Creeper gotta creep

Public transport is a great democratiser. The rich, the poor, the strange and the normal will all eventually find themselves traveling together cheek by jowl in metal oblongs. But in the case of public transport ‘all walks of life’ includes not only the walkers but skulkers, shufflers and worst of all creepers.

Chances are if you caught public transport and have a vagina* you’ve been creeped on public transport. You'll be sitting on the train, minding your own business and you’ll suddenly discover that the seat next to you has been filled by the kind of dude you’d usually cross the street to avoid. He’ll sit next to you and start doing something wildly inappropriate, absolutely disgusting and frankly confusing, thus rendering you really uncomfortable.

Me and my sisters have had my fair share of creeper experiences. Dingo once had a dude talk at her for a solid hour before grabbing her hand and licking it. She stood up in the middle of the carriage and shouted ‘this man is licking me! Somebody please help’ and no one did anything! I got stuck on a broken down train with a dude who just got out on prison who began reading Anne of the Island over my shoulder, out loud. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think this kind of stuff is not on.

It doesn’t help that we are conditioned to be a bit skittish these days. A stranger asks me the time and I’m already making a fist with my keys. However, with a creeper there’s usually something, a crazed look in the eye, a prison tattoo or a peculiar smell which sends a clear message ‘this dude is a not someone I wish engage with’.

Maybe sometimes we’re over reacting and misconstrue a friendly conversation as a prelude to cutting off our head and putting it a plastic bag. Clever creepers know this and use this against us. You say to someone ‘I don’t wish to be rude but I don’t feel like talking, I’m reading my book’ and they accuse you of branding them a rapist just because they were being social.

Whilst everyone is entitled to the benefit of the doubt, and a person could be made awkward by personality, situation, social ineptitude and emotional health, the point is that you know when you feel venerable or consider behaviour inappropriate and you have every right not to put up with it. We all should be allowed to say no, we should be allowed to keep our personal space personal and we should be allowed feel safe.

If you wish to escape the clutches of the creeper, the following tactics should work;

-Pretend not to be able to speak English. This one is chancy as it is completely foiled if you phone rings, if they speak the language that you are pretending to know or if you are with a mate. Actually, that works better, cos if you insist that you can’t communicate with the creeper but continue a completely normal conversation in plain English with your friend they may just get the jist that you aren’t interested in how they lost their hook hand in a turkey factory.

-The Jenna Marbles face.

-Call a friend and have a conversation about how you’re being made really uncomfortable by this guy sitting next to you on the train and yes, he does smell like rotten vegetables and wee and absolutely, you’re calling the police as soon as you hang up, but just in case you are carrying your Taser today.

-Come prepared with something like a book, laptop or headphones.Even better if your headphones are obviously not connected to anything.

-Change carriages. I know that this is not really fair, as we have as much right to be in a space as they do without being made to be uncomfortable but if it’s a choice between your safety and peace of mind than making a point that may easily be missed then just move.

*look this is from my experience. I'm not saying that all dudes on trains are creepers or the all creepers are dudes on trains. I am especially not saying that it's only dudes that creep, I have been creeped by ladies too, and I also know a couple of dudes who have been creeped upon. My point is that these sentiments are fluid... suspiciously warm, beany smelling, mysterious fluid.

Dear Davy, I thought you were wavy gravy...

A couple of weeks ago, someone in the media referred to the late Davy Jones as a ‘prefab- Paul McCartney’. Does that seem like a veiled way of saying that this guy’s entire career was just a cynical attempt to cash in on the Beatle phenomenon and he was an evil facsimile of a sham pretendy man, or is it just me? A bit inappropriate considering he died, and this was a eulogy style situation, but maybe I’m just being sensitive.

Liking the Monkees is a little contentious as the band has come to represent music marketing at its most contemptuous. Everyone knows that the group was put together as an attempt to create the American Beatles, marketed almost exclusively the ‘the kids’. This proved to be very lucrative for a very short time and annoyed a very large group of people. However, you’d think 45 years on everyone would be able to stop being offended and concede the point that they did play their own instruments and they did write their songs… eventually. Authenticity, in some situations, is a matter of time.

Talking about the manufactured Monkees kinda brings up the Lana Del Rey issue. Poor Lana has been given a lot of shit lately. ‘They’re not her real lips’. ‘That’s not Mike’s real hat’. The arguments are the same and in the end I think we should stop and ask ourselves ‘do I really have time to give a shit about this? Shouldn’t I just focus on staying alive, comfortable and happy?’

I mean so what if Del Ray does not necessarily write her own music? Who cares if she might not make her own clips? So what if her fantastic Gangsta Nancy Sinatra trash chic image was perhaps crafted by a group of cynical execs to sell records? I still want ‘Video Games’ played at my wedding.

I think everyone’s beef with Lana/Lizzie/Gangsta Nancy is that she’s denying all these things so emphatically and even I’ll admit that there comes a point where you have to stop trying to justify your lies, wave your hands mysteriously and whisper ‘smoke and mirrors, my friends’. Just admit that you can’t have art without artifice and move on. The Monkees, starting life as a TV show, never had to pretend they were something else.

Ironically the careers of both Del Ray and the Monkees suffered without appropriate marketing. I had never heard of Lizzie Grant and from what I saw on Google, very little could have convinced me to care. Enter cynical musical marketers and boom; I want ‘Video Games’ played at my wedding. The Monkees were running along fine until they demanded creative control (threatening physical violence apparently) at which point the whole endeavour started haemorrhaging money and sense faster than stuck pig.

In any case, I’m sad that Davy Jones is dead. I liked seeing him crop up in teen sitcoms and strange movies, and I was really looking forward to the Monkees tour that was rumoured to be happening this year. He may have started off being the strategic Dream Boat in a fictional band but he went on to be a widely appreciated pop-star, cruise-line attraction and all round good sport, which is more than can be said for Mike Nesmith.

And as I am such a bad sport I’m laying down all my arguments supporting the credibility of the Monkees now before I go:

- The Monkees had a number of credibility increasing connections. Carol King, Neil Diamond, and Harry Nilsson were all involved in the Monkee music making process, either as song writers on performers. Jack Nicholson and the creative minds behind Easy Rider helped with their experimental film Head.

- Mike Nesmith was an established musician who went on the develop the concept of the music video to something of an art form, watch anything form Elephant Parts and tell me I’m wrong.

- Peter Tork was good friends with Steve Stills, if he hadn’t gotten his Monkee break it would have been Crosby, Stills, Nash and Tork (and sometimes Young).

- It would be a very sad thing if we only judged people by a section of their whole career. George Clooney may very well have been in Return of The Killer Tomatoes, but he also gets nominated for Oscars

- One of Lou Reed’s favourite songs is ‘Goin’ Down’- a Monkees song. And if Lou Reed does not have discerning taste then I don’t know what else I can do!

- They are famous and you are not so there.

The Queen of Pain

A note from me: Looking back at this past week, and the things that have happened in it, it feels as though this post has some resounance beyond that initially intended, for me anyway. It’s extraordinary the amount of emotions that a person can experience over 72 hours, and how simply being at a particular place at a particular time can change you. But I am being terribly mysterious and this must seem uncharacteristically sombre. So I’ll just get on with the post.

I did something horrific to my back during ballet this week and have now become the Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was my own fault; I think I may have been showing off, so I probably deserve to make involuntary squeaking noises every time I move. Not that I’m moving that much, watching Tim Burton's 1989 Batman should give you give you an idea of my range of motion. I’m wearing a solid rubber cowl of pain.

Pain is a fascinatingly subjective experience, and despite studies and neuroscience and all that jazz, it can still be quite mysterious. Pain is physical, yet it’s emotional, measurable yet unrelatable. Pain is either what makes us interesting, or depending on how much you have, what kind it is and how often you talk about it, makes us real bores to have around.

Physical Pain: Injuries and sickness

As you can probably tell I’m a bit of pain wuss, which is bad because I’m also accident prone. I’m always stabbing myself with scissors, tripping over my pants and walking into poles. Although I am the first to acknowledge that I probably acting a lot more seriously injured than I am, I defy doctors, nurses and other first aid professionals to accurately diagnose me as a drama queen.

Allow me to explain. If you go to a hospital for something, let’s just say you’ve dropped an iron on your face (which I have done) and are temporarily unable to talk, the doctor could potentially try to assess your pain using the Wong-Baker pain scale.

Now, inferring as I can from this image I can only assume that Wong and Baker were a pair of eleven year old girls trying to devise a universal pain intensity indicator for a HSIE project. It’s not terribly comforting to me that a doctor could look at me and say, ‘Nurse! We’ll need to administer 20 ccs of morphine immediately! This woman hurts a whole lot!’

A six year old child could manipulate the Wong-Baker scale! This is a medical scientific thing apparently, yet it could be faulted by good actors and adamant complainers.

Hangover pain: Alcohol poisoning and regret

I wish that I had no memory of New Year’s Day 2010; unfortunately I remember the pools of eviscerated watermelon and the smell of old camembert vividly well. Of the worst days of my life that was one of them and there was no one home to pity me greatly or scoff at my self-inflected liver wounds.

Oh! If only I knew then what I know now! The great secret miracle hangover cure which I am now going to bestow on you!

Have you ever woken up at half past six in the evening with your face in a bucket, surrounded by empty bottles, the sound of the air moving past your ears roaring like a fighter jet? Well rather than making a bacon sandwich and watching daytime TV til it’s time to sleep again, pull up your big girl pants and head to the nearest body of water for a swim! Nothing washes away the sins of the previous evening like a long soak in at the pool or the beach. It’s like a baptism for your brain and liver, delivering you once again to the land of the sensibly living.

However this can backfire if its winter or your local pool is a Ripples style indoor pool, which is like swimming in an extremely loud and incredibly close nightmare even in normal circumstances, and it’s very likely you won’t be the only one to throw up in the water that day. If this is the case, take a bath.

Emotional Pain: Heartache and suffering

Much like hang overs, I try to cure emotional pain, stress, anxiety, sadness etc. with swimming or bathing, but mostly I just end up being sick. There was a week last year where all I did was shower and throw up.

Being sad to the point where it hurts is a terrible thing, and I think the trick is to let your sad and hurt out in a creative way, even if that is ‘creatively’ breaking a bunch of stuff. Write some high school grade poetry, use your tears for watercolours then fold up your work and put it away for a time when you’ve figured out the lesson your sad, hurt time taught you.

The good thing about being sad for a little while is it makes the time when you are happy seem so much more sparkling.

What’s important to remember is that pain is a desperate physical or emotional response to damage; it’s letting us know when something is wrong. Without pain, we could break a leg or break a heart and never know, letting the damage worsen and worsen until it becomes irreparable. Feel your pain, acknowledge it, treat it then get better.

The LadyVom Manifesto

Once in a life time a band comes into existence that threatens our core ideals of music, artistry and taste. Spume Records are proud to introduce their newest, most dynamically dangerous acquisition, LadyVom.

An all-girl acidelectropopglamrock group in the style of Peaches, The Runaways, Devo and Minty these five luscious ladies deliver gut-wrenching, leg leaping, bile inducing music energy like a punch up the bracket. A volatile mix of raw female sexuality and bone rattling rhythm, these girls are on a jet powered piston into music history!

Spume Records owner Bilious T. O’Really discovered playing in a secret tunnel party in Errskinville and was immediately taken by the group kinetic, laser like intensity and their determination to keep playing even after the audience left. Described by critics as ‘five Iggy Pops, except some play instruments, and they’re girls too’, LadyVom are a force to be reckoned with!

Expaktro Vulgaris - Vox and Theremin
Not much is known about enigmatic lead singer Expaktro Vulgaris. Some believe she was raised by a family of mutes in far hidden village in the Las Hurdes region of Spain. She communicated only through Theremin till she spoke her first words at the age of twelve - ‘Benedict Cumberbatch’. Expactro’s dusky voice infused with mournful theremining and sensual, guttural screams lead LadyVom’s rich abrasive sound.

Alex Vomette - Bass

Known to the press as ‘the funny one’ Alex Vomette is indeed hilarious. She has been known to set the LadyVom tour bus on fire as a joke. But when it comes to her bass playing, Alex is as serious as the plague, standing on the corner of the stage like a stone Aztec goddess of pulsating cadence. Her lurching, grumbling bass line forms LadyVom’s heaving, queasy core. Guaranteed to make your stomach skip a beat.

Lizzie Whizzie- Drums
The first thing Lizzie Whizzie did when she left reform school was steal a drum kit and start playing for LadyVom. Unfortunately the band’s then drummer, Kaka Spiv, had no idea that she’d been replaced and the next couple of months were really awkward for everyone. Lizzie’s drumming thrashes and crashes like an American bull terrier in a steal cage, bring an animalistic rabid frenzy to the heart of LadyVom that’s oh so danceable!

Lady O’Barf- Lead Keytar
Daughter of nobility, Lady ran away from the gilded cage of O’Barf Manor at 16 and has been playing in underground acidpopelectropunk outfits ever since. She penned the iconoclastic ‘Give me all your cash, Stupid’ during her time with Haggy and the Dumdums, but soon left after a creative and romantic argy bargy with titular Haggy Von Moron. Her retching keytar riffs and explosive licks drive the steaming, speeding juggernaut that is LadyVom.

Pukesie Collins- Tamborine and percussion
If someone can beat a tambourine like it owes her money, it’s Pukesie Collins! This spicy unsettling firebrand of pure throbbing rhythm gives LadyVom its subtle mystery and delicate timing. The none-to-secret love child of Stevie Nicks and Rudi Van DiSarzio and Spider Dijon, this bangin' beauty is a multi-instrumentalist, master of the triangle, square and dodecahedron.

LadyVom’s demo single ‘Sick with Love (Hold my hair)’ is available to download on iTunes now, with their debut album Ewww due to launch on April 1^st, 2012

Pour vinegar on the thorn in your cardboard heart... whoa! That's depressing!

Google is a wonderfun thing. I’d like to think if I was unemployed, or in hospital for a long period of time (say for argument I had suffered a terrible fall after trying to jump my Shetland pony, Morgrim the Wonderhorse, over a matchbox in a steeplechase) I would happily wile away the long futile hours in traction with only my left hand in tact by going on the Google and looking up things.

I love that Google will just hand me interesting things to look up. Hey there Joe, did you know it’s the 100th anniversary of water? Find out what it’s made of! It’s a distraction engine.

Yesterday, of course, it decided to tell me all about Valentine’s Day, and the ensuing five minute Wikipaedia break lead to the discovery of a twee little tradition known as the Vinegar Valentine.

For those of you who don’t know what this is (and haven't already clicked through) participate in this scenario. Imagine this, the dude that you like, let’s say for my example, the tall cute beardy one from Commercial Kings, Rhett, wants to meet you on Valentine’s Day. You see him approach; he might even be wearing a subtle red shirt for the occasion. From the sheepish, promising smile that you know is only for you, you can tell that the small pink envelope he’s handing you is the magical key to all the wonders of a long term, serious and outlook-changing relationship that is seconds form being yours.

You giggle demurely as you snatch the espial out of his hand and tear it open only to find this...

What a slap in the left, right, lower and all other ventricles. I can't think of a more delightfully weird and wonderful way to tell someone that you hate them than give them a card on a day usually reserved for love, niceness and special sexy underpants. I cannot believe that someone would actually give someone this and not expect to be paper cut eviscerated.

I mean Valentine’s Day was concerning enough but I had no idea that instead of just being plum ignored I could be handed a deceptive, hope-raising item which will then viciously lampoon all my character flaws in a concise little card with an unflattering and painstakingly accurate caricature.

The vinegar valentines I’ve found have been olde worldy, stuff like ‘shiftless man’, the ‘bookworm’ and the ‘busybody’. It seems like such a weird thing that in a time where snark is the go to attitude, people swear in wedding vows and people play sarcastic songs at funerals, I surprises me that these haven’t replaced genuine romantic cards. Why don’t we give in nasty cards to the ‘constant status updater’, the ‘competitive dieter’ or the ‘glued to your iPhone guy’. The person who comes up with the best one in the comments gets a Kit Kat

The day I left my phone behind: A tale of Gen-Y anguish

Friday morning I left the house in a hurry. I had woken up late and had to wash my hair and was very preoccupied by the requirements of the coming day. I am not trying to excuse what happened, I’m not a bad person, I was just distracted, ok? I’m sorry.

I carry two phones most days, my work phone and my personal phone. By pure coincidence they are both the same model. This makes it so easy to make mistakes. I knew that the work phone went in the bag that day, and when I put my hand in my hand bag to check during the walk to work, I swear I felt two. I assumed that everything was as it should be, as it always was. It wasn’t until I got to work that I realised there was something was actually very wrong.

I opened my bag. I looked. I looked again. I took items out and placed them back in. I began to rifle through my bag like a starving animal rummaging through a bin, strewing it's contents across my desk. Nothing. Cold fear gripped me. It was as though I was missing a leg. I felt without. I felt incomplete. I felt stranded and alone. And so was my phone.

I picked up my desk phone and started to dial my number. Insane I know, but panic makes mad men of us all. What did I expect would happen? That the phone was going to answer itself and tell me where it was?

I imagined it ringing in my flat, the first few bars of Bend It plunking out, bleating sad and alone in the empty room. Unanswered What if the neighbour heard? I was embarrassed to think that they might hear it crying and think I was irresponsible, forgetful, undeserving of a phone. I pictured their judgemental glances in the hallways, their knowing whispers. ‘Neglectful phone forgetter’.

It rang through to voicemail. I heard my own voice. The sound was unrewarding and hollow. I still had no idea where my phone was.

I used my work phone to text my mum. ‘It’s Joey, Forgot phone, if needs be call on this line’. She texted back ‘ok, shall do’ and it read like damning disappointment. I thought of her, and all the other people who could possibly be trying to contact me today, and could not get through, assuming I was ignoring them, or dead (my mother has assumed this before). Was I missing emergency calls of urgent importance? What if my apartment was on fire and no one could tell me. What if I had won that lottery and claiming the winnings was dependant on my instant response? What if the Prime Minister was calling was calling, faced with an international copy-writing emergency which required my specific expertise to avoid nuclear chaos!?!

What if I hadn’t forgotten my phone, but lost it on the way to work? I pictured it dropped and laying in a gutter somewhere, the cracked screen soaking in dirty water. Perhaps it had already been found by a kind stranger with a caring smile had picked it up and was right now taking it to the nearest police station, or calling my contacts to establish a connection.

What if it was not a Good Samaritan, but a mean unshaven stranger, with malice of intent, pushing its poor little buttons with big dirty finger, scrolling though its contacts, interfering with its settings, stripping it down and removing its memory card? The thought of my phone in some foreign filthy pocket made me feel sick. My helpless phone had been already sold into slavery and there was nothing I could do!

But then I remembered my voice mail. I called it again,expecting at any second for a gruff voice to answer and demand a ransom, else they’ll be sending it back one key at a time. It went through to voice mail, either it was still at home, or I was way too late.

There was nothing I could do but wait. When my boss told me to take an early mark, I was gone. I walked fast. Half way home I began to run. I vaulted up the stairs, keys in my hands. I fumbled with the keys and swore, every second was crucial, another moment where things could be getting more and more dire. I opened the door and… There it was on the bed where I had accidently left it. Without touching the keypad I picked it up I looked at the sleeping blank home screen. Three missed calls, all from me. As I held it in my hands, the notification lightflashed like a fluttering waking eye. The reminder tone chirruped to me as if to say ‘hello mummy. Welcome home'.

Australia, Australia, Australia. We love ya.

So it’s Australia Day, we all got a holiday and another excuse to have a barbeque!

I’ve finally come through my adolescent activist angst surrounding this day (an angst that coincided with the Howard years funnily enough, because what wasn’t to hate back then) and come to thoroughly appreciate the celebration of living in a moderately egalitarian country with a decent healthcare system, great public education and weather that generally doesn’t necessitate a large coat.

But, in addition to these blessings that have been afforded the lucky country (and very much avoiding problems like poisonous creatures on land, air and sea and a tendency to say ‘somethingk’) there are a couple of things that I am particularly happy to celebrate this Australia Day.

-Lamingtons

Whilst there are many different version of when, how and why the lamington was created, one things for sure, it’s as Australian as Vegemite and flat white coffees but not Pavlova, apparently New Zealand had dibs but I’d like to see them prove it! I found out on Tuesday that there’s such a thing as a lamington eating competition and Papa, I want in! I’ve often dreamed of entering an eating competition and unlike pie or hot dog eating competitions I think I could kick a lamington eating competition in the arse with a glass of water and an empty stomach.

-Thongs

There’s nothing more satisfying than the ‘slap, slap, slap’ of thongs against feet. Chuck on a pair of double pluggers and you can go pretty much anywhere and still be well dressed. I totally get why people overseas might call them flip-flops, especially if their already using thongs to describe underpants, but we call those G-strings, call erasers rubbers, call ‘rubbers’ frangas and call everyone mate. If you’re from overseas and are at any point lost in the lingo, call someone ‘mate’, we’ll hear the ridiculous way you shorten the ‘a’ and understand you’re not from round here.

-Fireworks

Australians will celebrate anything with fireworks. Seriously.

‘Cool, I just opened a can of beans!’

‘Yay! Fireworks!’

‘I just brought the cat back from the vet!’

‘Catherine wheels and those Saturn wavy ones that go PAATT-EEEW!’

‘I just passed a clean urine sample.’

‘Whoooo! Golden shower off the bridge!... wait… Eww!’

Australia is renowned for our fireworks, which is weird considering we're a wide brown tinderbox. Our Sydney NYE works started the tradition of insane pyrotechnics and we will continue setting more things spectacularly on fire for years!

-Flying your flag

On Australia Day, you are obligated by law to sport the Southern Cross somewhere on your person, worn on a bikini or temporarily tattooed on your face, if you haven’t gotten it and your post code tattooed on your back already.

We wear our flag on our backs like a cape, which is very enterprising, turning every drunken sunburnt teenager into a dashing superhero. If Australia had a superhero, Aussie Man, his super powers would be getting drunk, starting fights and speaking with a rising infection or somethingk?

-Being drunk

We Australians are number 1 drunkest nation in the world (according to a study I made up). We have an appauiling reputation overseas as Foster’s swilling sots and do nothing to tarnish it. Heck I’m drunk right now, and it’s a Thursday! I would have been drinking since 10 if I had gotten up earlier. But that’s what Australia Day in about. Eating sausages and being drunk. Check and check my friends.