robohobo

berlin2.0

2008-09-10T02:28:00.010+10:00

intenerary of fun

freitag

uhr 19 : luton : 5 hour delay
uhr 1 : fly
uhr 2 : kiwi cab to alexanderplatz
urh 3 : ackerkeller : bizarre basement queer israeli 80s trash party, uli, thom, james
uhr 3.01 : rediscover the cheap goodness of berliner
uhr 6 : tutenhaus : rooftop beer in queer squat central

samstag

uhr 2 : kastanienallee : vego brunch
uhr 4 : lohmühle wagenplatz : sommerfest preperations at franzi's
uhr 6 : fuggerstrasse : folsom street fair
uhr 9 : oranienstrasse : lesben pizza
uhr 10 : sommerfest : performance & freaks
uhr 12 : bike falling apart riding to bar stadler
uhr 1 : sabotage : friedrichstein queer warehous punks, elektro, tekno
uhr 3 : pig party : dirtyness x 4000
uhr 6 : bar sofia : shpunk, jagermeister
uhr 7 : nase finishes work, schlaf

sonntag

uhr 3 : mehringdamm brunch : uwe & nase
uhr 8 : prince connect : sydney people, spanish, londoners, hauge people
uhr 10 : sheune : dirtyness , melbournians, midlanders
uhr 12: mobel olfe : shpunk & uwe
uhr 1 : roses bar : trash, pink fur
uhr 3 : schlaf

montag

uhr 2 : tuten haus
uhr 4 : oranienstrasse : kafe, swiss people
uhr 6 : friedrichstein : bike collection und wagenplatz
uhr 8 : auf wiedersehen

[travel 08]

2008-05-17T03:01:00.001+10:00

facebook

2008-03-17T02:09:00.002+11:00

i caved in and finally joined a social networking site tonight

channel 80085

2008-02-21T11:41:00.004+11:00

channel 80085 multi system warehouse free party. this saturday 23rd feb. 35 mins from the cbd. featuring 15k DSS wall of sound, dog n duck, bodega, bump, ftp, ohms not bombs and intensified. call the secret early number on the night 0450 253 631 or 0450 253 632

i be playing some tunes on the ftp system @1am

sorry

2008-02-12T00:54:00.008+11:00

[ the welcoming appearance of parliament house for sorry day.. who needs guns when you have six tanks lying around]

skyping SF

2008-02-06T21:51:00.000+11:00

barney>
tomorrow night going with Rotten Robbie to see the pop singer Robyn, 25 of us total, we are all going dressed in furry animal costumes. Club called PopScene. Afterwards, all heading to Eagle (now in dripping wet furry animal costumes) to here some queer hardcore band. I'll think of you then.

rob >
bastards
queer hardcore... not limp wrist?

barney>
yes Limp Wrist.

rob>
fucking bastard cunts

[update: pictorial evidence of the night]

taylor sq shell

2008-02-03T22:04:00.000+11:00

finally a political statement on taylor square that aint a fading rainbow flag

accompanied by some advice for the living (likely unappreciated by immortality geeks)

In other oil corporation news, we had a documentary maker around recently, currently working with the amazon defense coalition and the experimental use of mushrooms to clean up toxic waste pits left by chevron/texaco in ecuador [fungi.com]

found on the interweb

2008-02-02T22:24:00.000+11:00

kooky

2008-01-20T15:37:00.000+11:00

ghetto pussy scat show

"its just fucking nutella cunts"

some punk rock bitch from hell

northwood garage

2008-01-18T15:54:00.000+11:00

feasting and knife wielding magicians

baddog

2008-01-14T15:08:00.000+11:00

melbourne as a nye

2008-01-03T11:05:00.000+11:00

awwww melbourne , my first 48 hours back in town just shocks me with that "why the fuck am i not living in this city" kinda feeling.

The goodness that took over crystal t's back in june returned once again to convert brunswick's den of tit flashing iniquity into a pit of genderbending electro thumpin sleaze, dripping with the sweat of those perpetually stuck in 40 degree heat of the days previous.

In the end I had to pull myself away from the fun to get a glimpse at what was happening over in the world of the witness protection program, of which I was actually fairly hesitant in doing since Id heard rumors of a slow decay since it left the Public Office (which is such a fantastic venue, it in itself adds many brownie points to any party... and well its always nice to leave something on a high). Upon crawling up the long long flight of stairs to a venue I had not been to since i was 19 (a very dirty leather party as I remember it), my first impression was fairly uninspired - around fifty or so people of the usual crowd seemed missing, those being all my friends....

but all was not lost, something I think I ate upon the way happened to cause a surge of serotonin throughout the cerebral cortex, and a mister MattV of sydney came on to produce some thumping tunes... So in the end I still managed a good boogie, ran into some good sorts, worked up a sweat and left the party with a smile on my face :) I hear it may have possibly been the last Witness?

As for the question of what to do at 6am on a new years day? The Alien/Utopian Sex Rave @ Utopian Slumps sounded like a fairly convincing option....

[the gas that powers easey st]

The WoW pool provided much relief for the oppressive new years heat as the sun crept higher and higher, filling with a cross section of witness people, blood and sweat people, rainbow serpent people and strange cowboy boot strutting 70 year pill pushers. New Years festivities finally finished at 2am the following night with a beer at a quaint irish pub in nth melbourne, followed by long overdue sleep.

despite the mass exodus of melbournians to parties out of town, confest, byron and the like - the ones that remained truly knew how to have a good time

seasonal adelaide

2007-12-28T12:25:00.000+11:00

adelaide is reintegration into the australian dialect
  arrival in time for coopers laden work party
news of suicide
  crusty punks tripping over teenyboppers for $1 beers
asian gourmet laksa
  homo pubs converted into band venues
repitition [mon:grace emily, wed: exeter, thurs: crown&anchor]
  thoughts im meant to be at the vauxhall tavern in london tonight
a roadless beat
  psychobilly band rooms smelling stale beer and farts instead of smoke
new erowid tshirt wielding man sitting in my old desk at work [how fitting]
  bears @ flagstaff
dj'ing with city views at greenhill rd hill party
  watching a fisherman catch fish at a nude beach
thoughts of SF
  an exit eastbound on the western highway

[more] fush'n'chups

2007-12-21T16:01:00.000+11:00

i want a harley too..

waikato

2007-12-15T18:43:00.000+11:00

its hard to be too sad about leaving SF when your witnessing sunset over a spanning luscious green valley encircled by mountain ranges on a warm kiwi night...

nz customs

2007-12-13T15:43:00.000+11:00

Please empty your bags.
Do you take drugs?
Have you ever taken drugs?
Not even in university?
Oh you went to this event, Im sure they take drugs there?
Is there any objectionable material on this hard drive?
Is this just fun or do you lean towards this lifestyle?
Interesting, so this is your kind of thing then?
Im just asking these questions do gain a picture of your character.
Do you take drugs?
Your suitcase has high trace levels of morphine. Please Explain?
Who are you staying with?
Do you take drugs?
Are you sexually active?
Are you sexually active with the person you are staying with?

justins comics also went down a treat:

ILM visit

2007-12-11T10:55:00.000+11:00

I wasn't too surprised to see ex-workmate Bhautik strolling down Folsom St, In fact I've just come to the conclusion that Australia and SF must be linked by land, and a mass conspiracy is in operation to try fool me with simulated air travel. After all Bhautik is the 20th Australian ive run into in this city (after markP.melb, johnny.syd, mark, grant.nz, flindersbearyguy.syd, dan.melb, raf.syd, david.bris, graham.bris, max.bris, pup2.bris, markD.melb, nudel.melb, johnny2.syd, alan.syd, manacleguy.syd, grant.melb, patrick.melb, gavin.syd)

As a bonus of this run on I was offered a tour of Industrial Light & Magic, coincidental as I was offered a job/visa sponsorship by another VFX house located in the Presidio just the week before (started by ex ILM employees). ILM is like a star wars nerd's paradise (if only I was a star wars nerd...). Strolling past life size statues of Darth Vader, Han Solo frozen in carbonite, miniatures of the Back to the Future DeLorean (and the list goes on..) we finally got to the cafeteria for some lunch. One giant spanning window framing the golden gate bridge, one framing the palace of fine arts and one framing views of downtown -- I have the slight impression this company must be making some money...

life in reverse

2007-12-09T11:22:00.000+11:00

faced with a tri-continental trilemma of where to live the flight to London is cancelled (again), and kiwi bound flight booked

and the visa game begins to decide the fate of life in SF vs life in London... (with a taste of aussie summer in between)

north beach

2007-11-28T06:15:00.000+11:00

experiments with another attempt at cliche SF tourist day

Dissident literature at City Lights , Beardy comic readers at cafe bohemian, Larry Flynt's Hustler House, old fashioned barbers playing clarinets in shop windows, dreaded guitar folk bashing out tunes in Washington Square park, attempts to finish reading On the Road in the natural location to finish reading it and views of Alcatraz from the end of Powell.

poster@citylights ^^^

end camp

2007-11-26T06:34:00.000+11:00

naturally marking the boundary of the castro

thanksgiving

2007-11-25T16:23:00.000+11:00

in america

feast.No1-scottNscott // feast.No2-eastBayWarehouse // liquid acid @ golden gate park, de young museum // trash tv // howards end // feast.No3 - woofinbears // hottub // kumaSF basket party // biyaaaisf* // beer bust fun // biyaaaisf (again) //slight hint of interview anxiety

*bumping into yet another australian acquaintance in sf

quarter century

2007-11-20T14:00:00.000+11:00

today marks the silver jubilee of my entrance to this world (or 25 years in numerical terms)

half a day of hedonism behind, half a day of hedonism ahead :)

back home

2007-11-19T05:25:00.000+11:00

(one of many)

synchronicity trifecta

2007-11-16T06:24:00.001+11:00

three events of synchronicity for the week in three formats of media

a. listening to Pink Floyds Time (at a volume inaudible to anyone but me) then hearing someone across the road playing the same tune on guitar

b. watching the end of 24 hour party people then walking past the Hotel Hacienda on the same night (Manchester Hacienda)

c. being half way through reading Keroacs On the Road, naturally while being on the road, then reading richards blog with a homofied outake of the new 2007 Original Scroll edition.

splendid isolation

2007-11-15T17:59:00.000+11:00

Almost mirroring last years sequence of a few months of Berlin nightlife and Vietnam beach recovery, tonight marks the end of my stay in Escondido, a week of much needed isolation, liver rejuvenation, cuisine ala mexicana and lounging about in the warm waters of the bay.

Next on the cards : 22hours of bus (PE->Tapachula->Guatemala City) 12 hrs of planes (La Aurora->Atlanta->SF). As it seems you cannot gain re-entrance into the states with a new visa waiver from Mexico, a one day trip to Guatemala is in order (not that I promote border hopping or anything...) A sane thing to do would be stick around and check out some interesting sites such as the Tikal (which I assume now is where the forever handy book of reference TiHKAL aka 'tryptamines I have known and loved' got its name), but alas insanity prevails and I have my heart set on spending the birthday with the SF hombres.

As fate would have it on arrival its likely ill end up at Miss Trannyshack 07, seemingly the United States standard welcome party.

midnight playlist del mar

autechre - foil
aphex twin - shottkey 7th path
the presets - girl and the sea
nine inch nails - the great below

extreme yoga

2007-11-09T13:56:00.000+11:00

I decided to get back into some yoga tonight after a sunset swim in the warm waters of Puerto Escondido. After lifting my head out of a downward dog pose I was "taken back" at the sight of three men directly in front of me holding very imposing machine guns.

the health hazards of exercise..

jobhunting

2007-11-06T19:49:00.000+11:00

the sobering effects of maxed out credit cards

SNOG - corporate slave

queer

2007-11-03T20:40:00.000+11:00

I picked up Queer for $2 from a thrift shop a couple of months back in the Mission.

A loosely autobiographical account of Burroughs misadventures through Mexico City in the late 1940s, and tales of a lustful junk deprived journey through Ecuador on the search for Yage in the high mountains

The Alameda park proved the perfect place for a day of reading, not only because of the weather, but even in the midst of the hundreds of families, live music and markets on a Sunday its use as a nonstop cruising ground goes on unabated.

I couldn't think of anywhere more appropriate to finish the book.

dia de muertos

2007-11-03T18:58:00.000+11:00

scenes from the zocolo

tunick

2007-11-02T22:19:00.000+11:00

Spencer Tunick is in town scoping out the teohautican for a shoot, We actually saw him while out at the pyramids, but strangely enough he was absent from his opening a few days later in the city.

awww, making me homesick for melbourne...

Nightlife

2007-11-02T07:23:00.000+11:00

In the language of cities, Night has been defined as the realm of time reserved for chance and recreation. Until a few years ago, Night was limitless and going out always left one with a sensation of transgressive plenitude. To "get lost in the night" meant breaking with routine and exorcising the predictable; anyone who woke up at noon wondering whose apartment he was in, convinced of having ruined his prospects forever, had made excellent use of nocturnal time. "That night, last night, what a night that was last night!"

Carlos Monsivais, Nightlife, The Mexico City Reader

rivera

2007-11-01T07:43:00.000+11:00

a trip to Palacio de Bellas Artes

[Man at the Crossroads, Diego Rivera]

"Very early on, proponents of modernism were demagogued as radicals, anarchists, and communists. This strategy proved spectacularly effective for opponents of modernist designs for public murals, such as Diego Rivera’s infamous Man at the Crossroads. Rivera included an image of Vladimir Lenin that outraged the press and led to the mural’s destruction by angry workmen."

teohautican

2007-10-28T17:56:00.000+11:00

tool - third eye

star chart

2007-10-22T21:17:00.000+10:00

nyc->dallas->mex city | time left on visa - 3 days

As would most likely be the case for anyone, I have mixed feelings about flying - cutting out perpetually running late, the transit time to and from airports and security, the machine guns of heathrow or the retina scan of the USA..... I guess the experience of being cramped in a confined space for hours on end isn't too bad.

but then there are those rare circumstances where flying can be really special.....

A 6am flight as the sky turns a deep red hue at sunrise over the pacific route between sydney and melbourne, or the muffled valium gaze out a window at the small perfectly geometric clusters of light emitting from nameless middle eastern towns on a flight between bangkok and london.

Tonight at sunset we sailed in a corridor of clear weather between two perfect thick plane's of stratus cloud both above and below, in the distant horizon you could simultaneously see the glow of sunset and a bright star on an inky black background, I felt lucky to be on that flight.

laurie anderson - from the air

nyc.III - guggencho

2007-10-22T02:09:00.001+10:00

I eventually started to make up for some fatal flaws I made along my planless NYC journey... The first being staying in Chelsea (think starbucks, boring gym bunnies talking about stock quotes, starbucks, will and grace and starbucks), another sticking to Manhattan - where it became increasingly obvious that most of the interesting folk have already been priced out.

After a walk over the Brooklyn Bridge passing some nice skyline views, things suddenly got more interesting. A sprinkling of real cafe's, dive bars and live music, Williamsburg is supposedly meant to be the new east village in terms of artist communities. Nevertheless the signs of gentrification are already totally apparent, forcing people onwards again to other parts of Brooklyn in a real estate game of cat and mouse.

Guggenheim

The museum was shrouded in secrecy on arrival, cloaked in an array of scaffolding for a large repair and maintenance job, it looked like I was going to have to rely on pictures for my exterior guggenheim tourist experience.

The current exhibition is Richard Price's Spiritual America. Overall I found the building to be much more impressive that the actual exhibit contained within it, however there were a few gems such as Price's more recent 'killer nurse' paintings, Marlboro man and biker chick re-photography and of course the title piece itself.

[brook shields in Spiritual America]

Cho

I only recently discovered Margaret Cho while hanging about in SF, so it was certainly a good coincidence on arrival to NYC I heard she was performing (and then a secondary round of good coincidence when I ran into a portland bartender on the streets, a good acquaintance of a bunch of the performers)

Just the right mix of politically savvy stand up comedy, burlesque, random acts and tits'n'arse followed...

After the show we got invited backstage, hanging about in a dressing room with Cho, Dirty Martini and the adorable 3'10" Selene Luna was an experience surreal enough in itself, and that was before the strong californian pot came out :)

nyc.II - you prefer cocaine

2007-10-21T19:21:00.000+10:00

I met someone randomly about who took me on a fairly 'interesting' tour of NYC nightlife, that is everywhere we went you had to have your name on some form of guest list...

First on the round was cocorosie @ deitchprojects, a french "chinese pop" duo in the middle of a fairly interesting experimental art installation. fun :)

Second was apparently some A-list chichi bar. Its week to week happenings include the likes of Drew Barrymore falling out of toilets with powder covered nostrils. Tonight a fashion magazine was hosting a party, which seemed obvious by the looks of anorexic supermodel types just meters away, and in other corners swarms of patrons trying to perfect their warhol'esque cool indifference look. It was all fairly amusing, I just looked so out of place with my ripped shorts and falling apart boots everyone thought I just had to be in a band, essentially if you were in the door you were "in", so I kept myself amused chatting with 50 year old women in cocktail dresses and the like.

vitalic - you prefer cocaine
miss kitten - frank sinatra

nyc.I - first impressions

2007-10-19T18:10:00.000+10:00

I definitely threw myself into this city in the wrong state of mind, that is to say walking home in the first bout of rain I experienced in SF just days before the trip got me an instant headcold. Its possible, albeit only slightly, that three months of nonstop nocturnal adventure may have weakened my immune system. New York is a city that requires energy on arrival, and that I certainly didn't have a backup supply of.

Starting off the trip with an entourage of aussie comprendes, we hit the bars in no time (well one was in bed having had a massive allergic reaction to food) One after another I was kinda taken back by how unimpressive New Yorks homo scene was. I think I had just been spoiled in SF for too long, even bars that Id been recommended, like the cock just seemed... well pretty lame - $10 entry, $8 drinks (half the strength of SF) and "its so bad its good" urban music? hmmm.....

le tigre - this island

bay area blues

2007-10-18T05:20:00.000+10:00

I would say I'm in a fairly sombre mood right, now, in that "fallen in love with a city and its inhabitants and have to leave" kind of sense. If it wasn't for the excitement of being on a plane to New York I'd be on a mad dash to research the benefits of illegal immigration.

In some way a token city representing the antithesis of american suburban values, SF maintains an inspiring cross section of artists, faggots, geeks, intellectuals, literary nerds and a general assortment of freaks. As the standard line of locals go "san francisco is not america". In my mind it would join melbourne and berlin as being a trio of cities that for me personally have 'maximum niche compatibility factor'.

Going back to my first day, the very initial introduction I had to the USA was 16th and Mission; lets just say an interesting first impression for anyone..... and by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't quite expect a city renowned for such wealth would look so ghetto junkie town.

Having said that, SF can have a nasty habit of putting a sugar coating on just about anything. Within only a couple of weeks my vision of 16th and Mission was no longer a melting pot of grime, junk and beggars but an important place of people watching, an ode to the 80s (boombox central), lively center of the arts (weekly mic-less open mic poetry readings) and the best burritos in town. A bastion of entertainment along my all too regular journey between the Mission (home) and South of Market (beer).

It appears I'm not the only one to develop such warm fuzzy feelings towards a BART station, I found this blogger dedicated, complete with covert surveillance.

"I didn’t capture the initial interaction - a crack ho with a box of stolen candy, and her pimp (the guy at the end) throwing the box on the ground then making her pick it up, and generally causing shit with the other baffled junkies who just didn’t need this kind of hassle before the first fix of the day."

So l will have left SF not having done alcatraz, golden gate park, walked the bridge or even jumped on a cable car, however I will have left having hung with a seemingly endless array of great people, and a fixation on visa acronyms like E3 and H1B ... who needs a London winter anyway :)

elmo

2007-10-08T10:28:00.000+10:00

yet another crazy san francisco weekend

[sugar valley @ castro street fair]

[the sugar daddies]

Sister Dana Van Iquity write up

"At the Barbie Scientology booth you could get analyzed for your stress quotient by holding two aluminum foil toilet rolls between your outstretched hands. Then to relieve your amount of stress, you either played Celebrity Whack-a-Mole (I chose Tom Cruise to be whacked) or tossed beanbags at a cardboard Cruise’s face to see how many teeth fell out. Then you sold your soul to Barbie Scientology."

[blackout]

If ever I've found a t-shirt that seemed like its message was printed just for me..

Helinka was extremely impressed I celebrated my first night in the states by blacking out at trannyshack and further insisted I be back for a repeat session...

[burning man decompression]

folsom weekend

2007-10-03T09:25:00.000+10:00

[lovefest]

[folsom street fair]

the catholic league seemed to love the folsom "last supper" poster this year - pics

[realbad party]

I had a fairly surreal experience at realbad of the down under sort. I think I must have chatted for an hour straight in a room surrounded by 10 Australians, pieces of melbourne, sydney and brisbane all hanging about making me feel right back in the southern extremities.... walking away to the main room to my SF friends was like walking from one country to another, and fuck their accents suddenly sounded all brand new and sexy again ;)

Overall I had no complaints being stuck in a pit of sweat with hundreds of woofy men.

fasttrack USA

2007-09-29T08:13:00.000+10:00

california, oregon, idaho, wyoming, colorado, new mexico, arizona and nevada all in seven days

I got myself a nicely varied taste of the Colorado this week past, from camping in Brown's Hole (the ex outlaw stronghold of butch cassidy) to long soaks at Strawberry Park and Valley View hotsprings (the latter with some fairly stunning views of the rocky mountains and bat caves).

Im fairly amazed how fast the climate changes from spot to spot within this country, having experienced desert, snowfall and everything in between within the space of a couple of days. Other highlights of the natural world included getting to see some elk, deer, owl and coyote for the first time, as well as petroglyphs of the fremont people.

A quick flyby of yosemite and hoover dam/vegas, and then was back en route to SF (which im almost calling home by this point). Id say it was overall a relaxing escape from the city, despite a bit of man trouble breaking my head for a chunk of it.

[aspen @ 14,000ft]

[petroglyphs of the fremont people]

art | free beer

2007-09-16T06:38:00.000+10:00

gingersnaps opening

cliche.day

2007-09-15T15:19:00.000+10:00

couldn't pass SF up without reading some ginsberg in the park, I was too lazy to make it to north beach, so settled for delores.

i heart propane

2007-09-06T15:54:00.000+10:00

The range of opinions flying around about Burning Man in the weeks prior to the event were enough to give me a good case of indecisiveness about going, people here either love it or hate it, and having the alternative option of hanging about with an aussie buddy in new york - what was I to do? A decision on which path I would take got made in the last couple of days, which for an event that requires a fuck load of preparation; is a strange predicament to be in.

By way of a conversation randomly stoked up with a stranger on 18th street, a ride to the playa had been proposed, an offer that included being encapsulated in the the comfort of a petrol guzzling RV for the trip. And considering I had already spent my fair share of time stuck in a tent the last few weeks (lazybear, queeruption..), how could I refuse an offer of desert comfort.

Things slid downhill fast from there - of all the freaky feral fucks going to this desert festival, somehow mister 18ths friends ended up being the exact opposite of who I thought id be spending time with - superficial LA designer fashion queens. On the way to a supposedly countercultural festival I got dragged to IKEA for the first time, drank starbucks for the first time, and shopped for just four people at CostCo?? ... What had I got myself into? I bit my lip for the journey and hung onto thoughts of the light at the end of the tunnel (escaping these guys the first chance i got once setup).

That I did, things got better... to the extreme. Once I discovered the intense onslaught of crazy amazing shit to do and the constant stream of good people from all over the globe, the faeryland and the astropups, the cubatron and the crude awakening ... I was in playa heaven.

night of the burn:

the night of the burn for me can't be explained in words (unless perhaps in terms of brain chemistry),

I guess you could say I was surrounded my particular niche of fun furry creatures within a crowd of thousands, the energy was electric , and while many would say the actual burn is anti climatic... for me as the man toppled it was quite the reverse ;) .. I'll leave that open for interpretation.

things only got better from that point onwards....

"as the air raid siren wails and the battleship smoke generator pours forth its malevolent cloud, the Revered Oil Derrick will light up with a fire display like none before or ever after. A flame gusher will then explode from the center of the tower, creating 2.4 gigawatts of raw power in only one minute. You will bear witness to the largest flame cannon in history and the tower will fall"

Whether it be hypnotized watching monkies dance under bike powered strobe lights, being mystified my the myriad of gigantum art peices, dancing the night away on alkaline lake beds or trying to find my multicoloured flashing bike in a sea of multicoloured flashing bikes, fuck what an amazing night!

Prior to the event I was thinking if I could recapture some of the magic that was the outback eclipse festival in lyndhurst back in 2003, I would be pretty happy. What I got was a whole new beast, a week long residency in the most surreal temporary space I have ever found, and one I can see myself making the journey back to in another 50 weeks- no matter what part of the world I happen to be living in at the time.

the man will burn

2007-08-28T02:45:00.000+10:00

in a few minutes the desert journey begins

http://www.burningman.com

gayshame

2007-08-26T16:14:00.001+10:00

there was a gayshame meeting just two doors down from my place today, convenience.

gayshamesf.org

psychic tv

2007-08-26T14:33:00.001+10:00

Exactly 2 weeks (down to the hour) prior to this gig starting, I stoked up a conversation with a beardy stranger in a portland bar, that at some point, and somehow touched upon his acquaintance genesis p orridge. In one of a compete set of random coincidences that seem to be afflicting my trip... the next day I read psychic tv were touring the west coast.

While admittedly my interests in PTV stem more from the crunchier Throbbing Gristle / Coil - Peter Christopherson side of things, just witnessing the spectacle and newly remodeled (breast implants included) persona of genesis in action was enough to titillate my mind for the night, and what better place to bop about to some experimental psychedelic noise than the bay area.

Leaving the gig I bumped into a guy I met at basso in berlin last year... the coincidence chain continues.

disinfo dossier on "wrecker of civilization" genesis:

part 1
part 2

temple ov psychik youth website

.

back in the bay area

2007-08-24T07:35:00.000+10:00

[demons]

hole in the wall

2007-08-23T14:48:00.000+10:00

melbourne invasion..

hipsters on the butt

2007-08-22T14:54:00.000+10:00

I was slightly disillusioned with artfag homociety today, having picked up the latest copy of BUTT in the castro; never having quite noticed so many manhunt, adidas and american apparel advertisements before .... some contrasting advice for the hipster appeared to me within the hour in the haight, putting a smile back on my face.

lost in a supermarket

2007-08-17T14:29:00.000+10:00

Im all lost in the supermarket
I can no longer shop happily
I came in here for that special offer
A guaranteed personality

portland II

2007-08-14T18:16:00.002+10:00

to quote chris lego "ive heard theres a great tattoo to people ratio in portland"

other good ratios in pdx:

beards : men
organo whole foods : stomachs
microbrewed beer : pubs
nude bodies : rivers

queers, punks and the outdoors

2007-08-14T11:33:00.001+10:00

...seem to be the emerging theme of my trip

I swang by the totally spectacular bagby hot springs last night. Somehow bathing in a hollowed out cedar log in the middle of a rainforest just doesn't compare to my bath back home :)

In a philosophical moment, staring into the trees.... (which isnt hard when bathing in such an environment) I was reminded of the mynah birds huxley describes in Island (the antithesis to Brave New World), the birds are trained to screech "attention" at regular intervals as an aid to constantly remind the people of the island to live in the present

thank fuck ive escaped 9-5 life at the moment..

portland

2007-08-12T13:53:00.000+10:00

pdx folk know how to show a stranger a good time

within 12 hours portland got me into trouble camping with a tattoist queer, hanging at the rooster rock river while randomly bumping into limp wrist folk and contemplations of the portland zinefest on now

good timing means ill make the monthly homo blowpony tonight

its becoming fairly clear why people rave about this place... luckily I aint heading anywhere too fast :)

seattle

2007-08-11T11:35:00.000+10:00

20 hours of seattle

nice folk to beer with at the eagle
stories of the midwest
buskers & food at the markets
walking past a doppleganger of jerri blank
bumping into a random australian friend in the streets

no sign of tom hanks yet....

bears are sexy, anarcho queer punks are sexier

2007-08-09T07:32:00.001+10:00

what a week....

arriving in vancouver I suddenly felt back in normality.... canadians are somewhat similar to australians in a lot of respect, there queen is our queen, the US likes to rape them of there resources, and they are generally chilled out switched on kinda folk

queeruption involved soaking up rays on a sandless beach, punk bands, playing spin the flashlight over the northern hemisphere stars, dolly parton songs around a bonfire, sex partying, endless chats to interesting spunky queer folk from all over the planet, endless discussions on the legitimacy of holding a queer anarcho event on indigenous land without proper permission, vegan rice, workshops, camping on a 45 degree slope and bruce willis (interpreted through DIY lesbian porn)

fuckforforests radical enviro porn

after experiencing the 8 hour crisis meetings ensuing at sydney queeruption in 2005 after being evicted from 2 squatted spaces, I felt somewhat drained that crisis mode came over the temporary collective once again (revolving this time around the indegenious land issues), while this was totally important I thought my brain was aching and my time in the space was better served having fun with a bunch of good folk (albeit with somewhere like 25 aussies in the space it barely felt like id left home...)

a couple of nights in vancouver with a bunch of new yorkers and local punks was wild, the commercial drive district seemed to be jam packed full of really switched on activists involved in things ranging from resist.ca, geeky drupal dev work for indymedia, direct action squad of the anti poverty commitee (also known as 'terrorists' by the local government) and the most important issue currently facing vancouver - the no2010 campaign

I could have easily hung around vancouver for a while.... maybe sometime again soon

grrrr

2007-08-05T01:45:00.001+10:00

and just as I was beginning to 'get' americans, I have to run off to canada this morning.....

the closest explanation I can think of of this town is the bear house from a dirty shame, multiply by 1000, drop in a few pools

[flamethrowin bear]

so long woofy woods of guerneville, hello 2 buses, 1 plane, 3 buses and 1 ferry to queeruption

faux pas maximus

2007-08-04T06:36:00.001+10:00

so I heard all about the parts of tuesday night I cant remember (trannyshack).... and well it was not a pretty story, I heard I was asking locals how long they had been in Australia for, and errr... that was the least of my bad deeds of the night

a mental note for the future, when someone is convincing you your too trashed to leave the house, and you have just got off an international flight, and just been drinking for 8 hours, take their advice.

ian curtis sums it up:

joy division - shes lost control

other than recovering from a shocking hangover,ive been enjoying the foresty furry vibes of guerneville, meeting quite a few cool locals along the way and a bunch of folk from all over the country. After some pool party action, bon fire party action and underbear party action ill be off to vancouver early tomorrow for queeruption, funnily enough involving hanging with more homos in forests.

I could probably write a thesis on my interpretation of america just four days in, but Ill leave that to another time....

the crystal mission

2007-08-03T03:49:00.000+10:00

I was slightly lost in the mission last night, but never fear - a sexy afro mama walked me from wherever it was I was to wherever it was I needed to be. I probably had the most interesting run down of the area id heard so far, but boringly enough she took out a pipe near the end of out trip and asked if I was into crystal.. such is urban americana..

ironically I walked past this sticker as I left the powerhouse

a night in SF

2007-08-02T03:16:00.000+10:00

plane arrives
touchdown at nomad punk spikes place
a pitcher at zeitgeist
a pitcher at the eagle
a pitcher at hole in the wall
a pitcher at the powerhouse
margaritas at a mexican restaurant
$2 beers at daddies
kicked out of trannyshack

zero recollection of how I got home

fush and chups

2007-07-31T15:40:00.000+10:00

mountains, sheep, harleys, geysers, bubbling spas, hairspray and fuzzy spunky men on the other side of the tasman

must head back to kiwiland soon..

10.15 on a saturday night

2007-07-28T22:10:00.000+10:00

....and ive just dropped into work to pick up a few things I left behind in a champagne blur after last nights lengthy farewell drinking session. This post has been written in honor of procrastination, and in ignorance of the fact I still have a lengthy todo list ahead of be before fucking off out of the country tommorrow morning.

it's been a hell of a couple of months, too many goodbyes, final days of a lengthy relationship, end of an amazing warehouse living arrangement and in a few minutes ill be gainfully unemployed (its a few more hours yet until im homeless)

but farewell sydney, your a trashy whore --- may we one day reunite

the cure - 10.15 saturday night

[for ultimate cliche bonus points... here you go]

sydney

2007-07-26T21:42:00.000+10:00

wrapping things up...

[via the newtown]

city of churches

2007-07-22T14:43:00.000+10:00

my one week south australian adventure..

I have been thinking a lot about adelaide in the last few days, its a strange city - most people would agree with me on that one. In fact there are a group of ex-pats Adeladians I know that will only mention the cities name in code, "the A place"; even my own standard explanation to an outsider, when in a more cynical mood would be "there are three things SA does well, beer, wine and pot... and considering it exports all three, there is no need to ever visit".

Having said that, there is always something nice about coming home, coopers is the defacto beer and cheap, there is actually a live band scene (or maybe I just never found it in sydney...), the punks are crustier, the goths are more fucked up, the hills are pretty, contain all sorts of friendly hippie folk and mushroom grow plentifully... Its an easy city to live in, the smallness of it all makes all its various scenes more intertwined, and people much more layed back when they don't have to spend all day worrying about looking really cool while buying bread.

Unfortunately it seems the very things that give adelaide a unique feel are being quickly eroded by a grand influx of the speculative real estate dollar, everything with a gram of heritage value has had cream render splattered on it (just look at norwood these days) and a mass of boring boxy apartment towers in a kind of red brick best described as 'housing commission chic' have popped up all over town (usually next to a pub so they can force noise restrictions upon them). I know you could pull this paragraph out and have a good chance of applying it to any city, but the short period which all this has started to happen in adelaide has been done in a post IKEA world, and it certainly shows; for a city that once felt fairly disconnected from the rest of the humanity to suddenly embrace homogenous starbucks sipping faux middle class culture with full embrace, well is a bit sad.

Ignoring the general vibe I get walking about the city these days, there is however still enough good folks tucked inbetween the cracks to make it worth keep coming back.

As for what Ive been up to in adelaide... well it all started with a flight in from sydney, interestingly enough as the plane started to hit some turbulence a news report came onto sky news with reports of plane crashing into a petrol tanker in sao paulo -- I thought they were meant to filter these stories? or at least thats why I thought id never heard Laurie Anderson's from the air on a planes audio selection.

The rest of my weekend could only be describe as 'doing a ted haggard', I woke up in a tequila haze with a spunky tattooed man on one side of me, and another spunky tattooed man on the other... remembered a pretty entertaining night to say the least, and rushed off to ..... church.

While I tried to keep a straight face through this catholic christening I had to attend, the "christening howto book" was pretty amusing, with questions like - do you reject satan the price of darkness, and so forth it sounded more like the harry potter movie I saw last week than anything anyone could ever take seriously -- but maybe I've just watched too many richard dawkins documentaries lately ;)

I also booked this (I should have used that church visit to pray the UK gives me back my passport before friday):

and drank beer with some beardy folks:

hungover

2007-07-15T15:00:00.000+10:00

15 cases of beer were consumed within the house last night...

[underbelly]

[underbelly after party at our place]

[proof im really a liberal voter]

in other news

"A man has been arrested in Sydney after phone masts were destroyed during a 90-minute rampage in a privately owned armoured personnel carrier.

Police followed the restored tank in a sedately paced chase until it stalled."

story

pre spooky kooky

2007-07-14T16:06:00.000+10:00

[manky / mayhem's tits]

[king st freaks]

state of the vfx

2007-07-09T15:23:00.001+10:00

variety talks shop on the visual effects industry

[the state of photorealistic rendering]

colour parade

2007-07-08T02:24:00.000+10:00

......upon investigation this saturday arvo, it became clear the colour parade is a tightly organised cell of radicals trying to overthrow the state with an abundance of colour

http://www.myspace.com/colourparade

to quote from colourparade myspace .. "DON'T you hate it when MYSPACE recons that colour is spelt wrong ... fix your language up you corporate Americans"

The post parade festivities was at one of the craziest party houses ive ever seen (well .. excluding ours) , three stories of mass terraceness on king st. I put on a DJ hat for part of the night... which went fairly well, considering my monitoring channel decided to die about 10mins in..

my set comprised of various tracks that have kept me on dancefloors in underground dens of inquity over the last few years...and some extras.

here is what I can remember:

adam freeland - we want your soul
whitey - leave them all behind
peaches - slippery dick
soulwax - ny excuse (justice)
the presets - are you the one
the knife - pass this on (booka shade)
peaches - downtown
khan - ride me
x ray spex -- oh bondage
sex pistols - new york
madness - baggy trousers
kim - wet n wild
the presets - i go hard, i go home
the knife - like a pen (schumacher dub)
claude vonstroke - chimps
thomas anderson - washing up (tiga)
benny benassi - change style
blackstrobe - inner strings
midnight juggernauts - 45 & rising
nathan fake - the sky is pink (holden)
prodigy - girls (rex the dog)
green velevet - genedfekt
w.i.t - hold me, touch me (black strobe summer camp)

2007-07-07T00:21:00.000+10:00

travel

2007-07-06T13:42:00.001+10:00

3 weeks to go...

san francisco

black roc k desert

new york

berlin

london (im meant to be moving to this one..)

[mobel olfe, berlin 06]

background music - ny excuse

fun :)

Q+A no more

2007-07-06T12:07:00.000+10:00

In an unfortunate twist of events I missed the final curtain call of my introduction to a world of queers sans kylie that last thursday marked.

It all started for me as a teenie teen awaiting an inevitable escape from the city of churches. A monthly overland journey would get me into melbourne at around 9pm on a thursday night, enough time to dump my bags (most of the time..) and hit the builders... my first contact to a commune of freaky queer fuckers that had somehow avoided the gaystream suv driving mold that currently exists in plague proportions in urban australiana....

In an effort to pay my respect to a period of time that was melbourne, Q+A, infamous spa parties, canning street and 10c pots at the trade bar, I managed to make it down a few weeks early, for a night that would be "my own last Q+A", following on from the camp betty opening extravaganza. This was a chance to finally drop my built up sound system snobbery and boredom of south yarra blonde streaks, put on a happy face - break out the beers, large quantities of jagermeister and have a rocking good time with the mankmeister and co. reminiscing about all the good times.

Thanks to pete, richard and helen for many years of the right sort of fun. It will be interesting to see what eventuates in melbourne in a post June 28th world.

My last Q+A resulted in the worst hangover

I have had for some time.

[ me, franzi, Q+A 2004 ]

random songs that make me think q+a

bjork - army of me

white stripes - seven nation army

garbage - queer

air - sexy boy

ficsherspooner - emerge

peaches - fuck the pain away

scissor sisters - filthy/gorgeous

the smiths - panic

placebo - taste in men

ladytron - seventeen

par-t-one vs inxs - im so crazy

basement jaxxx - wheres your head at

the strokes - last night

new order - crystal

bis - eurodisco

chicks on speed - fashion rules!

richards post on the real final night - even with a pic of waz :)

hobo symbols

2007-07-06T11:51:00.000+10:00

blogism 101

2007-07-06T11:45:00.000+10:00

hmmmm....... content

I am so Web 2.0 right now

winter magic

2007-06-22T23:57:00.000+10:00

Im not sure if backdating a blogpost is destroying some kind of blogger ethic, or otherwise changing the space time continuim, but as I had some prety pictures, Ill take a risk.

We managed to get the whole [ware]house on a trip up to Katoomba, just 2 hours from central, and we had escaped the inner city ghetto (for once). When you are at a winter solstice hippie mountain folk day of festivity, It becomes fairly clear the best plan of action is to setup a renegade sound system at the skate park next door .....

www.wintermagic.com.au