex +'s Laci Green responds to the video:

One day you'll die and that'l be it!

Sometimes I get really really depressed about the smallest and silliest things that I know in my head really aren't all that bad or tragic or anything like that but it just happens you know like yesterday at work an old lady came in on her own which isn't unusual or particularly sad but she went up to the counter and was asking like 'That pasta salad...can I have it in a small, small bowl? Like not too much. A small bowl. And do you do...like milkshakes? Can I have like a very small one, like a half one? Or a kid's one..." and I just wanted to be like look lady you're old now you can literally do whatever you want just order whole servings of things because it doesn't matter and you clearly want to anyway but I just took her order and assured her that if she didn't want to eat the ~whole thing~ then I could put it in a takeaway container for her and she could take it home so she sat by herself and picked at the food and sure enough she brought half of it back to me and asked to take it home and I just wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake you know and the other night I was thinking about how the oldest woman who ever lived lived to be 122 years old or something and she smoked every day from when she was 21 to when she was 117 and she met Van Gogh when she was 12 and said that he was very rude and sick and last night I was talking to Anna about how when we're really old we're going to really ~live~ but then I started thinking about how I don't want to spend my life until then downloading the update of MyFitnessPal and asking for things in kids serves and taking half of the same old salad shit home in a little plastic container for later how boring!!!

I feel as though a weight is lifted from my shoulders when I remind myself that my worth lies inside of me and isn't a part of my actual body.

In other news here is an article that I wrote about Kanye West and how he portrays his relationship with women for my friends' latest endeavour, Grassroots Resistance. 

~ ~ ~

Is Kanye West a closeted feminist?

Anyone’s first reaction would surely be no. As a black hip-hop artist, he slips into the easy stereotype of women-hating, sex- and money-crazed, violent and foul-mouthed man-child. Kanye ‘Imma let you finish’ West has produced videos for songs such as Monster, from 2010’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, which features sexualized images of mutilated dead bodies of white women, and savage, demonic images of black women. With lyrics such as ‘have you ever asked your bitch for other bitches?’ from his latest single Bound II, and footage of a naked Kim Kardashian looking sultry facing a fully-clothed Kanye as they ride a motorcycle together in a pastel sunset wonderland, Kanye West isn’t exactly a standout candidate for the title of feminist of the year.

However, as a woman who is certainly made uncomfortable by the above themes, I do not actually believe that West is a capital-M Misogynist. To be honest, I don’t think even he really knows how he feels about the ladies.

I have been listening to his latest album Yeezus in my car for about two weeks now. As you’d expect I know many of the lyrics by heart, and as each word burns itself into my brain (probably in the place of something much more important), I could not help but wonder about Kanye’s true feelings towards women.

Upon first listen, of course, the most obnoxious and shocking lines always present themselves at the forefront: ‘I wanna fuck you hard on the sink,’ ‘One more hit and I can own ya/One more fuck and I can own ya,’ ‘When a real n*gga hold you down, you supposed to drown.’  These words aren’t exactly pro-female in nature, and I think a lot of people would be turned off by these first impressions of Kanye. This is inevitable and understandable but please, if you haven’t listened to the whole album at least twice through, you should. It’s worth it.

Where Kanye West differs from the majority of the hip-hop world is that he appears to be so far in that particular world, he’s actually standing outside of it, and making comments on its peculiarities. Sure, he’s obnoxious, but I feel that his obnoxiousness is borne from insecurity, incredible anger, and desperate confusion. This seems to be quite clear in his song New Slaves: ‘Ya’ll throwing contracts at me/you know that n*ggas can’t read!’ While not directly related to women I feel as though this line in particular articulates a terrifying truth, delivered with perfect sarcasm and efficiency to highlight West’s position as an outsider and as a commentator, not a participator, in this fucked up world.

As for his relationship with females, there seems to be much confusion on Kanye’s part. What I like and appreciate about Kanye is his honesty. He has no idea what he’s doing with the women in his life (‘and I know, with the hoes I got the worst rep,’ (um maybe your rep would be better if you didn’t call them ‘hoes’?)) and he admits it, again and again, in album after album.

It’s complicated. He wants women, enjoys sex, but constantly makes mistakes even when he finds that one good girl who’s ‘worth a thousand bitches’. In Hold My Liquor he laments: ‘I’m hanging on a hangover/five years we been over/ask me why I came over.’ After five years, he still visits his ex-girlfriend because he can’t get over her? Doesn’t really sound like typical hiphop misogynistic behavior to me. The genius in Kanye lies in his ability to confess this terrible aching love for a woman, then in the next breath label her a bitch or a hoe or whatever else – therein lies the tragedy!

The Kanye West depicted in these songs is the most hopeless of cases. If you love a woman, you do not call her a bitch or any other derogatory term. Kanye has failed to learn this and is therefore destined to an empty and loveless existence. In answer to the question ‘is Kanye West a closeted feminist?’ I would have to say that the answer is still no. But it’s not a straight no; there are ifs and buts, because where do you file a man who actively seeks a woman to fall in love with, yet has no concept of how to treat women with respect? Is it his fault? Society’s fault? His mother’s, father’s, brother’s, sister’s? Or is it a devastating cocktail of them all?

Kanye West is an interesting caricature; a portrait of society exaggerated, shocking, mutant, but terrifyingly accurate. Where do women stand in Kanye’s world?

I’m still not really sure.

Fuck you and your Hampton spouse

you know i already wrung you out for songs two years ago don't make me do it again

i watch my friends feel colours and it's all they talk about i want to go home

i count mouthfuls, and you sink into a beer when i walk past

i make a point to drink you out because i'm an adult now

my head is the deep end no diving in here

i curl up on your bed blinders on you know

i can't handle handle my liquor

i wonder where do i go if i drink myself there

~

Got all kinds of poison in my blood

Oh goodness, sorry I've been MIA the last week or so, my internet's been down at home and I've been trying to come to terms with the loss...(it's back now thank god).

Not much to report really. I got a new job at a local cafe which has me washing and cleaning, bringin' out meals and sculling scalding coffee and cleaning up after children and dogs and adults too. To be honest I like it very much; it's good, hard, old-fashioned physical labour and I work hard for the money. It is a relief to be told what to do for once, to answer to a ~higher power~ and to not be my own boss. I like being in charge of my little teaching business but to be truthful I am not a kind employer to myself, you know? 

The extra money has definitely come in handy for Christmas etc, I know old XMAS isn't that popular with a lot of my friends but I just love it. I'm very lucky because we have little to no conflict with our extended family at Christmas time and it's always !everyone! invited and everyone's there and it's all busy and loud with good food and kids and dogs and it's nice. I really like going to the shops and looking around for presents for my loved ones. I don't really like spending money usually but at Christmas time I'm a totally different person and I feel really liberated and just like 'NO PRICE LIMIT FOR PRESENTS!!!' and I spend all this money on the people I love and it's just nice. And this year after family Christmas I'll be heading to the Espy with my Lewis and Karate Boogaloo for their James Brown Christmas gig and then to Henry's for funny Christmas/Boxing Day afterparty time. It makes me feel really grown up and strange to think that I will be spending some of Christmas with my friends; I mean I did it last year too but it still sits funnily in my head. Not badly, but it makes me kind of nostalgic or something. 

 Blrrugh

Disposables late 2013

i am real. i am driving across town in the middle of the night one party to another. i am clapping mosquitoes dead. i am flowers i am the rain i am solid and squeezed and sucked in. i am strong i am hair i am smell i am too long looks and two long drags. i am naked i am nothing i am good. i am quiet i am small i am planning my days weeks advance all or nothing success or death for real though for real though i am real

Something strange is happening

Imma little blondie now. Emptied a couple of packets of bleach onto my head and hoped for the best you know...

It took me a couple of days before I stopped double-taking at my reflection - this is the first time I've gone and dyed my whole head at once and it was terrifying but exhilarating at the same time...

My friend Emily said something so relevant last night that it was truly magical. We were talking about spur-of-the-moment ~transformations and she said something like 'Yeah...I always have to stop and really try to convince myself that I can't fix what's wrong with me by getting another piercing or doing something crazy with my hair...because you see it in the mirror and it's this temporary rush, and after just a little while you're back where you were again.' She's so spot on about that, I swear, the amount of times I thought to myself about how awful I was feeling then amazingly suddenly wanting a nose ring, for example, or an extra couple of piercings on my ear, or a tattoo...the feeling of sadness or anxiety somehow coincides with the feeling of recklessness. A dangerous cocktail.

But you know, I've always wanted to go blonde, ever since I feel in love with Gwen Stefani and that video for 'Cool' where she looks amazing both brunette and blonde. (Holy shit have you listened to Love Angel Music Baby? A+++ album what are you kidding me.) I'm really glad I did it, even if I keep it for just a little while, because I've wanted to do it for so long and always chickened out at the last second. I was looking at myself in the mirror piling on the bleach and I was reminded of Lady Gaga in her video for 'Marry the Night' and had this great rush of youth and freedom and creativity even though there's really nothing that magical about turning your hair the slightly unwell colour of bleached golden-yellow.

COOL BY GWEN STEFANI

MARRY THE NIGHT BY LADY GAGA

While I'm thinking about music I just want to say something quickly about Kanye West. I think he's amazing, I've always thought it, so I'm not sure if I'm just biased when I say Yeezus is a really clever album - but I feel like 'clever' and 'good' are two different things, you know. I mean I think it's good, I don't think it's great, I think it's interesting, I don't think it's revolutionary, I think it's bold but I don't think it's career-defining (My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy takes that cake). You should give it a listen. I have a lot of complicated thoughts about the use of 'Strange Fruit' as a sample, in short it makes me pretty uncomfortable and I have suspicions about it being used to shock rather than for any real creative purpose but regardless - I keep harping on to anyone who will listen about his lyrics. I really think they're what keeps me listening, although his production ideas are generally truly wonderful. I think the lyrics are so contrite, so efficient, so earnest, so indignant, so fantastical, so sad...

five years we been over, ask me why i came over
one more hit and i can own ya, one more fuck and i can own ya

and hey, ayo, we made it, thanksgiving
so hey, maybe we can make it til christmas

she asked me what i wished for on the wishlist

have you ever asked your bitch for other bitches?

maybe we could still make it to the church steps

but first, you gonna remember how to forget

then she said she impregnated, that's the night your heart died

then you gotta go and tell your girl and report that

main reason 'cause your pastor said you can't abort that

now your driver say that new Benz you can't afford that

all that cocaine on the table you can't snort that

you could've been somebody

'stead you had to tell somebody

let's take it back to the first party 

when you tried your first molly

and came out of your body

running naked down the lobby

and you was screaming that you love me

before the limelight tore you

before the limelight stole you

remember we were so young

when i would hold you

before the glory 

i know there ain't shit wrong with me

something strange is happening. 

Oopo

I unfortunately just timed having a big strong cup of coffee with the receiving of extremely exciting and rather surprising news: I will be going to LA and NEW YORK in September/October 2014 with some of my Interactive Composition friends (inc. Lewis)!!! I'm so excited and happy and just wow - it's not just like an average-joe trip either, it's tailor-made for composition students and we'll be doing all music stuff and visiting studios and schools and amazing..............I'm the only Gilligan gurl who hasn't been to America yet and this will be worth the wait! Urgh the coffee and this news has sent me hyper...

I actually opened up this blog post to talk about something else, which I guess I'll go onto now...the group of beautiful creatures that I went to Inca Roads with say this hilarious thing that just cracks me up every time: "Oopo." (Like, 'oops', but 'oopo'). I really like it and it makes me laugh so much because they use it so flippantly (someone's really drunk/on pills/the tent's broken/stepped in poo/forget to bring a toothbrush had to borrow one etc) I love it not only because it's A+ comedy but because it is so careless and I wish I could just like eat a packet of TimTams and just be like 'Oopo!' and that's that ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 

Grandma Gilligan

This is Nebraskatak; we've been a band since 2011 and been through name changes and member changes and practically every other change little baby adults go through round these times you know. We're tough as nails. You know I really do think of bands in terms of relationships - you need to be open, trusting, vulnerable, capable of compromise, there will be disagreements and storm-outs and shouting matches but not too much...then there's triumphs, milestones, too much time together, personal jokes, knowing each other just a little too well...

I don't thank the universe enough for the way I have settled into this band. I have truly learnt some invaluable lessons, like when to speak, and when to be silent, how to be tactful, the importance of generosity, quick-thinking and compromise, how to be positive, and, particularly, how to channel frustration into constructive words and a way forward.

Nebraskatak has truly helped me build myself into a little performer. I have a presence on stage now that I would certainly never have been able to figure out on my own, I don't think. It has taught me important things about speaking to an audience, how to catch their eye, how to be engaging...you know, it's all the important stuff! I'm very proud of what we've achieved together and funnily enough you know we've outlived many relationships!

We played at Inca Roads Music Festival this weekend which was really fun. I feel like I do learn a lot about myself in these scenarios though. I am truly not cut out for a party lifestyle - I like to be in bed by some reasonable hour, and I don't much fancy the idea of like ~poppers~ or whatever, and I like to dance on the outskirts where there's less people and less chance of me freakin' out about getting stuck in the middle you know. I feel incredibly lame and boring and I was talking to Lewis about it in the tent and I wish I was more ~outgoing or ~wild but I'm just a v. normal person who likes normal things, not even in a nice cosy romantic way just in like a boring shy nervy way you know. But like these things aren't for everyone I know and I just remember all the fun I had on the weekend even though I was being little Grandma Gilligan as usual - because I did have fun and I really enjoyed the company of the band and our friends and yeah.