I got my results on Thursday - about what I expected, no surprise. I would have liked one or two marks more for the large and evil research project, but it was fair.
---
Went to Meredith on the weekend - it was great. It's probably the least prepared I've ever been for any kind of going-away camping trip. I took: a few clothes, one lightweight waterproof thing which wasn't, a towel and a toothbrush. And fifty dollars. I scrounged: a return lift, half a tent to sleep in, a blow up mattress, a sleeping bag, food and some beer, straining the tolerance of friends along the way. A half slab of beer cost an exorbitant 26 bucks, which left me with a paltry 24 dollars to feed myself for the weekend.
Who rocked? Sage Francis, for one. He's this all-American middle aged man with a chubby face which makes him look dangerously friendly and the belly of the overly fed, who wears a lurid shirt and cheap shorts on stage. In short, he's the archetypal American tourist, sans video camera. But he's got a heavy rage, a deep, abiding, self-directed rage that inverts his all-Americanism, twists his santa face into knots and forces him to spit out clever vitriol. "I'm the thinking man's thinking man," he rapped on one track (accompanied solely by a discman). Furiously inventive and inventively furious, he hauled his crowd of gutless liberals over the coals of their own beliefs - you hate the system? Do something about it. On a couple of tracks he bordered on advocating violence, spinning his song into a role play about beating down a cop - yet another curious contrast, this time between black gangster, cop-killin' ghetto rap and white anarchist political violence. Dancing on his culture's grave, he satirized pop culture by indulging in its excesses, miming along to naff 80's songs before breaking them across his knee and merging them into his own darker concoctions. Francis is a contemporary and a collaborator of Buck 65, the evidence clear in his beats. But where Buck 65 is introspective, self-consumed, concave, Francis bristles outwards, convex - he began and ended his set with a long, droning, "You can't kill me, motherfucker." For all his anger, we consumed him like any other, except for the crowd bogans, who didn't get it and shouted 'get off the fucking stage'.
I suppose that's the danger of a cross genre festival - the bogan contingent who parade their hard-earned beer bellies around topless and proud, trundling their token chicks beside them. On Saturday night, I half-heard this: Hey Frank, punch me. Frank, a swarthy guy with a cap and a few muscles, blinked twice, then happily obliged with a veeerryy slow wind up (a result of drinking all day in the sun) and pow - a massive punch to his friend's chest. His friend (call him Bill) blinks twice, slowly absorbing the strength of the blow - nothing token about it. Bill swivels slightly, draws back and punches Frank harder. Frank winces a little but stays standing. Eyes narrowed, he draws back a huge blow and lands it smack on Bill's solar plexus. There's a small woof before Bill topples backwards in slow motion, spraying couches, beer bottles and angry patrons in all directions. The look on his face was priceless - how did I get here? Why does my stomach hurt? I didn't get to see the end, but it didn't look good for their friendship.
Another reason the Fight-Club ripoff might have been in slow motion was the mental state of the observer. Sheltering from a bad act at P's tent, I was offered a bit of a tasty brownie cake with the disclaimer that "It's got a little bit of hash in it - not much, just a little." Famished and scrounging, I kept nibbling at the cake without really thinking about the fact that the entire little encampment I was in had been laid out flat on their backs by sampling a full strength version of a hash cookie the night before. Midway through Hilltop Hoods, it hit me, a tidal wave that nearly knocked me flat. A little hash? A little?! Good god. I remember trying to conduct conversations that sounded like they were in Old English. The crowd loomed in, I freaked out and fled to watch the sunset, until the Dirty Three came on and blew my little mind. Amazing, absolutely amazing. A lightening storm behind them, an entranced crowd in front, they made wonderful, beautiful music, emotional soundscapes, the wiry violinist capering across the stage, sending shivers down my spine with each draw of his bow.
----
I left my job on Tuesday, for the last time. Well, for the last time until I beg for it back after returning impoverished by Japan's cost of living. Nothing like a truly rich country to make you realise we're really only in the Western world because we speak English, possess a lot of rocks that can be turned into metal or carbon dioxide and heat, and a couple of rich agricultural regions. Anyway, I was quite sad to leave - it's been a great job, perhaps the first in my (admittedly short) working life that I've either looked forward to going to or at least not dreaded. I was thinking about the nature of work though - the notion of work seems to thrive on the premise of professionalism, which to me means not getting attached to your workmates. If you do that, you'll end up a crony capitalist - a dirty phrase more politely rendered as a desire to get your friends to work with you. So true professionalism means engaging in relationships which are deliberately shallow, which possess only enough depth to smooth the transactions of information and tasks. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Perhaps I just wish I could do that whole professional thing properly, as part of my usual paranoia about my underdeveloped Work Personality. Then again, if you're going to spend a significant expanse of time with a few people, it's kinda hard not to get to know people.
----
I had my interview for Nova today - hopefully did well enough to get a job. The interviewer looked like a hardass - steel grey hair at forty - but his face broke into a smile readily enough. He played a little game with me called word association: When was the last time you were frustrated with someone you live with - (recently) - how do you deal with stress - take a break - and so on, for 17 questions. I had to keep my wits about me so as not to blurt out 'badly' in response to the stress question, which is probably truer. Then I had a nastier question - talk about a time when you made a mistake and how you rectified it at work. He seemed less interested in anything journalism related and more interested in my undistinguished and happily long-dead career as a Food and Beverage Attendant Grade Two with Spotless Services (recently voted the worst managed corporation in Australia, I believe, which is certainly true from the inside), so I drummed up a minor incident where I fucked up the food and then salvaged the situation with a suitable amount of groveling and the signing of my first child into corporate slavery (take him! Make him your own!).
---
Went to Meredith on the weekend - it was great. It's probably the least prepared I've ever been for any kind of going-away camping trip. I took: a few clothes, one lightweight waterproof thing which wasn't, a towel and a toothbrush. And fifty dollars. I scrounged: a return lift, half a tent to sleep in, a blow up mattress, a sleeping bag, food and some beer, straining the tolerance of friends along the way. A half slab of beer cost an exorbitant 26 bucks, which left me with a paltry 24 dollars to feed myself for the weekend.
Who rocked? Sage Francis, for one. He's this all-American middle aged man with a chubby face which makes him look dangerously friendly and the belly of the overly fed, who wears a lurid shirt and cheap shorts on stage. In short, he's the archetypal American tourist, sans video camera. But he's got a heavy rage, a deep, abiding, self-directed rage that inverts his all-Americanism, twists his santa face into knots and forces him to spit out clever vitriol. "I'm the thinking man's thinking man," he rapped on one track (accompanied solely by a discman). Furiously inventive and inventively furious, he hauled his crowd of gutless liberals over the coals of their own beliefs - you hate the system? Do something about it. On a couple of tracks he bordered on advocating violence, spinning his song into a role play about beating down a cop - yet another curious contrast, this time between black gangster, cop-killin' ghetto rap and white anarchist political violence. Dancing on his culture's grave, he satirized pop culture by indulging in its excesses, miming along to naff 80's songs before breaking them across his knee and merging them into his own darker concoctions. Francis is a contemporary and a collaborator of Buck 65, the evidence clear in his beats. But where Buck 65 is introspective, self-consumed, concave, Francis bristles outwards, convex - he began and ended his set with a long, droning, "You can't kill me, motherfucker." For all his anger, we consumed him like any other, except for the crowd bogans, who didn't get it and shouted 'get off the fucking stage'.
I suppose that's the danger of a cross genre festival - the bogan contingent who parade their hard-earned beer bellies around topless and proud, trundling their token chicks beside them. On Saturday night, I half-heard this: Hey Frank, punch me. Frank, a swarthy guy with a cap and a few muscles, blinked twice, then happily obliged with a veeerryy slow wind up (a result of drinking all day in the sun) and pow - a massive punch to his friend's chest. His friend (call him Bill) blinks twice, slowly absorbing the strength of the blow - nothing token about it. Bill swivels slightly, draws back and punches Frank harder. Frank winces a little but stays standing. Eyes narrowed, he draws back a huge blow and lands it smack on Bill's solar plexus. There's a small woof before Bill topples backwards in slow motion, spraying couches, beer bottles and angry patrons in all directions. The look on his face was priceless - how did I get here? Why does my stomach hurt? I didn't get to see the end, but it didn't look good for their friendship.
Another reason the Fight-Club ripoff might have been in slow motion was the mental state of the observer. Sheltering from a bad act at P's tent, I was offered a bit of a tasty brownie cake with the disclaimer that "It's got a little bit of hash in it - not much, just a little." Famished and scrounging, I kept nibbling at the cake without really thinking about the fact that the entire little encampment I was in had been laid out flat on their backs by sampling a full strength version of a hash cookie the night before. Midway through Hilltop Hoods, it hit me, a tidal wave that nearly knocked me flat. A little hash? A little?! Good god. I remember trying to conduct conversations that sounded like they were in Old English. The crowd loomed in, I freaked out and fled to watch the sunset, until the Dirty Three came on and blew my little mind. Amazing, absolutely amazing. A lightening storm behind them, an entranced crowd in front, they made wonderful, beautiful music, emotional soundscapes, the wiry violinist capering across the stage, sending shivers down my spine with each draw of his bow.
----
I left my job on Tuesday, for the last time. Well, for the last time until I beg for it back after returning impoverished by Japan's cost of living. Nothing like a truly rich country to make you realise we're really only in the Western world because we speak English, possess a lot of rocks that can be turned into metal or carbon dioxide and heat, and a couple of rich agricultural regions. Anyway, I was quite sad to leave - it's been a great job, perhaps the first in my (admittedly short) working life that I've either looked forward to going to or at least not dreaded. I was thinking about the nature of work though - the notion of work seems to thrive on the premise of professionalism, which to me means not getting attached to your workmates. If you do that, you'll end up a crony capitalist - a dirty phrase more politely rendered as a desire to get your friends to work with you. So true professionalism means engaging in relationships which are deliberately shallow, which possess only enough depth to smooth the transactions of information and tasks. I'm not saying this is a bad thing. Perhaps I just wish I could do that whole professional thing properly, as part of my usual paranoia about my underdeveloped Work Personality. Then again, if you're going to spend a significant expanse of time with a few people, it's kinda hard not to get to know people.
----
I had my interview for Nova today - hopefully did well enough to get a job. The interviewer looked like a hardass - steel grey hair at forty - but his face broke into a smile readily enough. He played a little game with me called word association: When was the last time you were frustrated with someone you live with - (recently) - how do you deal with stress - take a break - and so on, for 17 questions. I had to keep my wits about me so as not to blurt out 'badly' in response to the stress question, which is probably truer. Then I had a nastier question - talk about a time when you made a mistake and how you rectified it at work. He seemed less interested in anything journalism related and more interested in my undistinguished and happily long-dead career as a Food and Beverage Attendant Grade Two with Spotless Services (recently voted the worst managed corporation in Australia, I believe, which is certainly true from the inside), so I drummed up a minor incident where I fucked up the food and then salvaged the situation with a suitable amount of groveling and the signing of my first child into corporate slavery (take him! Make him your own!).
posted by Doug @ 12/16/2004 09:44:00 am
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