Pint of Pale, thanks

Every year, I make a video birthday invitation.
This year is no different.

If you're a regular reader, come along and say hi.
If you're one of the sweet folks who've landed here from you Google searches for "blazer teachers fucking students", "gear shift fuckers" or even "what's wrong with a 100 dollar mattress", then perhaps give it a miss, eh?

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GTH - With her double-entendre, Mad Cat Lady takes the point, said the actress to the bishop. The photo was actually taken by me out of a hostel window in Derry on my first night in Ireland. The night before the Orange Marches were due to take place. Being a moronic backpacker, I had no idea of the perfect storm that the significance of date and place would have upon my stay. Garda vans patrolled the old city walls and cops with riot gear and machine guns barracaded every entrance with shipping containers and barbed wire. The riots the next day made the international news and I was forced to call my mother and explain that not all Derry was on fire, just the Catholic bit.

You know you're on Bribie Island when ... (No. 2)

(CC front counter)

Old lady with colourful jumper: Hello. I'd like to pay please.
Me: What table were you sitting at?
Old lady with colourful jumper: That one just there.
Me (checking the table number): Ahhh ... number seven.
Old lady with colourful jumper: Oh! I'm seven in numerology!
Me: ....... Huh. What a coincidence.

You also know you're on Bribie Island when this gets hand-delivered to your mailbox by an old man with a pink shopping bag:

It turns out that popular music is a very flexible term.

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The journey towards better coffee is slowly happening. I was allowed onto the ever-busy morning shift this morning, where the dockets pile up like autumn leaves and lesser baristas fall by the wayside in floods of tears and poorly-packed coffee grounds. It was pretty much fine. Nothing happened except that every now and then it would get busy and the boss would step in to show me what to do and/or help me out. That's always fine by me because he ends up doing most of the work. I'm getting pretty good at reproducing the same coffee over and over, plus or minus the various froths, caffeine-levels and syrupy additives. But I'm no barista ninja just yet.
What I need is

A MONTAGE




***
GTH - Points go to Neil for not rubbing it in.

If it makes you feel icky, it worked.

I should start up my own one-man advertising company. I will not stop at distasteful slogans, no!
Behold the Active Bodies Physiotherapy television advertising campaign!

Music: Proof that nobody is ever cool

Recent conversation with Triton's annoyingly-talented 13-year-old sister, Izabella:

We are looking through her iTunes music library, which she has recently replenished with a bag of CDs donated by yours truly.

Izabella: So, what's your favourite band?
Franzy: Uh ...
Izabella: Or bands, whatever
Franzy (Thinking in high gear of something he has been listening to recently that throw a thoughtful curve-ball to a school-cool 13-year-old who is into music): Oh ... um ... ah, okay, how about this: lately I've been listening to ... Timbaland.
Izabella (polite smile): Right.

While I find Timbaland's production work quite interesting in the way he uses odd samples and unique beat structures and often very dance-hall/techno sounds, there is no denying the fact that he has boosted the careers just about every bubbly pop artist around. He is in no way cool, hip or attached with any cultural cred whatsoever. And thus, neither am I.

And so, without further ado, I present two music videos for your delectation. Neither of them relate to Timbaland, but both are worth watching.

It might help to imagine the "Green and Groovy" one going for the neck.



Thanks to Jimmythins for putting me onto what could be the song of 2008. Already. Boop-a-doop-a-doop!




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Why, oh why is the Fringe parade always on a chilly, rainy evening? I'm almost glad that Mele isn't feeling well so that we get to stay at home ...

***

GTH - Milly Moo (aka Kath Lockett) for her stories of sweat.

Film School. Lesson One.

Triton and myself have been toying with making films for a couple of years now. I believe our first effort was a stunt piece with Triton filming me attempting to consume a hamburger in a single bite while driving a rented car at 100km/h. In New Zealand.
Our second attempt was a Lego animation piece called The Crazy Count, which contained no animation. Here it is below.



Late last year you all enjoyed the single shot masterpiece that was my birthday invitation.
The basic flaw with all of our film-making efforts has been lack of planning. Having both been involved in the creative arts since we were old enough to remember, we often take process a little easy, relying on basic skill and spontaneous talent honed from years of falling over for the benefit of small children.
The creative process on the birthday invitation was me thinking about it for a few minutes each night before I went to bed and then luring Triton over with a promise of beer and perhaps, like, you know, making a little movie or something. We were lucky with that one because we planned it on the run and it was a simple concept. We were unlucky because it turned out just as good as we hoped it would, teaching us no lessons about actually working out what the hell it is you're going to do before you run out the door and start filming everything.

Our latest effort, an audition tape for the Australian version of Top Gear, was just such a learning experience. After talking about it for weeks and regularly promising "To go out and film a few cool things" it came down to a boozy Saturday night at Triton's new house on the final weekend before auditions were due.

'Right. Tomorrow. Definitely. We gotta go film this Top Gear thing.'
'Yeah. YEAH. How about ten thirty? Let's give ourselves time. Be here and pick me up at ten thirty.'

At one thirty in the afternoon I opened my crusty eyes, popped a few panadeines and felt a great deal of relief that Triton had not followed through on his offer of a ten thirty wake-up call. However, it only left us with around three hours to conceive, script, location scout, rehearse and film a ten minute audition tape with enough panache and quality to actually make it worth doing in the first place. So we went to Vili's - a well-known 24 hour pie factory - to work out what to do. Fortunately, since Vili's is located in an industrial area, it also turned out to be A Brilliant Idea In The First Place. Filming was another matter. We recorded about half an hour of me standing knocked-kneed in front of my car saying 'Um' and occasionally breaking out into dance and then we called it a day.
What we produced was a rag-tag bunch of shots that bore also no resemblance to one another, so I spent every night that week editing the piece together and recording dodgy voice-overs in an attempt to thread the thing together. It was like getting all the lumpy bits from the bottom of the biscuit barrel and attempting to assemble a complete biscuit.
On the Thursday before the tapes were due, I spent eight hours straight in front of the computer editing and looking at the clock. It's fascinating the brilliant ideas you come up with and jettison when time is running short. The good news is that I did actually finish, render, burn the thing to DVD, fill out the application form (with fuck knows what) and make it to the post office in time for an Express Post delivery to Sydney. The bad news is that I went home and discovered that I had included a doubled-up sequence in the video, one without voice over, of an inexplicably silent pan over my car's dusty dash, followed by the same shot with me saying the car's dash isn't so pretty to look at. And I did that twice.
That isn't the version you see below. Pride made me edit at least that bit out, but I didn't go back and add in any music or extraneous clips. All you see below is me reasonably hung-over and attempting to sound scripted and knowledgeable off the top of my head. A complete biscuit.



***
GTH - Goes to Murphmeister for his speed, his creativity, his connections ... and his recent engagement to a lovely young lass in Florence.

Youtube and Tennis II

It's a little embarrassing to realise that I'm repeating myself year after year on this blog. Just about everything I'm putting into this post I replicated last year. It's also worth noting that I was completely wrong about Gael Monfils. I haven't heard anything from him since.

Anyhow ... First, the prediction. More the comment. If you are a Leyton Hewitt fan, then here is a video of the first bloke to beat him in straight sets in Melbourne since 2000. If you think Spewy is a little prick who deserves to have the pants whooped off of him, then this is, curiously, also a video for you. I give you the number three seed: Novak Djokovic.



Jim Courier is still around and I think I've solved last year's Cool Commentator or Crass Cockhead Conundrum. He is both. He is an annoying, sexist, American jock. Oversexed, overorange and over here. However, having listened to John Alexander, Todd Woodbridge and Aussie Drongo Number Three tittering and chortling over the women's doubles last night, I must say that I preferred Courier's cheeky, know-it-all and often bizarrely surreal commentary. Yes, Dad, he is American, but his input to the coverage is many times more entertaining and bearable than our national old farts whose idea of interesting is to repeat over and over again how hard the 'girls' hit the ball as though it were a revelatory insight. You could hear them stuffing their fists in their mouths when the super slo-mo camera showed a chest-high shot of Molik hitting the ball. At least Jim would have covered the comment-less silence like the Pro he is. Probably with something like: "Hur hur, boobies." And thus does my point stand. Entertaining and knowledgeable!

THIS is what's next!

And it's not even all there is.



But what next after this? Tune in Friday for full details ...