Shed a tear and mourned the loss of Amy Winehouse yesterday in bed, hungover. Can understand why people can take the piss about her being a drug fucked drop kick who was bound to die sooner or later, but come on guys, she's human too! And let's be honest, only the best artists have dabbled in narcotics in their lifetime! Seriously upset that another amazing artist has bitten the dust far too early in their life, but I guess death is unevitable for everyone. Amy Winehouse features on every playlist I've ever created I'm pretty sure. I've sung along to Just Friends in a depressed state and danced around to Fuck Me Pumps getting ready to go out. Below is one of my all time favourite songs EVER - Mister Magic. No one can argue that she was a talent times one hundred.
The Skateboard came about in the 1950's by a number of totally rad surfer dudes who thought they'd use a board on wheels to practice their surfing technique when the waves were too small. It became a shit hot trend, and reached peak popularity in the early to mid-60's. Sadly, the board bummed out shortly after this peak - numbnuts of the world dropped the Skateboard and picked up a Hula-Hoop instead. Not even kidding. Enter Californian beach bums, 1972ish, who picked up the thought-to-be-long-gone fad again and got fancy with making Skateboards. The rest is history.
I'm in love with the 70's Skateboarding Era. Look at how serious but chilled these dudes are!
I wish I was alive for this...
I've been involved in one of my first real social settings in Melbourne recently. I'm not an insociable hermit of any kind, I've just been focussed on my job hunt and have been too poor to venture out and about, jumping into social scenes. This social setting has been an experience. It's been like heading back to school. 9am - 3pm everyday, classroom setting, learning, homework. But it made me realise how long it's been since I've found myself in a setting where I have to introduce myself to a whole group of people, make friends (as such), and socialise with complete strangers.
It was weird.
A week on, most of the awkward conversation has passed. But a week on, you have learnt the nature of most peoples' characters. You get a feel for who these people are. And goodness gracious the paper! This week has been close to torture at times. I have recognised and, to be honest, labelled the characters I've come across.
Exhibit A:The Know-it-All
A pain in my ass. Generally people who are confident yet arrogant. Exhibit A's idea of conversation, is shit. It consists of bragging and elitist bullshit with a sprinkle of speaking over everyone. Their tone is pompous and they like to be-little everyone else at any chance they get.
Exhibit B:The Rambler
Be aware of The Rambler at all times. Exhibit B springs up out of nowhere in coversations. How their idea relates to the topic of conversation, can range anywhere between slightly and extremely on point. Be warned, The Rambler can hold you hostage! Have a number of conversation stoppers handy to exit the conversation when you don't want to hear anymore merry-go-round stories about their childhood horse's stable.
Exhibit C:The 'I Love My Own Voice' Asshole
My pet peeve. These Assholes literally love the sound of their own voice. Any chance given to them to speak, is snatched up quick, like a 2-for-1 at Showgirls. Exhibit Cs tend to have a bit of The Rambler in them, and they can raise their opinions on dog biscuits when the group is discussing market research. This Asshole doesn't care if their answer is right or wrong, they simply want a bit of attention.
Exhibit D:The Repeat Questioner
Pretty self explanatory, Exhibit D is a prisoner to their self-doubt. The instructions or answer have been given, and The Repeat Questioner feels the need to ask and clarify this two seconds later. Exhibit asks questions that they definitely have the answer to, over and over again. There's nothing wrong with clarification, but quadruple clarification, thirty seconds apart is beyond ridiculous.
Exhibit E: The Story Teller
Similar to the Rambler at times, the Story Teller has a story for every example given in class. Whether they were fourteen when it happened, or forty, they feel the need to let the whole group know of the time they bought a bagless vacuum cleaner and had a part of it replaced under warranty. Interesting. Yawn.
I'm not a bitch, I'm not (excessively) judgemental, but sometimes I want to get things done without the above making things difficult. It's always good to have a smidgen of them in your environments, but anything over a smidgen and I'm driven to the rolling of eyes - and that's just rude. Do us a both a favour, my dear Exhibits A through E, and help yourselves.
Vampire Weekend - Oxford Comma
First the window, then it's to the wall/
Lil' Jon, he always tells the truth/
Did not know those were the words! Vampire Weekend for the lols.
I've made the jump over to 'Tea, Cardigans & My Foul Mouth' from my old blog because every normal functioning human being craves change once in a while. That's my only legit reason to be honest.
My writing alter-ego has now seized the opportunity to display another part of myself as a person. I am still a half-caste kid, yes, but I'm also a bonafide Nana trapped inside that half-caste kid. Particularly since I moved to Melbourne.
Like I've mentioned before, I'm a tea enthusiast. Me loves the tea leaves! Since I've moved to Melbourne I can safely say I have increased my tea drinking to about twenty cups a day. No shit. Nothing like a strong cuppa in the morn accompanied by a cigarette. Throughout the day I have a few cups while I'm reading the paper, online job hunting, watching Oprah, Dr. Phil and my favourite, Welcome Back Kotter (John Travolta you make me giddy). I have a few more while I supervise Jeremiah's homework. Night falls and I have twice as many cuppas after dinner right up until bed. The amount of times I have to pee come 4am is ridic, I will tell you this. I've accumulated a variety of flavours, from Peppermint to Rosehip, and I even have my own section in the pantry. I'm spoilt for choice! I definitely think my tea-drinking has increased here because it's a time-filler. I find myself twiddling my thumbs if I don't have a cup of tea between my frostbitten fingers. Even so, words cannot describe my love for tea.
My sense of style can apparently be Nana to a T at times - according to my sister and the whanau here. Cardigans, cuffed brown pants, big woolly jumpers, red lippy and mocassins are apparently Granny in a nutshell. I certainly didn't think they were, until I saw a 70-year-old man in a close to matching get-up to mine at Coles. Not going to lie, homeboy was lookin' gooooood. A week later I found myself buying an above the ankle pleated white skirt at the Salvo's and realised the 70-year-old woman next to me was eyeing it up. Of course I gave the old bag on a mobility scooter a low, Jacob Black wolf growl - it clearly gave her the creeps because she backed off ASAP. But that's when it hit home - my God, I'm a 70-year-old woman. I'm definitely not going to change my steez, because it's partly who I am and I'm definitely no fashionista, but I guess there are hundreds of other girls like me trying to 're-create the look'.
And then comes the Nana Nap. I cannot go a day without dozing off late afternoon for at least fifteen minutes. Is this normal? I can be in the car, off to do some shopping and suddenly feel drowsy. Super awkward pulling up to Coles, dragging myself out of a coma, wiping the dribble off my chin - "Oh are we here," she says, half-dazed.
Jeremiah's mother has taken to encouraging the kids to call me Aunty Nana. I have no problems with this, in fact it makes me lol. I exhibit my Granny-like traits like a true Grandmother exhibits her grandchildren and bad arthritis. I guess the only thing that sets me apart from the average Granny Lou, is my foul mouth.
I like tea. I like cardigans. And I have a foul mouth.
They're all tangled in ladies of black skies posing blue/
Cannot get enough of this song at the moment. If Ed Solo’s 'Life Gets Better' made me feel good, this one makes me feel tumeke. Definitely my feel good jam over the past two weeks. It reminds me of a 60’s girl group kind of song with a 21st century twist. Favourite line is about fake asses. You said it Kimbra.
Kimbra’s heavily influenced by artists like Nina Simone, who shaped the jazz scene, and much of the music industry in my opinion, and it really shows through her music. The tone of her voice is amazing – she plays on her jazzy voice, soft smokey voice and can belt a couply notes out too. She writes most of her own music, and again, her blues and jazz influences are recognisable in the choice of instruments she uses - groovy basslines (please be a double bass), brass fanfare moments, and a predominant jazzy hi-hat drum beat on top. But then all twisted into a nearly pop-reminiscent song - her writing technique is ridiculously unique. She performs live with a band, and although I’m sure there are some electronic sounds used in the recordings of her songs, a lot of it is simply her and the band. Kimbra’s dedication to performing live whenever she can is something she’s pin-pointed and mastered as an artist. She says her main focus and goal is to perform live as much as possible, and although much of this is to promote the album, I think she personally wants to target that particular area of the music industry – because she is so good at it. Watching Kimbra’s live or unplugged videos on YouTube is unbelievable, she can sing way beyond the recording studio, and what a performer she is. There aren’t many artists who have fine tuned the art of performing live, and for a 21-year-old, she is well beyond her years. There’s nothing better than seeing one of your favourite artists perform just as well, live. For me, it confirms your love for them. Knowing that they can take their music beyond the security of a recording studio, bring it to an audience, however big or small, and nail it, shows that they’re legit. I’ll always remember seeing Rihanna perform at her first MTV Music Awards, on TV of course, and thinking how horrible she sounded. She did. Don’t get me wrong, she’s improved immensely since then, but it just made me think how many of her recorded songs were legitimately her, stripped, I guess you'd say.
Loving this video clip! It’s bright and quirky, and after finding out the story behind the song, they connect perfectly. The song is about a man who has become detached, as such, from the world, and Kimbra tries to draw him back to her. She sells her music well, connecting her songs to the video clips – as a package almost. 'Settle Down' does the same thing with it’s video clip. For some reason, not all songs do that with their videos, seems odd really. But Kimbra does it flawlessly!
I have a big thing about sell-outs. Don’t get me started on Jessie J. My debating skills on this front are average to poor, because both ends of the argument make sense to some point, but there is just something about an artist catering to the scene or industry, when it’s not in them. I have heard the opinion that maybe artists want to sell out as quickly as possible to get dirty rich and famous, then set out to make the music they wanted to in the beginning, after they’ve made a mark with the crap the industry wanted at the time. It makes sense somehow, but a real artist who is truly passionate about what they do, would surely want to use the music they’re so passionate about in the first place, to pull an audience and of course, the money – wouldn’t they? I don’t know, I’m not an aspiring artist, but that’s how I see it. Kimbra is an ideal example of an artist who is far from a sell out. I’ve followed her limply, from when I was 17 at school, and she has seldom changed, apart from grown up. She set out from the beginning, with her own style of music, with her own personality and quirk, and has pretty much cracked it, or at least is well on her way to doing so (in my uneducated opinion of course).
6-year-old Jeremiah asked me something other than, "Do you wanna watch Rio with me?" tonight at the dinner table. It caught me off guard. I couldn't give him a straight answer. I joked with him, his mother, my sister and new brother-in-law. I asked him the same question in return, and he genuinely thought about it for a sec, then his face lit up as he replied, "A zoo-keeper."
"What do you want to be when you're old and have heaps of money Aunty?" he asked. I didn't really have an answer for him. After I mumbled out some um's and ah's, I said, "A mum! I want to be a mum." Miah laughed and told me I couldn't get paid to be a mum - silly me. Uncle Gary told him that he wanted to do something with music one day, Aunty Gina wanted to own a business, his mother wanted to be a chef. And there I sat, kind of embarassed because I didn't really know what I wanted to be. What the hell was I doing with my life? I never thought of myself as old, or anything like that, but there comes a time when you should probably at least know what you want to do with you life right? Is 21 that age where you should know?
I know that when I was Jeremiah's age, I was all about singing, dancing, acting and modelling. There are hundreds of photos and videos of me pulling my best Sporty Spice pose, singing back up to 'Oh Happy Day' from Sister Act 2 for my brother, dancing the Macarena like no other 6-year-old could. I was in dozens of big stage shows, support leads even! I learnt the piano, picked up jazz and tap through the shows, sang solos in front of full houses at Aotea Centre, I was a confident wee thespian I was! This phase lasted forever, I didn't grow out of it til I was out of intermediate. That dream of making it big and starring in Shortland St obviously died. But it was the first thing I knew I wanted to pursue in life.
By the time I hit 13, I was an avid sports fan. I'd played netball, rugby league, basketball, backyard cricket, competed in athletics. But touch was my life. My whole family was into it, we were all Auckland reps and if we weren't down at the park competing against other teams, we were competing against eachother in the backyard on our home-made 5-metre line field. I was a fit young thing, loved all the sports I was playing at school socially and competitively, and I loved the theory and physicality of P.E. as a subject. I don't know why, but from about 13 through to 16, I wanted to be a physiotherapist. I guess I thought it made good money and had something to do with sport. Then in my 7th form year, I was inspired by my P.E. teacher to become one (a P.E. teacher that is). Because I was a lot older, I can definitely say I was passionate about this goal. I enjoyed and understood the subject at school, I enjoyed the inter-activeness with my teacher at the time, and I could see myself doing it. I didn't get into the uni course to be a P.E. teacher.
Heading into my first year of uni, I opted to do a BA, purely because english was the next subject I was successful in, and also one which I enjoyed. I found a whole new realm of english that year - journalism. I loved it. Writing seemed to come easily to me throughout school, and now at uni, I could almost write what I wanted, however I wanted to. No essay outline, no answers to text and all that jazz. I wanted to be a writer. A magazine or newspaper columnist or something along those lines.
Uni didn't work out for me at all. I wasn't focussed enough on it, and I don't think I had enough drive in me to get a degree done. I took time off, went back and changed my major to public health, mainly because my Mum suggested it after I worked with her for half a year doing something similar. Yeah, I enjoyed some of it, it seemed like a legitimate career path, but I wasn't passionate about it, the way I was about writing.
So here I am, two years later, with the same goal of being a writer, no where closer to it. I've had another thought of owning my own bar one day, after Big Tom P tossed the idea around with me one night, because I loved my jobs as bartenders previously. I'm good at it and it's something else I'm passionate about. I don't think simply being a bartender for the rest of my life would make Mama Gut too happy.
I guess there's always been a stigma around admitting what I wanted to do throughout my life. I'm not sure if everybody feels the same way, but I've found I've needed approval of my goals. Constant reassurance that I'm good at what I'm doing. If I failed at something, I simply packed it in and changed my mind because I saw it as a sign that maybe I wasn't good at it. I guess that's what this blog is about really. Seeing as I exhausted my resources, going about achieving my goal the traditional way, I have to go about satisfying my writing hunger in other ways. Seeing all my friends about to graduate really got me thinking, is it my turn? Am I ready to grow up? Facing failure is a big part of growing up, I believe, and it's inevitable. You have to call on self-motivation and determination to get through the ever-looming fact that sometimes, you are going to fail. My friends all have that drive. They're growing up and becoming event managers, designers, teachers, entrepreneurs (I really do admire you guys! *tears*).
As much as I don't want to, it's time to grow up. Here's hoping this blog will keep me motivated to go about becoming a certified bad ass columnist, the alcohol will keep me motivated to open my own bar one day and Jeremiah will become a lion tamer in his lifetime, at least.
Serious thoughts over. Enjoy a song on me, Parallel Dance Ensemble - Conditions, on repeat at the mo.
Just spent two hours voluntarily researching John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States of America. It's not often I get these urges to educate myself, but I saw X-Men: First Class yesterday (which for the record, sucked), and it's loosely based around the 'Soviet missiles in Cuba' incident that happened way back in the 60's, near the end of the film. If you want to see the suck-ass movie, skip the next few sentences. The movie tells us that the super powered up gangster X-Men all play a part in managing to stop the U.S. from firing at the Soviets, and the Soviets from firing at the U.S., woohoo no World War III thanks to Magneto and Co! Cutting to the chase, I wanted to know if the X-Men really did play a part in the historical event (seeing as I'm positive I was a 60's child in a previous life, remember, I figure it's important to know my roots). Turns out they're not even real - downbuzz.
Also recently read a book about three generations of Chinese women who went through hell in their combined lifetimes, from Chinese empires being overthrown in the 1900's, to Japanese invasions of China, all the way up to Pearl Harbour. 'Wild Swans' by Jung Chang - fully seck book if you're into crazy drrrama intertwined with a bit of history for yo ass.
So! After educating my small brain a bit more, everything is so much clearer! One of JFK's earliest most defining moments as President surrounded the crazy ass Russians planting missiles on Cuba, which is super close to the U.S. It was weird and confusing - were the missiles planted in defence or were they planning some super saiyan nuclear attack on America? Although JFK was being pressured by others in his cabinet to attack their asses, his smart, collected and ultimately correct decision making lead to the retrieval of the missiles. He referred leading with an attack as "Pearl Harbour in reverse". Hence, my connection to ze book!
Both rather weird connections, but they pressed me enough to look into the Kennedy family and the history behind what I thought would be their political hungry lives. Sure, they're not all perfect. JFK was rumoured to be a bit of a dog, his parents tried to send his sister to a Convent - whatever. I'm pretty much in love with the guy. JFKool in my eyes.
