10 Things I Wish I Had Known Last Year

A few weeks ago, fellow blogging extraordinaire, Sarah posted about things she has learnt in the past few months. You should read about it here (<<SEE HOW TECHNOLOGICAL I AM BEING (but that is another story)). I was feeling particularly lonely and nostalgic today so I took a trip down memory lane and read through the heinously unedited posts of 2012. It is incredible how much is the same. I'm still left handed and shameless anit-dolphin rape- enthusiast, I still hate Jodi Picoult and applaud people with nice cinema etiquette. But in equal part there is a lot that has changed. These days, I'm not so hostile towards crying  I am about as spontaneous as nun during lent. (That was a  unnecessary introduction; here is a list of things I wish I had known last year)....

1. School is literally irrelevant. OPs means nothing and QCS is as important as keeping up with the shenanigans of the Summer Bay kids. I have no regrets in never doing homework.

2. Whilst school may be irrelevant; it is also incredibly easy. At school your life is mapped out for you in a neat six-period-2-lunch-break-5-days-a-week-plus-homework-timetable. It's like a gift-wrapped life from God. There is literally nothing bad about school; it fills in the hours.

3. Crying is important. Last year I wrote that "Crying is a low point in humanity". Dear readers, please consider this a retraction. Crying is important. Crying for no reason is important. Crying at absolutely nothing is important. This year I have traced my infant roots; and now I weep like a baby on a weekly basis.

4. Friends are like Aids. The good thing is once you leave school they become someone else's Aids.

5. I honestly used to believe that getting drunk was overrated. Let's just obliterate that thought. If you don't drink you must be stupid or dead; how else do you live in this world?

6. I genuinely like comic sans. Please feel free to read about my sudden relisation here

7. Last year, I wish I had known that I wasn't destined to be a Journalism and Mass Communications graduate. It's not that I particularly regret quitting uni, or the process of uncovering what it is I really want; but I would have loved to not have come in contact with the careers councilor at QUT. Apparently due to a severe case of intelligence I shouldn't be studying art; just what the fuck (see point 5).

8. People diagnosed with mental illnesses have more fun.

9. Cockroaches are just the coolest mother fuckers out. I wish I had wasted more of my life obsessing over their moist bodies.

10. Life is too short to edit blog posts.

Thanks for making it to the end of 10 Things I Wish I Had Known Last Year. It's a shame I couldn't have posted it last year really...
These days I just bring all the literate and well read boys to the yard with excellent taste in cardigans, glasses (the men on e-harmony are lining up).
CIAO readerz.

King George Square Mime Hate

There is a man who positions himself just outside King George Square Bus Station and paints himself entirely silver. His tie is permanently erect, so that if you were partially blind or intoxicated he would look windswept. My friend informs me that these people (who act like statues) are called models (Stickler, 2013).

Now it was always my highly unqualified opinion that these models had the express purpose of resembling a statue.   So, you must be able to vaguely understand my confusion when every time I see the windswept ironman of King George Square he is moving as freely as any other individual in the square.

 Please feel free to leap at me with corrections but, models have the express purpose of resembling a statue.  You are suppose share a beautiful moment of bonding as you waft pass them and donate your ten cents to stop them starring at your crotch. If they move they are supposed to be incredibly stiff; as though they are recovering from a lifetime of being a cement monument. 

The windswept man in King George Square has it all wrong. Every time I see him he appears to be doing the robot or scratching himself, even shaking children's hands. I used to give him the benefit of the doubt; perhaps I just caught him at a moment where his nose was particularly itchy or his bladder particularly full, or even his urges to shake hands with little children particularly overwhelming. I mean as Miley once said, Everybody has those days. But alas, I feel as though windswept ironman is having one of those years. 

I think the bottom line is, if I was a (for lack of better term) a professional model (like the lady painted white in the middle of the mall; kudos) I would be really shitted off at someone who feels he has a right to the model gettup but not the etiquette. I mean it is a little like dressing up as a guard outside Buckingham palace, only to salute passers with a strip tease. 

I know it shouldn't bother me how this poor excuse for ironman builds his modelling career, but come on mate; if you want to act like a statue who has exceeded their Valium prescription dress up in a freaking clown costume. 

Dear Leonardo Dicaprio,

I totally understand that you may not remember me and that is fine. Let's just reacquaint ourselves with the basics here. I'm Kobi, you may remember me from being my wallpaper in 08, helping me understand Shakespeare in 2010, my art collage with evolved around your facial features? No? That's okay.

I have one of those catchy, hard to forget faces. Ringing any bells?
No? That's fairly ok. I understand you must come in contact with a lot
of mediocre models etc.

Now Leo (can I call you that? Fuck it, I will call you that), hope life has been treatin' you okay.
I just want to get one thing straight, you are a lucky man that ole' Baz cast you as a star crossed lover when he did. Because, (now I am only being honest here) to me your creased brow makes you look a little like the men that sit in vans parked outside playgrounds and schools. Nothing personal Leo, just calling it how it is.

I should probably thank you for helping me understand Shakespeare. Without your kind of blonde pixie cut, on-land snorkeling skills and gang antics, I would probably not fully understand the underage love story of R & J. I would probably also think that a sword was weapon consisting of a long, straight or slightly curved blade, with one end pointed and the other fixed in a hilt or handle. When silly me, it is just brand of pistol; duh.

Anyway Leo, I realize you have a totally heckers sched, so I won't keep you long. I just wanted give you a good pat on da back man. You seem to be an immortal 25 year old man who is rollin'. Kudos.

Warm Regards always,

firm fan and anti-dolphin rape enthusiast,

Kobi Blake-Craig

XOXO

ps. It would be great to get you on board as the face of my Dolphin Rape Happens campaign; but look I know it isn't your typical filthy rich type of character (so I will lovingly forgive your rejection).

Re: The Great Gatsby

Luhrmann dropz dem modern beats in the latest his 2013 film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. He seems to update the coolness of 1920's jazz with a frenzy of ghetto hip-hop. I love Luhrmann as much as the scent of peppermint chewing bum; but something just seemed profoundly amiss in his latest box office hit.

 

The 1925 American novel is in my mind one of the greatest love stories of all time. Can love be as possessive and as corruptive as Gatsby proves  it to be? Is love the most motivating force in man? Is love always our ultimate demise? I would like to think F. Scott was onto something here; just find a man who ghettos it up to build a mansion on love and dreams and you have yourself a believer.

In all seriousness, Gatsby is to me more of a novel about hope. Yes, it demands hope in love. But I find Gatsby as an individual the most hopelessly hopeful character of all time; and I like that. I really am starting to ramble here, but my love for this hunk of literature is too much.

 

I think that is think that is the point. To me when seeing a film adaption of slices of literature which are tastier than cake you have to disconnect yourself from the story line. I think you must view it as an independent. I think if you fair to recongise them as two independent art forms you end up loathing a perfectly good film which is an utter shame.

 

When it comes to Luhrmann's Gatsby adaption I adore it as a Luhrmann fan. As a F.Scott fan however I must crease my brow and throw a tanty. I think there was something missed. The passion between Daisy and Gatsby seems week (despite Leo's incredible Gatsby performance) and I think the film is more about the aesthetic than the story. This is a shame because Gatsby is one of those timeless tales more riddled with themes than parliament question time. I think he turned a true and honest story into a bit of a show; and it made me sad.

 

As The Standard's, Matt Neal put so eloquently....

Like Gatsby himself, it comes so close to achieving its dream, only to fall agonisingly and frustratingly short.  

 

 

Randy Newman, Good Old Boys

(Randy Newman’s fifth Album, released September 1974 on Reprise Records)

 

 

 

 

 

For the last time, Randy Newman is not the guy who gone and dun that song in Toy Story. Neglect your fucking Flume album and colour your bland life. Randy Newman is a genius. A satirical and witty genius. Just listen to the first 30 seconds of Rollin’ and try to remain on planet earth. (Live BBC version featured below. skip to 1.03 to experience the instant love)

They say it is difficult to forget your first love. My first love was Randy Newman, Good Old Boys. At any rate, it was my first album. It was the first time I listened to something and felt part of a larger story; suctioned into someone else’s journey. Escapism. Good Old Boys is the album that stopped me merely listening to music. Good Old Boys taught me to feel.

 

Most will argue that Newman’s 1972 release, Sail Away (particularly side A) was the pinnacle of the Newman’s sound. I won’t argue with them. Lyrically, vocally…. Fuck it. In everyway that record is absolute perfection. Brian Wilson claimed that Sail Away had such a profound affect on him it briefly hauled him out of debilitating depression and mental illness.

Good Old Boys is my anti-depressant. There is an outerworldly greatness which appealed to me from a young age. The older I am, the more dark and alluring the record becomes; the more I like it (though it contains nothing as utterly grim as God's Song on Sail Away; which a deity presses the faces of his children in humiliating shit). Let us pause for a moment to appreciate the sheer brilliance.

...



image source: randynewman.com

Good Old Boys can almost stand as a historical record. The lead off track on God Old Boys, Rednecks is topical and brilliant.  Newman labeled Rednecks one of his favourite compositions.
"He said he wrote the song after watching Maddox's appearance with Cavett and "seeing him be treated rudely... they had just elected him governor, in a state of 6 million or whatever, and if I were a Georgian, I would have been offended, irrespective of the fact that he was a bigot and a fool" (The Rolling Stone)
Underlying sentiments in Rednecks quite obviously pulse through Marie and Birmingham. The album also contains the gem that is Louisiana 1927 which tells the story of the great Mississippi flood. The week the record was released there was a brutal racial incident in Boston over school desegregation. Like all effective satire the lyrics are rooted in bare hostility and aggression, but the sprightly reeds and horn fills give this angry screed a sardonic ragtime air; utter brilliance, utter love.

Good Old Boys taught me the power of satire, that  perfection which can be found in imperfection and that music is a journey.

auf wiedersehen

The Department of Unscientific Research and I have had a good run. We have grown together, we have laughed together but most importantly we have alerted cyber space to the rape antics of dolphins, the prejudices against both Sultana's and left handers and the shit fest which are the published works of Jodi Picoult.

Department, we have had a good run. 20,987 views to be exact. But for now, it is over. The Department has taught me a lot and yet it has taught me nothing. I have come so far, yet I haven't and for this reason we are parting ways, indefinitely. I may be back next week; I may never be back (cue distressed string ensemble). I suppose the point it I am not desiring to allow my words to be caressed by your formatting anymore.  At the end of the day readers (or should I say friends) it's not you it's me. I have nothing left to give you. If you find yourself craving me, needing me I can be found....
here
http://kobiblakecraig.tumblr.com/
and here
http://radmenmag.wordpress.com/

If you take anything from the glorious year we have had together, remember these...final words...
FUCK JODI PICOULT>>> SHE MAKE ME WANT TO DAUBE A WEDDING DRESS IN FECAL MATTER >>>JODI, YOU ARE MY HELL.

I am now lying on the floor, listening to Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now awaiting the launch of Rad Men. Issue 1, May 1. You should do the same.

What Is It To Be Human? The Beatles

This week I was asked to write an article for a very local and very unread magazine. The article was suppose to act as a collaborative written portrait of The Beatles. Each writer was asked to write 300 words in response to "What is your favourite Beatles song?" I couldn't do it. How do you label one Beatles song a favourite? How after listening to every one of their Studio Albums do you sit down and select one song, a window of perhaps 4 minutes and say "this is exactly why I like the Beatles". I just couldn't do it. It felt exactly like my hopes to be Pope; impossible. Only this time it was impossible for reasons beyond my gender.

 

A friend once said "I just don't understand how The Beatles are relevant anymore". It is safe it say that we are no longer friends. The Beatles were (and still are) the most unprecedented musicians known to humanity. No one before, and no one after has impacted music like they did. I recently watched a bit of a rockumentary on The Beatles. It covered their first US Tour; the ultimate uprise of the Beatle-mania epidemic. It is so easy to forget how many people the music of The Beatles has effected. Because each time I listen, they seem to be talking directly to me. It is almost as if no one can touch our conversation.  

 

But perhaps instead of "What is your favourite Beatles song" the editors of the very local and very unread magazine should have posed the question "What is it to be human?" I don't know music. But I do know, a little about emotion. Music is such a precise carving of emotional expression; it is instant and extraordinary beauty. Perhaps, what I like most about the Beatles is that through the evolution of their sound... so many emotions are tapped into. The Beatles drag you to the core of humanity; there is a song that exists for everything.

 

 The Beatles endure me. And that is what I like about them. I like that my favourite Beatles song in January 2004 is different to my favourite Beatles song March 2013. My current favourite Beatles song is In My Life.  But that will probably change by next Friday because I have a whole palette of emotion to dip my brush in between now and then.