haiku: while i was sleeping

while i was sleeping
four years passed changing love’s face
into your reflection

you spin me round

yeah i, i got to know your name

well and i, could trace your private number baby

all i know is that to me

you look like you're lots of fun

open up your lovin' arms i want some

well i...i set my sights on you [and no one else will do]

and i, i've got to have my way now, baby [and no one else will do]

and i, i've got to have my way now, baby

all i know is that to me

you look like you're havin' fun

open up your lovin' arms

watch out, here i come

you spin me right round, baby

right round like a record, baby

right round round round

you spin me right round, baby

right round like a record, baby

right round round round

old habits die hard

if i meditate on this lovely lightbulb & peeling paint long enough & allow it to create a strong enough story, i shall be absolved from the need to revisit blizzard's diablo III release page. this junkie gamer come filmmaker has other fish to fry. some obsessions die hard [and slow].

i successfully gave up cigarette smoking almost six years ago by going cold turkey. in the end though it wasn't the physical addiction which theatened to undo all my harnessed willpower & hard work, it was the all pervasive psychological associations. i no longer drink ristrettos. for a long time after quitting i embraced social death because going out was just not feasible. temptation was everywhere. a glass of wine in the hand meant a burning glow stick in the other...

it is said that smoking is a two-headed beast which offers physical & psychological addiction & overall is harder to give up than crack or heroin. in the end giving up smoking was easy, it was just a matter of training the mind in an orwellian reversion.

in order to cease smoking i had to learn to hate it to ensure i would never suck back on one of those cancer sticks which offered all the promise of a marlene dietrich fantasy. it started with the repugnance of being enslaved to tobacco companies & ended with a disdain for the habit & others who indulge. self-loathing transference. it helped that it fucks your health & smells bad but that couldn't be the primary reason: it's just not strong enough, or at least it wasn't at the time. smokers are often the worst anti-smokers. it's certainly true for me. i couldn't date anyone who smokes which provides an interesting conundrum when falling onto the love slippery slide.

i have a chequered history in gaming addiction. sometimes when i need to hide from the world & my hermit mode kicks in, i have been known to disappear into the video game abyss. i am not immune to the seductive charms, having commenced the relationship when i used to edit one particular internet magazine way back when it was still called the information super highway. this is before web 2.0 kids.

it all started with the launch of playstation & that enormous sony TV in my office and those first few old school pioneer games: wipeout, demolition derby, tekken etc that sony kindly dumped on my lap for review...

my pixelated vehicle of escapism choice for many years since however is diablo. i've been through all the previous versions/expansions/patches & had a 18-24 hour a day habit 7 days a week for almost 2 years. i was a respected hardcore ladder player in asia & US west. people knew my name, revered my characters, bought uber items from me. it was my metaverse: a concept our inner cyber punks are increasingly lured into. technically that makes me a loser in certain realities ie IRL. i don't generally do things by halves. my intense all consuming passion forbids it. dilution shits me.

depression and mania manifest themselves in strange ways & sometimes treatment goes outside of the square or right deep down into the very soul of the cyber-bits of it. these days my daughter gets nervous when my eyes shine and i talk about my sorceress, randomly discuss a necromancer spell or utter some inane phrase in multiple dialects [barbarian, necromancer, assassin, amazon, sorceress, druid]: " a gift for you", or even just "thank you". she knows... so i do what any addict does: i hide, i justify, i lie.

there should really be a new standard or comparable addiction scale which rates blizzard games at the top. because i know when i saw that world of warcraft booth & clare asked me if i'd ever have used one the answer was an absolute resounding yes. although my virtual walls are so impenetrable once jacked into the realm that nothing else exists. bodily functions are secondary to the need to fight PKs, slay monsters, collect treasure and gather points without allowing your precious hardcore character to die. who needs to eat, sleep or urinate when there's a uber 8 player tristrum run about to go down with the potential of exponential experience points and the opportunity for booty & respect?

i played on bnet asia realm [the servers are based in korea] the day that two seoul kids allegedly shot themselves when their hardcore characters died. i felt... empathy, before quickly logging back into a room to mule my items.

i don't think that smoking has ever elicited the same kind of obsession. its mortal danger fades in comparison to the craftmanship of undoing which is the brilliance of blizzard.net.

maybe i can kiss you after all [just this once].

windows into the soul

i've always preferred the city at night.

stone cold obtrusive facades come alive & let the outside in with softened edges. these bureaucratic corporate dollhouses inviting alice irrevocably to dance within glowing hitchcockian rear window boxes unconfined.

beer makes things better

cleaning/packing/moving strike starts here. no more until bruises fade & the smell of bleach dims when singed nostril hairs regrow... now it is time to drink!

thank you for being a friend

being on the-day-after" end of an epic almost week long birthday celebration in the midst of moving my life and work, all i can do is, with a smile plastered all over my face [still], say thank you to the beautiful people who enrich my life & make it so much better... thank you for being my friend. and for writing it on my bedroom wall.

these are a tiny sample of images from my birthday. not an accurate depiction at all but an hors d'oevre if you like.

from waking to champagne & cake in bed accompanied by raen's sweet dulcet tones in the early am, to sublime lunches upon lunches all over the city, a zine fair & kusama exhibition run through, relocating an entire warehouse working bee, an impromptu dinner out[featuring an amazing organic wheat-free lemon & almond cake handmade by adam], the perfect last supper in ending with incessant dancing once more into the sunlight all couched with lashings of champagne, the blood of christ & lounge island iced teas... like a never-ending ice-cream/story it just wouldn't stop.

i was too busy enjoying it all to take many pics so there aren't many of you. in fact most unusually i didn't touch my camera all day yesterday. sorry about that. as much as i love myself, this really is supposed to be about you.

you make me very proud, happy and humble. because of you, i have just had the best birthday & year ever. it has been by far both the most challenging & rewarding year of my life. my pledge is to be as good a friend as i can be back and to honour us.

you are [without getting all wedding invitation angsty]:

raen, stevie, clare, kate, marcus, monica, ky, john, baz, dermot, karina, gina, annette, alex almost to the power of infinity [parker, pappas, chamarro], sonja, mark, adam, mathieu, kathleen, matthieu, james [mcintyre, scott, crawford], kaitlyn, serena, eugene, davey, barry, andy, kirsten, caroline, evan, simon, scott, dan, ang, marianne, francois, steve, steven, jessica, heidi, shell, dean, jack, madeleine, jordan, sophie, lisa, dean, claire, troy, maddie, bella, catherine, rosie, anna, fee, dan, felix, michael, chris, glenn, kate, kaori, stefan, katherine, tracey, jen, carmel, josh, shannon, francesca, rachel, jacqueline, shailla, iOTA, richard, jan, krystyna, christine, kirsty, renee, amanda, jacqui, em, amalia, AB.

i can't believe there are so many people whom i love [which is possibly reciprocated] in this crazy little mixed-up world where we don't have enough time for ourselves let alone each other. i didn't even have to pay anyone. thank you for sharing the passion and freely giving your precious energy to be part of this journey. thank you for choosing me. i will continue trying to be the best version possible. to be worthy of your friendship.

each one of you have turns every day contributing to increasing the quality of my life & the pleasure of being on this planet. i am the luckiest girl in the world & indebted to you for helping me remain here & allowing the opportunity to soak you all up.

the consumed champagne et al was a massive toast to you. obviously a lot is required for this never-ending story of ours. no pain-killers need apply.

deli chic[k]

this young girl seems somewhat perturbed by the local deli's window dressing.

how sensually erotic it must feel to lie naked wrapped in soft powdery flour in the shop front window staring back into strangers' faces? i salute the model's stillness.

if only there was enough self-raising in the kitchen at this minute --> the temptation to replicate is overwhelming. flashbacks of jeunet's amélie prevail.

this also makes me think of KT & all those little chicks she gamely let me cover her unwrapped body with in adelaide earlier this year whilst her most adept lover shot & "our kate" delightfully squirmed...

it's important to enjoy your work, n'est-ce pas?

the divinyls for breakfast

i love myself

i want you to love me

when i'm feelin' down

i want you above me

i search myself

i want you to find me

i forget myself

i want you to remind me

inviting shadows

the shadows of a thousand stories...

the theory of luminous energy fields hold that traumatic events or painful moments of significant emotional energy directly imprint onto a location, building, or entity through space & time. these memories are allegedly stored in full colour & intensity.

tonight as i gaze around me celebrating this now stark space, cross legged in the dark alone on the wooden floor where i have lived/worked/evolved for the last three years -- the walls are not so empty at all.

our collective stories bounce & reflect back so vividly i photograph & still can claim them now... are you able to see us too?

it's been a lovely symbiosis. goodbye & thank you warehouse.

some things are best left unsaid

...or written on walls.

my secret garden

when the city gets too much, this is where i go to hide. a timeless lost world offering escape & renewal. a place to breathe & think. my very own wild secret garden where i can run amok with the pixies, kangaroos, spiders, snakes & wombats...

sometimes it's so very hard to come back.

i like spiders

undoubtedly one of the greatest & most intricate artists which grace our planet [and they eat nasty bugs too]. i have loved spiders since childhood & fail to understand the terror they induce in some others. there's nothing like an early morning walk in the bush to soak up the gorgeousness of the morning dew as it hangs off a just spun web.

this is where i should be today [but am not]. i can avoid the arduous red wine hungover drive by looking at my lovely mountain hideaway photos & almost feel the freshness of the eucalypt infused air just by inhaling the imagery. if only the truckload of furniture could get there by the same method...

forced haiku tree

forced haiku tree

perfect red assymmetry

fifteen minutes fame

ambiguous offerings

ambiguity is ubiquitous. freud defined neurosis as the inability to tolerate it. eighteenth century philosopher adam smith famously wrote that from the city of skepticism he had to pass through the valley of ambiguity.

i love the creative applications it affords the most banal aspects of existence. the lovely deviating scenic route it presents on a dull straight highway: a candied refuge for the mind.

projection & perception are often worlds apart. sometimes intentional, others no. duplicity & ambiguity sporadic half-siblings shrouded in the other's shadow. the stuff of age-old games. most ancient philosophy & poetry does not date. we still dance to the same recycled tune.

as an aside what do you think this company sells?

a slice of soy heaven

another friday, another lunch meeting, another restaurant.

this time one of my most regular haunts, toko, where i walk in & default cocktail is instantly whisked up behind the bar, a welcoming wave where i'm greeted by first name & usual table lies dormant waiting for my dear friend john & i to grace it with our candid conversations & feast on food japanese 'izakaya' style. bliss.

there's a hot bed of inflationary discussion topics which range from proprietry limited company shares, to the ongoing rio tinto debacle to middle aged opposite sex marketability, pioneering telecommunications in australia, failing local restaurant trade [another favourite around the corner sadly just shut down but i managed to track down the wonderful maitre'd over lunch -- see you next thursday marie!], plastic surgery politics & me waxing rhetoric about the wonderful invaluable punk monks... quite suddenly we're onto green tea.

sunny of name & disposition runs the surry hills arm of this divine treasure along with dynamic energy-driven otoosan figure kian, always ensure everything is at least 100%. this destination keeps recurring on our high rotation list because they make the best deviation from a bloody mary in town "kim chi mary", have the most incredible sake menu, but in the end my true love is signature dish the miso cod [eating it is like dying & going to soy heaven].

ultimately though what keeps bringing us back is the irreplaceable energy. kian explains his philosphy: that there is no division between customers & hand-picked crew: there's a comfortable familiarity without it getting weird. kinda like cheers but um, more asian. in surry hills.

apparently there's a recession going on but today the place is busy without feeling rushed. by the time i take these photos it's the end of the second run & a few kim chi marys later...

taking a page from my fave book...

a kind of tribute to "fear & loathing in las vegas" meets "dude, where's my car":

"we were someplace around barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. i remember saying something like 'i feel a bit lightheaded; maybe you should drive . . .' and suddenly there was a terrible roar all around us and the sky was full of what looked like huge bats, all swooping and screeching and diving around the car, which was going about a hundred miles an hour with the top down to las vegas. and a voice was screaming: 'holy jesus! what are these goddamn animals?'" -- fear & loathing in las vegas, hunter s thompson

for a formative part of my life this book propped by its counter-culture ilk was the closest to a bible i got. as a life metaphor & an incredible piece of literature & history i still love it to pieces.

unlike many people i did not adore the 1998 film probably because of my prior intimate relationship with the novel. i had lived the book many times over a generation late post publication without ever actually driving to vegas.

one day i'll most probably take that road trip but am terrified of anti-climax & my dr gonzo is now fried in an institution from somewhere back there when i lost him on one too many trips which left the "acid fanciers" blubbing like akira kurosawa crybabies in the early school district days. like hunter s observes, sometimes reality is already too twisted. i've already indulged in several lifetimes of & perhaps there's time for more. who knows? escapism is ultimately a less skewed mirror, but right now i don't feel a need to run & hide.

as a direct result from those hedonistic exploratory days, drug tolerance has been swallowed up by extensive enhanced sensory experiments & consequently my resting state is the equivalent of a pretty fucked-up individual. i don't need help to be any more interesting & have technically died, not once but twice since then, when just licking the envelope perchance to push, more's the pity. death and i have a flirtatious relationship. what i have retained however [apart from about three brain cells] is extremely accurate perception, strong sense of experimentation, bizarrely twisted innocence & an arcanely honed sense of intuition. and the colour girls sing...

cut to today.

i said "...plans are mutable which is fine but even hunter s thompson knew where he was going when he & his attorney loaded up the car trunk with their stash of mind altering goodies..."

you said "no, i think hunter s knew what ingredients were needed but not where they would take him. truly serendipitous..."

although i don't completely disagree with the above mentioned statement, in context with our argument it is inherently flawed.

hunter s said "the trunk of the car looked like a mobile police narcotics lab. we had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers . . . and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls . . . not that we needed all that for the trip, but once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. the only thing that really worried me was the ether. there is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. and i knew we'd get into that rotten stuff pretty soon."

you said: "add mutual admiration, attraction, remove baggage, doubt and let its own course be."

and then[hunter s said]...

"there was every reason to believe i was heading for trouble, that i'd pushed my luck a bit far. i'd abused every rule vegas lived by -- burning the locals, abusing the tourists, terrifying the help. the only hope now, i felt, was the possibility that we'd gone to such excess, with our gig, that nobody in a position to bring the hammer down on us could possibly believe it . . . when you bring an act into this town, you want to bring it in heavy. don't waste any time with cheap shucks and misdemeanors. go straight for the jugular. get right into felonies. the mentality of las vegas is so grossly atavistic that a really massive crime often slips by unrecognized."

and then...

"it is a weird feeling to sit in a las vegas hotel at four in the morning—hunkered down with a notebook and a tape recorder in a $75-a-day suite and a fantastic room service bill, run up in forty-eight hours of total madness—knowing that just as soon as dawn comes up you are going to flee without paying a fucking penny . . . go stomping out through the lobby and call your red convertible down from the garage and stand there waiting for it with a suitcase full of marijuana and illegal weapons . . . trying to look casual, scanning the first morning edition of the las vegas sun."

and then....

"we were the menace -- not in disguise, but stone-obvious drug abusers, with a flagrantly cranked-up act that we intended to push all the way to the limit . . . not to prove any final, sociological point, and not even as a conscious mockery: it was mainly a matter of life-style, a sense of obligation and even duty. if the pigs were gathering in vegas for a top-level drug conference, we felt the drug culture should be represented. beyond that, i'd been out of my head for so long now, that a gig like this seemed perfectly logical. considering the circumstances, i felt totally meshed with my karma."

hunter s knew exactly where he wanted to go on every possible level that the concept encapsulates. maybe not when he originally sourced the ether before our story begins. however the moment he placed it in the trunk with his attorney, they knew they were going on a helluva ride. not all of it was road-mapped but that candy red convertible was always going to vegas, with him & his attorney in it.

no, the bats weren't sign-posted but the physical destination was, whether the car & its passengers ultimately made it or not. when the physical & psychological converge nobody is surprised except for perhaps the method of manifestation. where did the bats come from? ask bruce wayne. they weren't in the visible notes although there was space left for them to be written in [both in the pages & collective minds].

i refuse to play your chinese food mind games. fess up that you're a commitment phobe, want to wear marie antoinette's frock, have cake & eat it too, or other... day by day is fine if it's under two people's terms & not just a thinly-veiled one dimensional booty call connect. your rules suck. why can't we redefine & make up new ones together?

i don't want to hijack you for a vegas wedding, i just want to jump in the car. drive. together. neon-bound. let the course be. <-- we can agree to agree!

and then, and then, and then, AND THEN!

hunter s said "but our trip was different. it was a classic affirmation of everything right and true and decent in the national character. it was a gross, physical salute to the fantastic possibilities of life in this country--but only for those with true grit. and we were chock full of that."

if you're going to deconstruct my favorite book back at me then at least have the balls to give me 100% of the story. a mash-up is fine; our chronology is arguably reversed. life, with me in it, is pretty fuck-off cool. i'd like to share more pages. with you.

PS. sharing is a two way street. BYO candy red convertible. or we can graffiti the clio. but please, get in the car. on the sidewalk, the ghosts of our suitcases wave goodbye.

haiku: rodent splatter film

flattened in seconds
fevered by cheese promises
but crushed underfoot

murder is big business

eating meat in our society is so normalised that the grotesque is rendered invisible. reality blurred.

carcasses hang like clothing drying on a hills hoist when wandering in chinatown [a culture which has the honesty to call a chicken a chicken, present it as is, sans polystyrene disguise & utilise all the body parts].

intensive farm practices dealing with the combined propaganda & promotion of inaccurate information that "meat is good for you" & that "you're not normal if you don't like chicken" are increasingly dishing up to your dinner plate diseased & vitamin deficient excuses for animals that are so pumped up with steroids, antibiotics & reverse-engineered diets that it's kind of ridiculous to still call them a chook [unless the terminology is redefined here]. don't even get me started on mad cow disease, swine flu et al...

fact is science has now proven that meat [all meat including chicken] undoubtedy alters DNA - arguably not in a good way unless you have a bowel cancer fetish. in fact it may even be worse for your body than radiation [it is studied in the same sentence as a major contributing environmental factor by scientists internationally including australia].

the meat industry knows this. the government knows this. oh, but it tastes so good... right? looks like some of the sheep aren't making it to the slaughterhouse after all.

it should be mandatory for young school children as part of their educational field trips to tour intensive farms, watch the manic debeaked chickens still peck each other to death in enclosed places whilst popping out a bird flu flavored egg as the rats run amok under fluro chewing on bits of the living where they can, stand on the abattoir line watching young lambs & calves sweat in terror as they face the inevitable excruciating death at the end of the conveyor belt, first through the killing chute for electrocution or semi-consciousness by pneumatic ram [depending on the killing house idiosyncrasy] before whilst still alive having hooks skewered through the rear legs to hang upside down on the belt before throats are slit over a large trough where rivers of blood travel down & the now usually dead animal is submerged in boiling water to loosen the skin before the fur/hair is scraped off & gutting commmences. that's a school expedition i would jump on the bus for.

that's not even getting into any of the fun political & pharmaceutical stuff behind the scenes. so many $ at stake. as one of the most powerful lobby groups [along with oil & pharmaceutical] the meat industry in all its various incarnations are the hidden truth behind one of the great unsustainable & ethically dubious excesses of our so called civilisation. eating meat is one of the major contributing reasons for world poverty, disease and hunger. apparently brain-washed taste buds override all...

acrosternum hilare apocalypse

a blanketed sea of stink bugs. unified by the downward spiralling hum as they fall like bibilical frogs from the trees to litter this back alley & child care centre playground in tortured death. the soft stench fills the air.

ishtar's devotees dance

last night was another punk monk propaganda inspired event: "suck my pagan" this time hosted by stevie & myself in honor of his birthday at the warehouse.

amongst the debris of streamers and broken fawn hearts a few photos survived. the usual suspects may be assured as per standard procedure the rest will surface in my updated FB photo album in due course.

this is a mere morsel of the party which went till the full moon was no longer visible in the morning sky & the mead from the earth ran dry... and yes, we did build a full-sized carnival maypole for the day: stevie's pièce de résistance! ornate cloaks and capes were de rigueur, as were flower garlands, ivy and daisy chains. a sight to behold even with the temporary but beautifully averted pole collapse.

heads up to matthieu for volunteering for the role of undercover helper during the unglamorous sunlight hours when a strict self-flagellating monastic life was beckoning hard. french art directors make excellent chivalrous slaves.

plus a big thank you to all our friends who helped especially raen, davey, kate, barry and the rest of you who made the pilgrimage to suck my pagan, our last big party at the warehouse, well worthy of remembrance.

once again i'm humbled by your beauty & love. it's ok to sound like a born-again hippie after such a feel-good earthly event...

follow the trail of grates

the australian gas light company introduced the use of public gas to city streets in 1841. fifteen years later it was turned on for public home use in melbourne [sydney was a little behind].

since the discovery of natural gas [1900], old town gas which was generated through the burning of fossil fuels has since been replaced. it took over sixty years from the first public experiments after the initial accidental discovery in queensland to widespread distribution throughout the country.

dotted around our streets are these branded steel grates testament to the early forefather companies who helped shape very different looking cities to what we see today. there are literally hundreds of different variations, all gorgeous in their own utilitarian aesthetic, documenting a tiny historical urban chapter.

with the rapidly changing inconstant city face, one day they just might not be there anymore, these humble icons underfoot of yesteryear.

do you know the way to shell beach?