Trysting Fields

Dinner Party V

Saturday 17th July.

Most fiasco-tastic DP evar! It's been a bit like that lately. I almost gave up and cancelled it. But I'm very glad I didn't, coz despite all kinds of stupid problems in the end it still went OFF.

(10:21pm; 4min 59sec)

Amongst other things, the DPP planning committee encountered considerable guestlist difficulty. Despite and at least partly because of no less than three date changes aimed at accommodating them all and genuine enthusiasm from at least some quarters, exactly none of the invitees I'd originally lined up ultimately managed to make it.

(10:55pm; 1min 17sec)

Which might have been considered a fairly abject fail - were it not for the inspiringly circus-saving company of previous-attendee legends who, in flagrant violation of DPP rules, valiantly braved the cold and brought the awse instead: Matt K (DPs I and III), Twyllan (DP II), Henley (DP III), Sarah aka The Major (DP IV), Pablo (DPP virgin), Luke (DP IV), and of course Grimsey (DPs I, II, III and IV). Fucken <3.

(12:24am; 4min 28sec)

It was an unprecedentedly structured DP. As per a preestablished order of proceedings there was soup, then salad, then pie, then the merciless destruction and defilement of an old chair that had unforgiveably given way under DP I alumnus Bourkie at CH the night before. Then, naturally, there were muffins.

(1:16am; 2min 26sec)

Along the way there were tears (not really); there was laughter. It was epic.

(2:34am; 2min 49sec)

:)

Friday 2nd July.

Proper CH Party

Friday 11th June.

The first oldschool stylez party we've had here since my birthday in September. Blame The DPP.

Went off.

Footage of my broken VCR/DVD player being ritually destroyed on the stroke of midnight: part 1 (42 meg); part 2, starring MYF (671 kb); part 3 (36 meg).

(My original plan was to throw it off the roof before destroying it. But unfortunately the ladder which would have facilitated this turned out to be at Toots's house. So it goes; that piece of shit still got completely annihilated. Result! etc)

"They Are Steel-Capped Boots; Welcome To Broadmeadows"

Saturday 5th June.

Surprise SRC Gathering

Wednesday 12th May.

Dinner Party IV

Saturday 10th April.

Starring Brendan, Duncan, Harrie, Luke, The Major, and Grimsey.

(11:11pm; 14min 12sec)

Like DP II, a relatively low-key occasion compared to DP I and DP III. (I don't know why, although I have many theories.)

(11:56pm; 4min 35sec)

All the same: went OFF.

(1:22am; 1min 22sec)

:)

4/5.

Easter Camping

Friday 2nd April - Sunday 4th April.

Night At Twyllan's

Monday 22nd March.

Random Encounter With AG

Thursday 4th March.

Entertaining Budini

Tuesday 2nd March.

Interview With The Prismatic Auditors

Tuesday 23rd February.

Starring Jason Maling & Torie Nimmervoll. (Previously; elsewhere.)

(Interview transcript.)

First Day Of School

Monday 22nd February.

Party In The Patch

Saturday 20th - Sunday 21st February.

(See previous.)

With Adam, Gab and Grimsey.

It was ace. Once again, got a shit-ton of audio - and once again (but even more so), it's pretty much solid gold. So instead of fretting about what to use and what not to use like I did over the DP III post, I decided to just stick it all up; fuck it.

RIP Beard

Partly inspired by high-calibre acquaintances including Atkins, Danny Smith and Justin, and partly because G told me to (although she changed her mind once I actually did it), I have been growing a beard.

I've never done this before. I hadn't shaved since new year. I quite liked the idea of not cutting any of my hair all year. But I think it looks shit, so I just shaved it off.

I saved the hair. I will give or send some of it to anyone who comments on this post. (I have been getting zero comments lately. Lift your game, people.)

Dinner Party III

Friday 12th February.

Starring Henley & Adele; 2003 (who will not, contrary to earlier threats, be forever after known as "Porcha") & Danny (sans promised cheese platter, but I just can't stay mad at the guy); Lady GrimGrim & Jacqui; the fantastic Mr Kav; the ex-operative formerly known as Li Han, Blog Boy From Space (who hopefully won't object to me linking him old-school like that - because although Exaggerating Rumours is now four years old and obviously he's grown as a person since then etc blah blah, it's still genius which deserves wider exposure) - and of course Toots, who opted to turn up after everyone except Kav had gone home, because that is the way she motherfucking rolls.

Fair to say, went OFF.

No obligatory formula picture of everyone in the back garden, because for whatever reason (quite possibly because it's the way they motherfucking roll), the guests all opted to stay inside this time - a trend that, with the encroachment of winter, we were going to have to adapt to sooner or later anyway. But there's these ones.

In contrast to last time, when I accidentally deleted the audio directly after recording it, we successfully captured over sixty minutes of vox, much of it gold. Unfortunately that means I'm having a really hard time choosing clips. Maybe I'll put some up retrospectively & link back to it in a later post. We'll see.

In other news: if you happen to be in the region of the Abbotsford Convent at any point over the next week, I strongly advocate checking out the Prismatic Audit currently being undertaken there by Torie Nimmervoll & intended DP III invitee (and amazing genius) Jason Maling (who couldn't come, because he was too busy getting ready for the Prismatic Audit. That's okay, we'll get him next time).

I did today; it was great. I came home exhausted and collapsed at 6:30pm into some of the weirdest and most awesome dreams I've had in months. Now it's 2:30am and I'm blearly eating a pizza at Bimbo. But that's beside the point.

Where was I? Oh yeah; I'm starting school on Monday, which will be well weird. But before that I'm off to a quasi-hippy festival in a field near Schnozzie's hometown.

There will most likely be bloggage about both of these things. Until then: stay in the groove. Or, y'know, don't. It's Entirely Up To You (tm)! See if I care, blog readers. SEE IF I GIVE A FUCK.

:)

(Previously; previouslyer.)

Thailand (Three)

Bangkok, 2nd February.

Thailand (Two)

Ko Lanta, 28th January.

Thailand (One)

Chiang Mai, 26th January.

I'm Back

More pending in due course.

After Going-Away Cocktails

At CH late last week with Kav (lurking), Petts, and the artist henceforward known as Lady GrimGrim. (Whose birthday it is today, incidentally. Happy birthday!)

Okay, I'm off to Thailand. Later, bitches. :)

Happy New Tenth!!! [*]

([*] Trope courtesy of D. Soybean.)

So, my 2010 has pretty much rocked so far. How's 'bout yours!!!?

I think my epic backlog-killing spree (mostly effected down the NSW coast, where I spent an actually not at all unpleasant festive perenium with Toots and the parentals) exhausted me a bit, blogwise. Maybe that will change; maybe not. We'll find out!!!

Yeah, my parents have been in the country, which doesn't happen very often. They went home yesterday, after five days here in teh Melbourne. Ergo, amongst other things, I've lately been eating out a lot and experiencing a generally higher material standard of living than that to which I'm accustomed. It's all been very nice!!!

I set a prospective date today for DP III, which is Friday, February 12th - although I haven't told the prospective victims beneficiaries directly yet, coz I'm still figuring out exactly who they are!!!

The audio from both DP I and the SRC Xmas Post-Party is being held back pending the resolution of some content (in the former case) and clearance (in the latter) issues, but I'll post an update when it's finally up!!!

What else? Oh, yeah - I'm going to Thailand for ten days in two weeks!!!

To this end, I was vaccinated against Swine Flu (amongst other things) the other day and consequently, I think, came down with a very minor case of Swine Flu. But I recovered!!!

And I think that's pretty much all for now!!!

Here, randomly, is a picture of A, DA, G and myself at Prudence last night, playing the Trivial Pursuit Toots gave me for Christmas:

HNY :)

Day After G's Birthday

13th December.

"I feel a bit like I'm on drugs but I'm not." - me, on CC's status

Ange's Bad '80s Beach Party

5th December.

Dinner Party II

4th December.

Needless to say, went OFF.

Some awesome audio was captured. Unfortunately I forgot to save it, because I'm an idiot. But here is the obligatory formula picture of everyone in the back garden:

G & Shaisty's Housewarming

13th November.

Dinner Party I

24th October.

For the Facebook-equipped, here's a link to the Dinner Party Project manifesto.

This all started the night before G's Picnic at Prudence, when - in a sudden, entirely-non-drug-induced moment of feeling like I was peaking on fucking awesome drugs - I was compelled to inform my friends Vicwie & Kav that they would, at some point in the near future, be coming to dinner at my house.

Four other superstars from my work (including the legendary Bourkie) were subsequently invited. And Toots, obvs.

It occurred. It went off.

The rest is currently in the process of going down in relational aesthetics history.

(In accordance with her wishes, all of V*cw*e's audio parts have been edited out; the excisions are marked with bleeps.)

Picnic

3rd October.

Not really a picnic. Due to inclement weather it was held inside at Gab's place.

But it was still good. (If admittedly not as good as the night before; omg. But that's a story for a forthcoming post..)

Prudence

25th September.

I heart Prudence.

(Starring Toots, Zack & Grimsey.)

Meg's Birthday

23rd September.

Two videos were shot, neither of which could be used - one because it was too boring, the other because it was too interesting.

But there is this:

Random Pictures Of The Week Since I Got Back

New York (Four)

With D.

New York (Three)

With Bourkie "B. Jerky" Bourke.

New York (Two)

With DF & Kev.

New York (One)

With Nada.

Sydney

With Em, Matt & Maddy.

(Previously.)

Plastic Keys / Real Keys

What Is This Thing?

I've been living here for three years, and it's never even occurred to me to wonder what this thing is.

Timeslippage

I spent yesterday evening migrating to a new phone.

(I lost my iPhone in a taxi a few weeks ago. Deep down I wanted to lose it. It was cursed by association.)

It's a Nokia 6300, the same phone I had from October '07 to February '08.

I bought it again because I liked the first one a lot. It was the first phone I'd owned with a vaguely decent camera, a voice recorder, substantial storage capacity, and the ability to talk to my computer. I captured a lot of audio and took a lot of pictures with it, and posted a lot of both here.

Thems were happy, phoenix-from-the-ashes times. Could Has Art. It was great.

There was a lot of acid around then. Maybe that was a factor. Who knows.

(The whole record-some-audio-take-a-picture blogging formula continued, in a more standardized way, through the subsequent winter via the MacBook I got when my eMac died, around the same time that Wouters - sick of hearing me whine about nasty text messages from J that I didn't want to read - killed the aforementioned old Nokia by dropping it in a glass of bourbon & coke.

Different era, more complex & difficult, but in its own way equally good.

Then - in a seasonally trend-bucking turn of events - everything went to shit when Spring hit, and life stopped. Couldn't Has Art.)

The phone died, but its memory card survived.

Going through all of that old media last night was reeaal interesting.

I think it's time for some psychedelics.

Happy Fourth Birthday, Blog

(Previously.)

I think it's safe to say we have now officially passed through the gaping abyss of infinite horror.

We left the territory it represented without regret; it smelt of guano.

Life is.

ION: Chez Hagakure housewarming this Saturday, finally.

It will be good; you should come.

Blah

Freakley told me last night to turn my shittiness into art. Personal motto: "redeem garbage", apparently. This is what she told me when we first met in early '07, too.

"Make art!" she says.

She's good like that.

Trouble is, my shittiness basically consists of an inability to put any meaningful form or shape around anything. Narrative failure. Everything seems completely empty and pointless. Whinge piss moan blah.

When I crash, I tear myself to pieces trying to Figure Myself And Everything Generally Out - metaphysical arms flailing comically - until I feel my sanity seriously starting to disintegrate. Then I give up, and just live vacantly from one atomized moment to the next.

There's not much you can make from that. Got art? Well, no. That's kind of the problem.

That said, this here blog was originally started in a bid to pull myself out of that void. And it totally worked, over time.

But the last two times I've been seriously down since then (mid '06; mid '07), I didn't really talk about it much here. It seemed self-sabotaging to advertise it too explicitly. And also pointless. Natch.

I didn't really socialise, either. This time I am, a bit. I worry that's similarly self-sabotaging and is doing irrepairable damage to the relationships in question.

Contact with other people gives you (some) perspective, makes you feel less alone, and generally makes life a bit easier. All of which is nice.

But ultimately allowing people to see much of you when you're like this just weakens you further. It just fuels the negative self image which is getting you so down in the first place.

"Hi, my existence is a gaping abyss of infinite horror; I feel completely worthless and useless, and I don't really give a shit about anything except how useless and worthless I feel. Er.. how are you?" Doesn't help.

Meh; I'm on the up, gradually.

I was really in hell a few months ago.

I'm not in hell now. Just - yeah - a big ol' envoided vacuum of blah.

And I won't be here forever.

Hello, World

(Previously.)

I Want To Live In This Tree

It's in the Dandenongs.

It's pretty much the best tree ever.

SRC Xmas Party

This Evening, Amongst Other Things, I Smashed Up My Set Top Box

"It was busted anyway." - Trust, 1990