2008

It's new years eve and I'm sat here by myself, listening to Mozart's requiem and others out of respect for a woman who I've never met and will never meet, but meant one hell of a lot to someone who means one hell of a lot to me. (That plus I didn't get invited to any crazy punk parties this year). So I thought I'd write something I'd been thinking about writing for a few days now which was inspired by Zero Interest.

2008

This year I had to grow up very quickly. I had to face things myself which I'm still not used to:

Drink. Depression. Anxiety. Men. Intimacy. Pressure. Love. Hate. Disappointment. Nervousness. Fear. Nights out. Nights in. Insomnia. Pulling uni related all nighters. Caffeine abuse. New job. Responsibility. Maturity. Dependency. Learning when to let go. Not putting the previous into practice. Making new friends. Outgrowing the old ones. Change. Familiarity. Clarity. Finding a straight edge mentality.

Anyone who knows me will know that I tend to take on other people's problems as my own despite my best efforts to keep them separate: Life. Death. Murder. Suicide. Rape. Longing for drugs. Drug abuse. Alcohol abuse. Rehab. AA meetings. Theft. Fraud. Violence. Sexual abuse. Verbal Abuse. Emotional abuse. Abuse of power. Being dragged through the courts. Trouble with the law. Failure. Success. Incest. Marital problems. Divorce. Marriage. Bipolar. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Schizophrenia. Nervous Breakdowns. Cancer. Children.

I'm glad to say goodbye to the last year.

Issue #3

So, my planned launch for issue #3 isn't happening any time soon, so I'm going to organise something myself. Expect a March release date.

Some things to look forward to in issue #3:

• New contributors Zero Interest and Noah Skape


• Old contributors return; Barclay and Goth Cunt return


• Reviews, Roller Derby and more

In the mean time, I'll be organising the Masquerade Brawl for Perth Roller Derby. It's on Jan 25th 2009, at Morley Rollerdrome. We're having live bouts for the first time in WA as well aslive music and acts from Sugar Blue Burlesque. So come down and find out how we roll!

Thanks

Lately I’ve had a lot of bullshit going through my life. I only really feel comfortable talking about it since I’ve been seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I was confronted with things which were changing my perceptions of things and rocking the stability of the last 19 years of my life. They were things which were out of my control; hence I often felt helpless and so often, I’d try to change the things which just caused me undue problems. I had to learn to accept the changes and to leave the people with which had the problems to organise and sort said problems out for themselves (easier said than done). These changes and problems caused me to become depressed, I finally found the true meaning of the lyric “why put the gun to your head if you’re already dead”. People have questioned my reasons for hanging around with the punks, and why people with issues are attracted to me like I’m a magnet. I have no Mohawk, I haven’t had a shitty childhood, or I don’t scream anarchy at the top of my lungs, but I realised that I see a part of myself in the punks, and they see that back.
It was during this time when I found out who my true friends were. Not being able to change the situation which was causing me so much stress meant that all I really wanted from telling the few people I did about my situation was acceptance. As Cometbus once said, people tell you their problems for understanding and acceptance, not advice. There were friends who instantly left me, they were only friends with me for the short haul, and I accept that. Then there were those who stuck around for a bit, but as the saying goes; when the shit gets tough, the tough get going. It was disappointing to see some of these people flake, but again, I don’t hold it against them, some of them had enough bullshit of their own to deal with and others just weren’t equipped for my level of bullshit. There were two people in the end who stuck by and took all of my bullshit and moods during this time, both of them had the same thing in mind. Both of them were a surprise hang-around. When everything happened, I wouldn’t have thought that those two would’ve helped me out like they did. It’s thanks to them that I finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I finally realised, thanks to them, that there were other things in my life which were stable which I could lean on. I realised that there were people that still cared for me, even when it seems that the world had turned its back. As one of them said to me “I only did it to make you happy”. Now that I’m finally getting over the troubles and everything is settling down, one of the guys asked me “why are you still hanging around me if your problems are fixed”? I guess he’ll never know how much he helped me.

To anyone who is reading, please don't ask me for clarification on what I'm talking about, it will just lead to my rude refusal

Tomás Ford’s controlled riot

Tomás Ford, the man who I’ve watched dry hump and pash randoms in a bar on several occasions said he wanted minions to be part of a controlled riot. All I knew was that we were supposed to help him out in his act. Hmmm, I thought, dry humping randoms in a bar sounds like my scene, count me in!

So Spike and I went to the Bakery* for rehearsal. The first exercise was to introduce ourselves AA style in a large circle: state your name, performance history and what crazy fucked up shit you thought you’d have to do today. Well, the 13 minions' performance history ranged from everything to nothing, and we thought we’d have to do mindfucking, hitting, and like Spike said; dry humping- the reply from Tomás was yes, not recommended and no (although as commented, wet humping was allowed after the show was over). The idea was we had to come up with things which we were comfortable doing to complete randoms that would a) annoy them b) share the love and c) be dancetastic#.

So after some rehearsal and deciding on what was just plain annoying, loving and dancetastic, and after several remarks were made about me being battery operated in my ranting, we were let out into the sun and non-sticky floors to aimlessly wander around the city for the next 5 hrs until the gig started. Cue aimless wandering and boredom, watching the delightful inhabitants of Northbridge urinating in various public places.
Gig….Little G was there because she entered a 24 hour cartoon competition, hence got in for free (at $30 a ticket it was a bit steep for most of the punks to show up). When we got there, Spike, Little G & I sat in the large igloo, creating gas to be trapped in the top of the igloo and slowly gassing the other people who would go and be all cool and trendy sitting in the igloo later on in their Gucci dress that cost them way too much. Then Special Brew were on, so me, Little G and one of Tomás’s minions skanked along to Rudies who will be applying for false teeth soon…one of the shames of punk is its original members are getting old. Then it was showtime.

First song: time to be just plain annoying. Got a few disgusted looks of randoms…hehehe it works! Then it was Tomás’s time to be super confrontational so we left it and were slightly inconspicuous, just dancing around near the front. After, us minions closed off the bar by blocking the way, this managed to piss off a few punters including some small Asian woman who had to jump and do acrobats just for her libation. I think it also worked in blocking the front row view of Tomás’s Cayote Ugly moves on the bar which pissed a few people off. When Tomás got off the bar it was time to weave, this meant being the most obnoxious person you could think about, climbing over and between people just top get through them despite the fact that there was space either side of them. Spilling drinks (yours or there’s if possible) on them. Then it was time to show some love, so we started a mass hug, which kind of turned into a mass circle, which spontaneously combusted on itself, usually when Tomás was in the middle. I was kind of intrigued by the fact that non-minions were initiating can-can style kicks around the circle and running in to Tomás, I guess his ideas of a space where people feel comfortable doing anything is actually working. Then we generally creeped people out, followed by our dancetastic moves, getting randoms who really wanted to dance but had too many inhibitions to dance actually dance and starting a huge conga line, by grabbing randoms and not letting go until they were dancing, again random non-minions started grabbing friends and random people too.

After the feast that was Tomás, the Bakery was empty and everyone filed out to go smoke. I’ve never seen the Bakery that full before. Some people managed to tag on that we were his minions, but at the end, some just thought that we were extremely obnoxious arts types (or alternatively if they were the obnoxious arts types, that we were just punky scum) who were huge fans of dancing and were generally on some pretty strong party drugs.

After that we watched someone twirl fire from her nipples and some guy drive a nail through his penis. As you can tell, some quality entertainment followed.

* For you non-Perthians, it’s a gig venue
# Yes, we’re checking the validity of the word!

Sorry about the photos Tomás. Tomás's myspace is www.myspace.com/tomasford where you can hear some of his songs, check out show details and general stuff.

Transperth is now FREE!

So anyways, I was on the train today travelling into the city when these two blonde, tanned girls wearing short shorts and tshirts that were sizes too tight got on the train at the same station as me. The transit guards were asking for tickets, and asked the two aforementioned women for their tickets. One gave a concession ticket for 2 zones (she had no proof of entitlement and it's 3zones to Perth not 2) and the other said she just straight out didn't have one because 'she didn't have any coins'. The transit guard heard the excuse and was ready to let her off after some batting of her eyelashes. Then another older transit guard heard the lady didn't have a ticket and enforced that the lady would get a fine. He asked for id and listened to the lady's excuse about how she didn't have any coins and she'd just come back from holiday, watched her bat her eyelashes and stared at her anatomy for a while then said that he wouldn't give her a fine. ....
The lady then asked 'How do I get out at Perth station without a ticket'? so the transit guards instantly wrote her and her friend 'red cards' to get them out the otherside unscathed. ....
Why this pissed me off somewhat royally:....
1. At Whitfords station where we all got on the train there are 3 ticket machines and 1 change machine. Each ticket machine is different; one is coins only, one is coins and notes and the other is coins and eftpos. Surely she could've used a note or her eftpos card to buy a ticket as all machines were in working order.....
2. By asking how she'd get out of Perth station unscathed she obviously knew about the changes with smartrider and closed stations meaning that she hasn’t been holidaying in a cave in the Himalayas for the past year; she should've known....
3. I've seen transit guards hand out fines to unsuspecting tourists who barely speak a word of english for less and claim they're going to send a fine to Hong Kong. Surely if they can fine a tourist, they can fine a Perthian.....
4. Lastly, everyone on that train who was stickybeaking knows that the only reason why they got away with it was due to their looks. Why is society so judgemental and superficial?....
So, the moral of the story is that travel on transperth is free folks...Just dye your hair blonde, get a tan and wear clothes that are way too small for you. When they pull you up for riding for free just bat your eyelashes and flirt with the transit guards.....