Stephen's 1947 Martini

Since The_Sifter is away on tour in Europe for three weeks, I figured "what better time to work on my new martini recipe". Did so. Have done. Here 'tis for y'all:

Stephen's 1947 Martini (aka the 'Scuse Fingers)

This one is based very much on the (in)famous 1951 Martini, but takes it into other dimensions with the striking juxtaposition of the astringent, almost medicinal brine of the olives and the syrupy orange notes of the mini-orange (and of the triple sec), dancing all over the top of the botanical-palette of the gin. The garnish is also kinda unusual (see photo in previous post here).

90 ml (3 oz) London dry gin (preferably Tanqueray)
30 ml (1 oz) French vermouth, dry (Noilly Prat if at all poss)
5 ml (1 tsp) triple sec (Cointreau, or at a pinch Grand Marnier)
2 anchovie-stuffed Spanish olives, preserved in brine
1 mini-orange (from jar of Israeli Agam Hagalil brand 'Mini Oranges in syrup', or similar)
5 ml (1 tsp) syrup (from same)
1 toothpick, wooden
fresh orange peel

Chill a martini glass. Chill it properly - we're talking ice + water in the glass, sitting for 15 minutes. Place to one side.

In a martini mixing glass (or cocktail shaker), add the vermouth over a couple of handfuls of ice (cracked + cubes makes a good combo) and stir with a long-handled mixing spoon. Discard the vermouth. Over the ice add the gin, and again thoroughly stir with the spoon.

Discard the ice and water from the chilled martini glass. Rinse the glass with the triple sec, and and then discard. Strain the gin into the glass.

Make the garnish by skewering the mini orange with the toothpick and add an olive either side; dump it in the glass. Drizzle a teaspoon of the orange 'syrup' into the gin. Dip your finger into the olive brine and liberally annoint the rim of the glass (hence the 'Scuse Fingers). Finally, squeeze the orange peel over the glass, spraying everything with orange oil.

Have one to wind down after work, while the little woman makes your tea. Oh, go on, have one at the table, as well. You might as well have one after tea, too, and one for a nightcap.

Notes:
1. All liquid measures based on the rough equivalency that 1 single measure = 30 ml = 1 (liquid) oz.
2. You may substitute Brokers or even Plymouth for the Tanqueray (anything with a full body and plenty of botanicals; not that insipid Bombay Sapphire muck). Brokers is a bloody good, tasty gin and new (at least in this country) - you can (currently) (to the best of my knowledge) only get it at Rumbles, downtown in Waring-Taylor Street.
3. If you are so disposed, you can get a jar of the mini-oranges from On Trays in Fitzherbert Street, Petone (the "South African" shop). If you are not, subsitute an orange-stuffed olive from the Mediterranean Warehouse in Newtown and lay the triple sec on a bit thick - i.e. don't discard the rinse. If even this is a stretch, forget everything and just make a 1951.
4. The name? If you can work out what it refers to, you're as smart as I hoped you were.

Thirsty? you will be..

Recipe to follow shortly ;)

Cassette Jam '05

mmmmm early... can't sleep... found cassettes....

read all about it here (make sure you try some of the links at the bottom of the page, too).

Renderers II

So yeah, I never got around to posting my Renderers post on Sunday. The gig was great. I tried to record some of it so I could post it, but the recordings didn't come out too well.

Anyway, like I say, singer and guitarist Mary-Rose Crook is holding a solo show of her exquisite paintings at Mary Newton Gallery ; the show opens tonight (25th October). See you there.

Turtle family (lazy post)

If you like turtles and/or generally cute shit, read on. Bad Aunt has posted a lovely set of photos of a family of turtles that lives in a river near her place in Amagasaki, described as a rusting industrial town just outside Osaka.

Also, while she's an ex-pat Kiwi, living in Japan for so long must have gotten to her because her writing, in this post in particular, has taken on a stereotypical but very charming Zen-like observational simplicity.

Renderers

[For some reason, I drafted this post on Sunday and never got around to posting it. An mp3 will be added shortly.]

The Renderers are in town - they're playing tonight - and I'm excited. I've been a bit of a fan for quite a few years now and it's been quite a few years since I saw them play.

If Alt.country is a genre-tag you can dig, the Renderers have been doing it for long before it was fashionable; their albums, particularly
That Dog's Head in the Gutter Gives Off Vibrations, and Surface of Jupiter, should be in every fan's collection.

Oddly enough, these albums don't fare very well critically on Allmusic.com; but as is often the case with slightly more obscure music, especially that from New Zealand, Allmusic.com is fulla shit. Here's a neat Renderers page instead.

It should also be noted that while they haven't been on the cover of NME, they have a large (cult) following overseas; indeed their albums, save for the first, have been released by top American indie labels such as Siltbreeze and Ajax (both now a lot more quiet than they were in the 80s and 90s though - no jokes please). Also, on a family-related note, James Kirk - drummer in my band The Stumps - is the photographer responsible for the creepy cover-image on the Surface of Jupiter CD.

While they are up here singer and guitarist Mary-Rose Crook is taking the opportunity to show a solo exhibition of her paintings at Mary Newton Gallery (I could have sworn that MNG had updated their website but if they have, I can't find it anywhere). Anyway, the show opens on Tuesday night (25th October).

Bye bye Callie

I had to kick Callie out of my drinking buddies; she has been dead for awhile.

WANTED: (More) drinking buddies. Apply within.

Freaky friday

The machines are taking over, man. And they're not just taking over, but they're taking over and taking the piss, too.

T.V. on the Radio - Robots (right-click and Save As to download)

This track is taken from Brooklyn, NY's art-post-punk group T.V. on the Radio's early "unreleased" album OK Calculator; surely one of the funniest album titles ever. (if you don't get it, think Radiohead).


Meanwhile, from the "Get It While It Lasts" file: TradeMe Fan Art (make sure you click on the image, anywhere) (of limited interest to non-NZ readers) (if you have email at work you've probably already seen this).

MoreDrinkingWellingtonontheCheap pt. 1

..in which we further embellish Jo Hubris' 'Drinking Wellington on the cheap' (on the Wellingtonista blog).

1. Tuesday night.
Fairly slim pickings, if my comrade-in-booze is to be believed. However, Jo didn't mention exhibition openings. Tuesday night seems to have become the opening night of choice for at least a half-dozen galleries I can think of, and if you're talented you can visit all of them in the two or so hours from 5:30, downing a couple of glasses of wine at each. It was for this very "talent" that I was moved to coin a phrase and bestow upon the members of a certain group of women the term gallery-hag.

I'm going to refrain from mentioning any of the galleries by name; I value my life too much to just throw it away like that. Anway, I harbour ambition to become represented by one or two of them in the future and I'm sure I'd be instantly banished if they discovered that 'pon my heedings a large bunch of people turned up at 5:45, drank all the wine and bought not a single work. I'll leave it up to you, you enterprising bunch of prospective g'hags, to work it out.

After consuming a considerable quantity of cheap booze in such a short amount of time, it's usually quite good to (a) eat some kind of cheapish Asian food, and then head to Indigo where, if I'm not mistaken, Tuesday night is still The Rock Cradle - meaning free entry, loud, rockin' bands, and $3 Mac's Gold handles and $3 tequilas; or (b) take the low road and check out the cheap movies Jo mentions.

Many a slow-starting week for Drinks-After-Work has been kicked into life on the Tuesday night gallery-circuit; reciprocally, many a Wednesday has been made virtually unliveable due to cheap wine hangover.

2. Wednesday night.
I can't believe Jo didn't list Tupelo, where from some reasonable hour - let's say 7pm - they offer two cocktails for the price of one. "Bloody hell," I hear you say, "Tupelo? Cocktails? 2-fer-1? There with bells on" but wait: that's only the theory - where this admirable venture falls down is in the execution.

There are two main drawbacks and, love Tupelo as I do, it pains me to draw your attention to them; were I to omit their mention, however, I would stand derelict in my duty. (1.) The usually staid and relaxed surrounds become a seething mass of young- and student-types (just saying, y'dig, not judging - they're not anything even remotely approaching the wretched and debauched young patrons of Blend), and (2.) the associated increased demand has prompted some interesting improvisations in the drink-making department; namely the apparent strategy to pluck random individuals from the street, stick an apron on them, thrust them behind the bar and entrust to them the grave and complex duty of manufacturing cocktails. The resultant quality is astonishingly variable, almost tempting me more than once to enquire whether or not they were taking the piss, guv'nor.

However, it IS Tupelo, and on every Wednesday night, from some reasonable hour - let's say 7pm - they offer two cocktails for the price of one. "Bloody hell," I hear you say, "Tupelo? Cocktails? 2-fer-1? There with bells on." And I couldn't agree more.

Now. Recycling the format I pioneered in my review of Blend, I'm going to attempt a review of the new-ish Morocco, Tom's mystery bar #7.

MOROCCO / Cuba Mall
Friday 14th October 8.30 - 9.30 pm.



Name: Pleasantly un-funky.
Drinks: Neither astonishing nor disappointing. No tap beer; reasonable selection of bottled, some even not brewed in Auckland. One barman was wearing a branded 42 Below shirt, at the sight of which my heart sank. There's possibly some connection with the now-defunct Apartment, as the cocktail list appeared to be very similar. More investigation required.
Food: No idea. Other ppl appeared to be ordering, or to be more accurate, to be being served it. We didn't, and weren't.
Service: Fine. Bar-service only.
Clientele: Young, attractive. A bit.. anonymous.
Decor: (see it here) Nice retro furniture everywhere - someone, as The_Sifter remarked, spent a pretty penny at Gawjus Fings decking this place out. Brown, tan and beige, with the requisite orange-y highlights/lighting. The lights were down, too - too dark for my brain to triangulate sufficiently well in order to play a remotely competent game of pool. Venetian blinds everywhere. No windows. No detectable air-conditioning.
Ambience: The music was a bit.. anonymous.. as well. Not loud. CDs in a disk-changer - or mp3s - on shuffle. Possibly - and only possibly - a very carefully selected mix of what someone thought was hip, but, tragically, picked what was hip 3-4 years ago.
Familiar faces: 1
Solicitations for group sex: 0
Estimated possibility of becoming intoxicated and getting lost in the bowels of the Workingmen's Club: 100%
Estimated possibility of overhearing in the Gent's toilets (large, and shared with the Workingmen's Club) a conversation that verges on being frightening: 100%
Estimated possibility of overhearing in the Gent's toilets (still large, and still shared with the Workingmen's Club) the evacuation of another patron's bowels in a manner that verges on being frightening: 75%
Website: Apparently not.
Franchise: NAFAIK.
Cost (approximate): Normal, as in average 'classy' prices: from memory, $6 bottled beer and $12-14 cocktails.
Comments: Nice, but not startling. Definitely worth a visit. The Gent's toilets (still large, still shared with the Workingmen's Club, and still verging on being frightening) could be looked on as a bonus or a drawback, depending on your viewpoint on such things. Will no doubt pick up soon. However, the prospect of visiting this place in the height of the approaching summer, when the sun has been shining solidly on the (closed) windows for a good 5 hours (at the very least) in the arvo/evening is a little off-putting.


Oh, Be Warned: After actually visiting the bar in question, I discovered that Tom is playing VERY hard-to-get with his mystery-bar clues. In fact, I'd almost be prepared to go so far as to say that he's verging on the duplicitous. I won't go into the details, but just be warned - if you're gonna play, be prepared to play dirty.

Apologies: I may be forced to wait 'til a later date to decorate this post with snapshots, if and when I can get them off my phone. Sorry.
UPDATE: The ones I did take seem to be quite crappy. and I haven't got da patience today to photoshop they asses. Sorry. Again.

Twenty things

1. you can talk during this.
2. there's something wrong with my robot.
3. and we've nothing better to do with the money now - it's good to be able to live well - that's the main thing isn't it?
4. fuck i hope this shit's good.
5. this building is getting louder / its clicks and hums and whirrrs are becoming more intrusive and at night, lying awake in my bed, i can feel its weight oppressive above me; crushing, petulant.
6. i know i'll never remember / your terminal eyes / & benign smile in a coming dawn.
7. am keen on a phone thing, am not so good at talking to myself when i know other people are listening.
8. you look very nice in your uniform.
9. ...hello son...this is your mother...over...
10. the tape on the end of my brush will paint the sounds i hear in my head. my soundtrack to your film is almost done. soon i will learn to fly.
11. but would we ever want to do this?
12. love stench rep (anagram).
13. tell this machine i'm not a machine.
14. i'm sniffing at my hand {...rank odour of service-station pie...} and when I inspect them my fingers are marked too with blood.
15. why do you do it son? eh? eh? do you enjoy making your mother cry?
16. that's the trouble with potted ferns. leave for a week, two, w/out water+light, they die. grey through green turns slowly brown and fades softly. wilt.
17. i've got a full moon in my pocket.
18. a lap dance is better when the stripper's crying.
19. i lost my place on your answerphone. look where it led me. there's a light streaming through my bedroom curtain and i've nowhere left to hide.
20. you don't know me but i know you.

Kate <<< tag >>> Tom, David, Rose, Dan, Rane

Me and Syddo pt. 1

So yeah, about a month ago I was in Sydney. Here's a picture (credit Alasdair Nichol) of me playing at the Impermanent Audio event at The Frequency Lab aka Knot Gallery, #107 level 1 Hibernian House, 342 Elizabeth Street, Surrey Hills, Sydney NSW Australia. It's near Central Station, at the base of Surrey Hills. It's a huge building on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Kippax Street, the two forming an acute angle. You can see it quite easily using Google Earth, if you search for "sydney, australia" and scroll to 33deg 53'04.92" S 151deg 12'29.14" E.

You can also see quite clearly the large bottle which has nearly been emptied of its super-size-me serving of Dirty Bitch Bloody Mary. Hence my calm expression. Doctor's orders, y'see. It was for me nerves. After I'd finished that off I got stuck into the free wine.

It's a lovely space to play in; lots of nice lighting and comfy cushions and old wooden furniture and a very good PA. Unfortunately not much of the space is visible in this shot.

That night was particularly boozy; after the gig was over, about 2am, we all upped and went and spent the proceeds on a banquet at a Chinese restaurant. I'm not denying that I was in an appropriate condition to feel so, but I'm sure it was the best Chinese food I've eaten in my life.

Pictured are our charming hosts Caleb K. and Mark, looking for all the world as if the excesses of the evening have already caught up with them. That is an accurate representation of the interior of the restaurant, too; the walls were this peculiar luminous orange/green tone which truly seemed to vibrate. (Actually it could have just been my head).

Earlier in the day a bunch of us hung out in Hyde Park (coords 33deg 52'34.60" S 151deg 12'36.70" E) for a bit, checking out the incredibly, prehistorically ugly ibis birds (Threskiornis molucca). I constructed a makeshift hide from debris I discovered nearby and set about luring one of the birds with appetizing tidbits of days-old fried rice. When one finally came near enough I took 'is picture.

The bird life in Sydney was immediately and spectacularly new to me. As well as these fascinating ornithological throwbacks, I was also enchanted by the large black birds, not-quite identifiable (some said crow, others claimed raven) which cruised about overhead emitting a call that I can only compare to that of a baby dying a slow, disgusting, horribly-painful death. And the tree full of cockatoos in the suburbs (Alt Street, Ashfield: 33deg 53'04.90" S 151deg 07'25.10" E) which, as I approached on an apartment balcony only inches away, all briefly stopped gorging themselves on the huge sweet nuts they were holding with one foot to regard me curiously, and then carried right on gorging.

The best were easily the revolting, scrap-scavenging ibises though; I propose that Australia adopt them immediately as their national emblem.

I was worse than a stranger, I was well known

Bill Calahan's Smog project (sometimes represented as (Smog), also) (Allmusic.com entry here) (not, either, to be confused with Golden Smog) played in town tonight; I didn't go - due partly to being broke, and partly to being sick - so I thought tonight's post could be one of my favourite Smog tracks. Apparently some people are less-than-familiar with the man's work, so it's partly a public service-type post as well; though if I were you, I wouldn't go getting used to this style or degree of altruism.

Smog - I was a stranger (right-click and Save As to download)

The track is from his 1997 LP - and my favourite - Red Apple Falls; however his 2000 album Dongs of Sevotion would be the one regarded as his breakthough effort, so that may be the one to investigate first, if one were to be going to make such an undertaking.

FWIW I've always found him to be a neat intersection between Leonard Cohen's melancholic introspection and gutter-humour, and the dead-pan baritone and gently-but-out rock arrangements of The Silver Jews' David Berman and Stephen Malkmus (formerly also of Pavement).

On a kinda-thematically-related note, on Friday night The_Sifter and I, err, sifted on down to Morocco to meet up with a bunch of other bloggers from Wellington; somewhat disappointingly, it would seem that we missed all the action. I'm ok about it now, but at the time it felt like being stood up for a blind date feels; a confusing and adrenaline-charged mix of hurt and sociopathic anger. I was all for hunting the fuckers down then and there and throwing sugary mixed-drinks all over them; Ol' Siftey, ever the calm head amidst the chaos, advised a more long term strategy. Reason - and the age-old thrill of impending war - prevailed.

I feel unable to divulge any more details at this point.

word of the day: tarantism

tar-an-tism (ta(r'?n-ti(z'?m): of or relating to the phenomenon of feeling an inexplicable disdain for the movies of Quentin Tarantino (except for Jackie Brown).

Space cadets

Most people don't believe me when I tell them that (a) Barbra Streisand covered David Bowie's Life on Mars?; and especially not when I tell them that (b) she did it on an album from 1974 called Butterfly, with the utterly enchanting cover-image of a fly sitting on a block of butter.

Barbra Streisand - Life on Mars (right-click and Save As to download)

Trust me. It's worth it just to hear her 'emote' the nonsense^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H lines "it's on America's tortured brow / that Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow". Also the BIIIIIG modulation down to a minor 7th, and the subsequent HUUUUUGE Broadway ending, is quite good too.

Some goddamn bar reviews, already

Ok, first a couple of things I have to get off my chest. Bar Bodega is a stinkhole, and so never let me grace its boards with my presence; at least not for some time. That'll show them for cancelling The Puddle at the last moment, after the band had arrived in Wellington. Oh, and its proprietor Fraser MacInnes has shown (once again) (as if it was really necessary) that he is hands-down the biggest cock in the NZ band/bar scene.

The other thing, although with a degree of vitriol many magnitudes less than the previous paragraph, is that I am somewhat aggrieved that Tom didn't let me win his Mystery Bar #7. The new Morrocco bar is in the location of the old Workingmen's Club lounge-room; where they used to have band gigs and so on. I guess my crime was not being specific enough. Pedantic bastard.

Right.

Bar reviews (An occasional feature, partially in response to Jo Hubris' 'Drinking Wellington on the cheap', on Wellingtonista).

BLEND / Wakefield Street
Thursday 13th October 8.30 - 9pm.
Name: Could be worse. Brings to mind cocktails, which is a good thing, except at a bar (such as this) where I wouldn't trust the bar-staff to mix me a glass of water.
Drinks: Ok I guess - I didn't try anything challenging. They had Kronenberg 1664 on tap, which is a mark in their favour.
UPDATE: Ok, ok, so it was Oranjeboum, not 1664 - I was getting confused with Boulot**. So that's not a mark in their favour anymore (especially not since it'll be bound to have been brewed in Auckland) but it's not exactly a mark agin' them, either. The top-shelf didn't appear to be particularly stunning, though.
Service: In addition to being barely old enough to legally drink, the bar-staff appeared to be on pills. Not that that in itself is a bad thing; just that this time it was.
Clientele: Drunk undergraduates and drunk backpackers; sleazy guys who (tonight) (god only knows what they'll be feeling in the morning) can't believe their luck.
Decor: (see it here) Weird mixture of exposed brick, stained wood and uber-modern visuals. Big marks off for the (unfortunately increasingly-common) video screen. Nice high benches and big puffy push-around seats, but marks off again for the odd semi-VIP area. Lighting was reminiscent of that irritating colour-drained filter-effect you get in contemporary noir and vampire movies.
Ambience: Well.. they show music videos on a giant plasma screen behind the bar. The bar-staff take it in turns to select tracks on a computer, 'mixing' with all the skill of people fighting over the stereo at an 18-yr-old's party. The accompanying sound is a serious disincentive to thinking, let alone talking*. Overall the experience is a bit like getting trapped at the back of a bus with a large group of school-kids.
Slurry, slutty greetings: 2
Familiar faces: 1
Solicitations for group sex: 1
Estimated possibility of being drugged and date-raped: 75%
Website: Apparently not.
Franchise: NAFAIK.
Cost (approximate): No idea; ask The_Sifter, he bought the round.
Comments: Don't even bother. It's attached to a backpacker hostel, fer fuck's sake. In addition, the state of the "ladies" in the room - after several hours of free "bubbles" - led me to wonder if the bar-staff crumble E's into the flutes before serving. I was going to post a picture, but instead I think I'll just link to CollegeWildParties.com (warning: NOT work-safe). I'd rather go drinking at The Lazy Shag, and that's now a car-park. Perhaps we were there at the wrong time, but I really don't understand how Kate can do it week in, week out.

*That reminds me... Black-Eyed Peas are really quite fucking awful, aren't they. I mean, they're actually just shit. It's not just me, is it?
** Sifter you bastard, before you go correcting me, this font demonstrably does not support extended ASCII characters, so I cannot reproduce correctly Boulot's name.

UPDATE: Added some more categories. I'm taking this seriously, you know. Also corrected the location to Wakefield Street; where did Tory Street come from, I wonders.

Now I've done all my thinking for the week...

Hardly the epitome of cool.. but.. The Puddle. At Rm. 101. Downstairs at Bar Bodega. Thursday night (13th of October, 2005). On "Thirsty Thursday", no less. Have an mp3.

The Puddle - Thursday (2.63 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

..it's Thursday, it's Thursday, my sweet little Thursday / I wouldn't swap you for the rest of the year..

- The Puddle, Thursday

So what do I say? George D. Henderson's original amazing Dunedin band. Insanely pretty, soaring melodies and rollicking, propulsive rhythm. Fantastic pop lyrics, sung in plaintive, cracking, gorgeous kiwi accents. Catchy songs like you've never known, which won't leave your head for days and days. Legends about drugs and pharmacy burgs and prison time done hard. Fantastic. Sounds like a theme song for "Thirsty Thursday", at the very least.

Thursday is the eponymous A side from the Puddle's finest (possiby only actual) single, 1993's Thursday/Too Hot To Be Cool on Flying Nun. I've just got back from Mr. Inland Scenic's place where we digitised both sides, just so I could post this. The B side is so goddamn great I'm probably going to have to put that up as well.

The cover-star is "Rita". She does backup vocals as well.

..we were trying to impress / god and the devil at the same time

- The Puddle, Too Hot To Be Cool

My Rival song

Here's the Alex Chilton song I alluded to in my earlier post.

Alex Chilton - My Rival (5.17 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download; play using the handy little embedded player below)

Chilton was a member of the 60s teenage supergroup The Box Tops, and then the enduring power-pop supergroup Big Star in the 70s. He went on to make one of the most drug-fucked solo albums in the history of music, 1979's Like Flies On Sherbert; My Rival is one of the highlights on the album. Sloppy and disorganised, and containing one of the most innappropriately twittering analogue-synthesiser solos in the history of rock; yet its insouchiant swagger redeems every flaw as it stumbles drunkenly out of the bar and into the carpark...

David Cleary at allmusic.com completely just doesn't get the whole album at all, and consequently produced one of the funniest album reviews I've ever seen. It's so great I'm going to reproduce it in full right here (Yes, I'm that desperate for content):

On the strength of his Big Star releases from the early 1970s and a host of live performances he gave during the latter half of the 1970s, Alex Chilton had rightly become a rock connoisseur's darling and an inspiration to independent-label bands throughout the United States. Despite all this favorable attention, he would not return to the studio until 1980. Sadly, this release is a dreadful disappointment. Production values are among the worst this reviewer has ever heard: sound quality is terrible, instrumental balances are careless and haphazard, and some selections even begin with recording start-up sound. Chilton's false-start vocal on "Boogie Shoes" is simply left in without correction. Many of the songs here stop dead or fall apart rather than ending properly. Instrumental playing is universally slipshod and boorish, and vocals are sloppy and lackluster. A cover of the Lonnie Mack hit "I've Had It" contains vocals that, without exaggeration, sound like a group of tavern inebriates trying to sing. An attempt to burlesque Elvis Presley's vocal excesses in "Girl after Girl" misfires badly. A few of Chilton's songs here, such as "My Rival" and "Hook or Crook," aren't bad in their own right and would have been listenable had they been performed and produced better. Regrettably, this album cannot be recomended under any circumstances.

Mate, that's just all the more grist for my mill.

WellUrban, innit

The hirsute and therefore aptly-monikered Tom Beard has already pretty much already outed himself and his WellUrban blog through his recent comments here, but I had previously promised (ages ago,in fact) to link to him/hype up his ass, and so I do.

His blog touts itself as "Personal reflections on urbanism, urban life and sustainable urban design in Wellington, New Zealand" and as pithy as that sounds, it's a really good read. Tom writes engagingly and in a clearly-informed manner on his nominated themes; having, as I do, only a passing awareness and/or interest in urban design and architecture, I can't really comment on these. I can, though, comprehend most of what he says and I am finding that's an increasingly uncommon trait amongst un-subbied writers.

He also writes cursively and expansively on local bars and drinking in general; I'm sure that I don't have to emphasise too heavily that these are topics far closer to my heart. His regular Mystery bar feature (No. 7, the most recent, is here) is well worth a look, at the very least.

Online portfolio

Good news is that I've been able to move my online portfolio site from stupid ol' sphosting.com (Goodbye, spyware. Goodbye, malware. Farewell, interminable pop-ups) to inlandscenic.com, where Mr. Inland Scenic has generously allowed me to park.

This is a good link to use for linking, if you were going to link to it.

I've also added some more content.

Pink Ribbon Day

Last Friday was nominally Pink Ribbon Day, in support of the Breast Cancer Awareness campaign. Now, I'm all for Breast (Cancer) Awareness (hur hur) (I couldn't resist) (I mean, how could I, really) but it wasn't until I browsed closely enough to the collector and read the slogan upon her realised that I realised the proliferation of pink balloons were supposed to represent large, nipple-less boobs. That tickled my fancy so much I had to photograph them; having done so, I had to give the poor buffeted collector some of my pocket change, as well.

On the morning of the same Friday I had to apply for my own job. DON'T ask, it's a public sector thing. Mine is not to reason why, mine is but to do and, er, well, reason why, really. And so on. It's the first proper job interview I've ever had in my life; every position I've held to this juncture has been the result of headhunting, nepotism, and/or bloody coup.

The shortlist for the position held only two names; mine, and that of My Rival. My interview went well, I think, thanks mainly to the coaching of The_Sifter and others. After it was over, I hung around the office waiting to get a glimpse of My Rival as he arrived for his turn over the coals (he was old and poorly dressed) (that's saying something, coming from such a sartorially-askew figure as I), and then went out for a while and stalked around the wind-blown canyons of Thorndon listening to Burzum, trying to invoke some kind of a black-metallar's curse on him. It must have worked; later-on one of the panel told me that he was "crap, though not as crap as we were expecting".

I spent most of the weekend getting drunk, and trying not to get even more drunk.

I still await the official word on whether or not I got the job. Come on already.

..my rival / I'm gonna stab him on arrival..

- Alex Chilton

Thanggyou... thanggyou vurry much... goodnight

Oh yeah. Awesome. Good ole' Marion Hobbs won the election-night battle agin' Battlin' Mark Drunk-ski and retained her Wellington Central electoral seat. In a fit of euphoric altruism, Hobbs instructs her staff to spare no expense in plastering a huge "thank-you" message to her supporters, outside her electorate-office.

And so they do; on a budget of about $2.30, and laying waste to more than 10 sheets of A4 printer paper, this is what they came up with.

It's a damn shame she's no-longer the Minister for the Environment. She could really show industry - nay all of the rest of us - a thing or two about sustainable celebratory practices.

Stuff on my cat

Kate linked to this site. I went there. It's just awesome.

Mother of all nations

Because I don't want to come across as some sort of replicant like out of Blade Runner - lacking any sort of basic empathy - I'm going to make a few obligatory noises to indicate my sympathy for Judy Bailey having been booted out of her newsreading job on One News. *Grurt*. *Mbpphhsprrt*. *Knnnnnnnnnee*.

There. I bet you're glad that's over.

They should get Eric Young back to do the 6 o'clock news. He could vid-link the newsreading. And show us his scars, and prison-tatts. I mean, if he has some. I know I would.

On an unrelated note, Wanda Harland is desperate to find out who the "celebrity basher" is. Drop her a note if you think you know - I think she's running some kinduva sweepstake. Not sure what the prize is (tho' the rumour is it's a pair of really ugly running shoes).

Me? I think it's just some kind of cynical attempt to boost traffic to a blog. ;)

UPDATE: RPK done a funny cartoon about Bailey here. Oh and I know the title of this post is an appalling pun, just shocking, and nowhere near my usual standard (of appalling puns). Shut up. I don't care. Stop emailing me about it.

Run-down weekend

The_sifter gives a fair account of last Friday night's efforts. He does omit to mention about 3/4 of what we drank - including the COLOSSAL shot of Fernet the bartender practically poured down his thoat at Motel - but he's probably playing it cool for the ladies. Shown is some of our party detained by an amusing notice en route to the "Courtenay Quarter".

Y'know, am I getting old, or does that goddamn handful of city blocks lose some more of its class every weekend. At the moment I'd almost rather go drinking in Tawa - and that was a dry suburb until 2002. Or perhaps our friend Anon can us take out for a night on the tiles of Newlands sometime?

[Speaking of ladies; apparently I was the only one who found this notice, posted on the department's intranet, more than a little amusing. Actually when I saw it I choked.]

I had a very quiet but very productive rest-of-the weekend. On Saturday I was mostly unscathed by the consumption of the night before; I even tried to liven up the afternoon by drinking a Bloody Mary but it just put me back to sleep. So I watched a very cool and alarmingly twisted French movie from a few years ago called Les Amants Criminels (Criminal Lovers). It starts off a bit psycho-sexual Bonnie and Clyde or even Badlands, goes a bit Grimm's Fairytales, and then goes places I don't even want to know about. Highly recommended. Includes cannibalism.

Because I'd slept all day I was awake pretty much all night, and took the opportunity to finsh mixing-down the new The Stumps album. (Yes, another one). It has finished-up sounding amazing; I even uploaded it to my label-guy in the States and he confirmed it by sending me an email in which there were a lot of CAPS and EXCLAMATION POINTS! Now I need to find a backer - person or persons who wants to lend me $1,500 to get a record pressed and get my label off the ground. Know any music-lovin philanthropists?

Anyway, that all went so well and I was on such a buzz about it, I got up early early early on Sunday and finished off my solo collaboration with Howard Stelzer. Howie lives in Boston, is a really nice guy, and makes amazing music using cassette-tapes and a pile of recycled and home-built electronics. The collaboration has come out just grand. It is supposed to be being released soon as an LP on Eclipse Records.

Late on Sunday afternoon I went along to the closing party of the 91 Aro Gallery; I got to see The Rick Jensen Trio play some estatic free-jazz, which was really nice; what was even nicer was that the gallery told me they'd sold some of my CDs. So, that night I went out to spend the proceeds and get wrecked with David, Paul and The Jarman. This is the best photo of the night.

Yesterday I had the day off - some time-in-lieu owing to me from the massive stockpile I have accumulated in the last three months. I spent most of it sleeping. In the evening I went to see the new Wallace and Gromit film with The Jarman. Entertaining enough, I suppose. I suspect I'm a bit over the whole thing, though.