AAYL MAINTAIN EYE CONTACT

This is from 2003. An effort to keep things ticking over on the blog. In the throes - death throes?, I wish - of editing the manuscript to HS & HRS SEXXX GAMES, and as such I'm not writing any new content. I thought this was an interesting entry from the Angry Angry Young Lady diary; it's kind of witty and sardonic. No idea who I am talking about; I can't remember.  

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Sunday 17th of August

This week I will make a list and check it twice. I've got to start making presents for the kids. At this rate it'll never get done. It's late at night and I can't stop listening to sad songs. I'm meant to be jolly. Well, no, they're actually self-deprecating sad songs, but I believe the point has been made nonetheless. Now rub your hand against my bicep. Do it slowly, I can't take too much excitement. A little jab at stimulation is all I need. Stop! Enough! Continue talking! I retain the inalienable right to not exercise my divine right to react. Now laugh at the bad joke I might have made. Maintain eye contact. Keep the cross hairs locked. Break the shortest distance and direct your jabbering talk box into my ear. Pupils, and iris, and shoals of white, and deep skies of blue again. Wear that same black nightgown the next time we inexplicably meet. Smile, part your red lips and show me the rows of white teeth. No need to apologise for me not drinking. I'm not saying sorry for dead scars and red mounds of puffed-up skin rubbing up against the loaded space in between us. Hell, I'm not saying anything. I nearly forgot that. It feels like there is an invisible wire attached to my head, a wire which runs up into a hole in the ceiling. Somebody is holding the end of this wire and pulling it savagely every couple of seconds. Sorry, what was that? I'm battling to concentrate, what with the horrific jolts to my brain. Spear your right index finger into palm of my left hand. Now touch my bicep again. And again. And agai- stop! 

AAYL At the mall.

Something from the Angry Angry Young Lady vault. I'm guessing that this is in 2003. There was another entry explaining all the characters as well. I'm not going to include it, as that's back story and, well, why bother?

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Wednesday 3rd of March

It all begins in a shopping mall. I'm in the central locus of the mall, on a large expanse of floor surrounded by shops. A temporary stage has been erected in front of one of the stores. I believe it's a JB Hi-Fi's but I can't be too sure, the shops seem to be blurred to my mind. I don't remember what the band sound like. In fact I don't think there was any sound coming from their instruments. There's a large group of people watching the soundless band along with the constantly shifting mass of people common to malls, filtering through the crowd like the tributaries in a stream. I walk into the crowd and see Dave and Adam. For some reason they're wearing large, wide brimmed hats. Their faces begin to twist and contort and then wildly shake and pulsate. For a brief moment they look like dead ringers for Stan. Why are they doing this? One of them tells me Stan is here. Dread fills my being. I can see Stan, through the crowd, watching the band, his back turned to us. He's wearing the same wide brimmed hat as Dave and Adam, except it’s even wider. Dave reaches out to Adam and turns him around. Adam is completely submissive as Dave runs his hand through Adam's hair and pushes his head back, finally pretending to neck him. They're having a joke. Dave doesn't let go. He pulls Adam's face closer and his lips, resembling a fleshy beak, touch and hook into the corner of Adam's mouth. They don't seem to be joking anymore. I look away. I see Robert, he walks up behind us. Robert is immaculately dressed with a beautiful, flowing haircut, a stylish suit, a white dress shirt, with its top button undone, and a pair of cuff links. There is an air of sophistication about him that I never noticed when we were at school together. Back then he was fat. Now he looks like a man who is entirely accountable for his self. He reeks of culture. Robert doesn't say a word. He seems moody but in a dignified way. A giant, barrel-chested black man – black suit black shoes – shadows Robert. I look at Dave. Dave knows what Robert gets up to. "Who is Rob's special friend?" Dave smiles and doesn't say anything. The black man walks into a record store close by. He is out of sight but we know he’s still there. Robert leans against a CD rack. He hangs his head and closes his eyes. A set of tears rolls down his red rosy cheeks. His face is a blank. It's a classic maudlin expression. The black man reappears and removes his black jacket. He motions with the jacket to cover Robert, to shield him from prying eyes. Dave sees Robert's distress and takes the jacket from the black man. The black man steps out of the way and to the side, into the background. Dave hides Robert with the jacket - it's a show of brotherhood, a sign of kinship between two grown men. I feel a pang of jealousy as I'm watching this. This is a world I'll never be a part of. A world of money and privilege, procured from God-given ability and the hard work from the application of this ability. This thought haunts me for a moment until I realise something. For all this money and style and friendship they're still in a stinking shopping mall with the rest of us, listening to a band that isn’t making any sound. I feel relieved. I fail to notice that I too am in the mall. I wake up.

AAYL Tinnitus.

From 2004. A miracle, I know. I thought this old entry in the Angry Angry Young Lady was cute. Ringing ears are mentioned - one could argue that this is the theme of the piece? - and, of which, I still suffer from the hearing damage. But it's all perception and psychosomatic and a fact that resides purely in the mind. My mind, not yours. Unless you've got it. In which case: I'm so sorry, join me.

Please note: No line breaks - terrible apologies - but some major editing has taken place. What can I say? I must have been excited that day, night, year in particular. 

Please, please note: The editing function of the old blogger has been messing up and this might look weird. If so, and, if you believe in God, I genuflect in religious contrition. And there's no sex talk contained within: you perverts.

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Saturday 10th of July

Sometimes it feels like all I'm doing is counting down minutes and seconds. My ears have been blocked up for the last couple of days. Sounds to me like everything is on a depressed mute. Or, more precisely, I'm not receiving sound at the correct, stipulated level. That's ok; I don't want to hear what my family or friends have to say, what the commercials on the television have to tell me, or the very important message the dirty stranger on the street has to give me. I couldn't think of a better gift to be given, than to enter a club and not have the ability to discern, locate and pick out singular elements that make up the soundscape of the environment. So I can't locate the awful band mutating power-metal into funk rock in the corner of the room. The short blonde in bright white, trying to sell her whiskey brand of choice to me, may as well be trying to stop a speeding train when she looks and smiles at me. When a friend of the power-metal band talks to the singer, and tells him that she thinks that if he weren't a singer he would have to be an actor, and the singer, without a hint of irony or self-reflexivity or even a single blink, replies that he would "really like to get into acting" - it's all a wee buzzing in my right ear. A distorted, tonal modulation that is competing with the other buzz in my left ear, itself a fairly inaccurate representation of the folks leaning against the bar, ordering their drinks, bartering away for their social flesh and sweating, spitting and shitting out all they have over the club floor. You had to have your car detailed because you live up north and the red dust is everywhere in the vehicle? Do I come here often? Do bands play here all the time? You go better at pool when you've had two drinks? There's only one fluro light above the table? Cheap bastards? Your boyfriend? Eighties music? Fifty cents for a glass of water? Am I enjoying myself? What do I think of the music? Your name is Rachel by the way? You want to shake my hand? The next band starts and I finish. I go outside the club into the night air. A lonely road stretches past the door. In one direction this road follows along the coast in a winding path; in the other, it reaches back into the port, flowing over a two-lane bridge. The traffic lights, one twenty feet this way, the other ten feet that way, flick from green to orange to red and then back again; without the orange of course. And there are no cars driving by for a good five minutes. I can see the lights that line the Swan River, over in the distance, flickering without any due recourse. Everything is still; not even the air wants to move. Who needs to hear?

AAYL That's entertainment.

2003. It's always from 2003. I could look at the two-hundred entries from 2003 and post only that year for the rest of my life. Like the Internet will exist for another two posts of grasshoppers, watermelons, green backs, centuries and so on and so forth, infinitum. 

Regardless, there's nothing new I have ready to post - except for maybe reviews of films I've seen lately from 2009, what's the point? They're all 'popular', 'tent pole', flicks, so again, what's the point? - so I'm going to stay in the past. The following piece is a metaphor, but the very smart among you already knew that. I also broke from protocol and attempted line breaks. Only in the future will I know what is a success. 

Please note: I mean, really, who cares if MI:4, Sherlock Holmes, Thor, Captain America, Tin Tin, Iron Man 2, The Hunger Games, and whatever, wherever, are any good? Tell me in 5 years time if you can remember the plots to any of these films...

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Saturday 31st of May

What to do? Insult the audience, that act never gets old. That's what they're here for anyway. Kid, Philosophy and revisionism of history just don’t pull the crowds anymore. This scene has changed for the worst. These days you need a big bang and a big blow-off, otherwise you can't sell the product. "The product of information?" Don't be so fucking stupid, no-one cares about that old-world notion. We're in the new, new millennium. Get with it, or else risk going out with it. Do you want to be a drone, or do you want to drone with the biggest, brightest stars we've got? So there you go.

The key, most important words in the lexicon of human language begin with a 'g'. They begin but don't contain the letter. That fact is pertinent; do not forget it. And seeing we're onto the subject of facts, here's another one coming your way: don't believe any word that does contain the letter 'g'. Those are markers for your journey in life; they are a signifier for you to forget whatever the signifier is trying to transmit. Notice how none of the days of the week have that letter? Think about it.

Preach and desist! You don't educate the audience. You just need to fool them into thinking that they're thinking. Let me tell you a story. Whenever I shut my eyes images come to me. I see one hundred million dead children, all lined up in a row. I see great civilizations in ruins. I see planets and suns in the twilight of their existence. I see liars, murderers and whores propping up the history of man. I see hacked up bloody corpses of indistinguishable sex. I see dirty red smudges on the night sky. I see the moon and stars falling, burning everything in an ungodly fire. And then I open my eyes and I know that everything and everybody will be ok, if just for a little while. Now get out there and talk to the fucking audience.  

AAYL Going drivin'

Another Angry Angry Young Lady circa 2003. That seems to be the year for all the good work. The car mentioned was a Toyota Corolla. Not sure the year model; I don't pay attention to those details. I recall the vehicle was sky-blue in colour. Or was it navy? It also wasn't a bad car. That didn't stop me from driving it into the ground. I really didn't give a shit. Finally the car started to overheat. We (royal?) drove the bashed-up Corolla down to a Wreckers in South Fremantle. Parked it in the street for a while, so as to allow the engine's overheated particulars to cool down. Then, the Wrecker Man drove the car around the block to see that it wasn't completely fucked. The temperature gauge didn't budge and the Wrecker Man handed over 500 bucks for the car. What a hustle.

Anyway, point to the pick. I was a trawling in my spare time and saw this. Found it hilarious I drove such a shit box in the emerald days of my youth; especially considering the new, newish, car I recently bought. So, in aid of blowing-up my own ego, here is the following AAYL read. 

And, these days, when it comes to cars: I still don't really give a shit. 

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Sunday 3rd of August

At three am this morning when I was zipping along Thomas Street at a great zip, desperately trying to find a toilet, a bird broke cover from the trees of King's Park and flew straight at my car. Suffice to say when given the option of a windshield hurtling at a ton versus a flimsy feathery body, the only choice is to watch the bird explode. That and catch a glimpse of the windshield wipers being bent up and over the car. So let's recap the damage that has occurred to the car over recent months past. One of the windshield wipers is bent out of place, causing the wipers, when deployed, to scratch the windshield and make a great shreieieieik! I found my driver's mirror smashed and left by the side of the road one morning. The glass was awfully cracked but only a few pieces had fallen out, so I stuck the mirror back into the encasing. Now, whenever I have to change into the right lane, it's like driving in hall of mirrors. Oh - and to readjust that mirror I have to wind down the window and do it manually, as the handle on the inside broke. Now don't forget the white scratch, and a big dent to go with it, on the panel of the driver's door. I think a car pulling out of a parking spot did that boo-hickey. But I'm not innocent of bad driving myself, as I accidently bumped into the back of a parked car last week. My car's front bumper seemed fine. And finally the engine has taken to whining whenever I accelerate. Fortunately, the car doesn't overheat so I haven't really bothered to find out what that sound is. Welcome to my world of bad car maintenance, zero insurance and general apathy in extracurricular motor activities.