What time is it? IT’S SATURDAY!

That’s the crazy kinda shit that goes down with OzTAKU. If it confuses Westeners, it’s our bag! And we had a meet up on that Saturday.

Why do I bother mentioning a manga drawing community on a blog supposedly about gawths? Well, the answer should be that obvious, but in case it isn’t, you may have noticed a disturbingly large number of gawths still read comic books, particularly the slightly more “mature” kind, but either way, there are plenty of manga for goths. And if that weren’t enough to convince you, most of the community is full of goths anyway…

Lithe, pouting, full lipped pretty boys consistently mistaken for young women. Metal Heads consistently mistaken for insurance clerks. Supple young women consistently mistaken for Brian Malko. Minors consistently drawing pornography to vent sexual frustrations forced on them by overly restricitve ethnic parents, and others that inform you your facial hair feels somewhat like their nethers. Truly, it is a communicative paradise of comedy, comraderie and consistent face palming.

We aim for consistency you see.We also aim to be sell out whores, but somehow it fails, and we’re still poor. Damn you, starving artist stereotype!

Clearly though, this was getting me nothing but hunger. Hunger for comedy, lest I blow my brains out. So off I went, seeking such from other cartoonists.

Looking for comedy itself, I was sorely disappointed. There was nothing funny about Comic Book Funnies this week, much to my disappointment. What was I not disappointed by then? Why, The Sexy Men of Australian Australian Comics 2009-2010 Financial Year Calendar. Featuring sexy sexy men such as Patrick Alexander. And not only did I get to lust after such pinup material, I got to meet them too!.. Whcih is actually something I could do the first Saturday of every month at the Prince of Wales hotel if I wasn’t busy with other crap

But with that disappointment, I had no choice but to go home and weep… Or y’know, shower and change and get ready to go out to Black Widows.

I’ve got to say, it was a remarkably good night. The music was pumping up until about 2:00am when it became more glitchpop than industrial / danceable metal.

That, however, did not prevent me from being an angsty fuck, because I had not taken a fair does of Fukitol as I should have. The secret to happiness, after all, is self medication. This was qickly fixed with three shots of overpriced Sierra Tequila which I managed to get at a discount. I now recall why I stopped drinking cheap tequila. It didn’t help that people kept coming up and asking if it was Zak. For fuck’s sake, it was not fucking Zak! Leave Zak alone! Those that attempted to cheer me up, appreciated… but don’t do it next time.

 

Rant aside, perhaps the best part of the night was remaking aquaintance with someone who insists she’s a “sex ninja”. It’s certainly more original than “vampire”, and more interesting than “pagan / witch”. I’m leaving money on the dresser in the hopes that she comes some night. Although more entertaining was introducing her to Jaz. It’s always an awkward moment when introducing your partner to someone you met without her, regardless of your intentions. You’re unsure if they will get along, or throw down, and an inflattible children’s pool filled with jelly will mysteriously appear (well, it’s King Street).

Speaking of unspeakable sexiness, I did manage to catch up with my doppleganger and arrange to record his bizarre sex life for the purpose of documenting it as a comic. Said arranged time? Why, the very next day! And you’ll be privvy to the opening of that inanity tomorrow… Eventually, this recording will form the basis for an entire movement in and of itself: Wadeing in the Gene Pool.

To Be Continued… again…

For a weekend in which I was meant to get a whole lot of work done, it seemed I did almost nothing. I only managed to get 3 hours of work on Manifest down, not including the meeting. Fairly relaxing, non-productive weekend… and it all started on Friday night when I started hearing the blingleblingleblingle sound of an inevitable flashback sequence. Unaware of what it was at the time, I assumed it was the last gasp of a dying heroin addict.

You see, I was in Brunswick at time for a friend’s farewell party. He’s off to the US to marry his Texan beau. Most of us think he’s insane. But he met her online, so we know it’s true love, even if she is a man of which we are most assiduously assured she is not. Having actually met her, I’ll reserve my judgement until I’ve slept with “her”.

So there we are at the Retreat Hotel. It’s a hole very reminiscent of that first level of Guitar Hero. It also happens to be right across the road from The Brunswick Green. Another hole that is similarly reminiscent, but it does have the one charming feature of being a regular haunt for the goths that live in the area. If the party had been there, I’d have been able to get a meal more appetising, and had conversation with people who weren’t going to chastise me in the same way they do to the kindergarten children under their care, or like I was some amazingly weird, drunk asian man hitting on them.

Inevitably, it began to rain, and it was no longer my scene. I decided I’d go and hang out with my favourite DJ couple, who are also getting married soon incidentally, only to find out that one half had gone to Sound Tech at the Eltham RSL for some band or other… So there Jaz & I sit, with a certain Pooley ne Brand delivering head scritches whilst we watched the original X-Men movie (with the original Sabretooth) and Dark City, before heading back to the farewell party, which had moved to Noise bar by this time.

It’s at this moment I’m beginning to think everywhere in Brunswick must be a hole, because Noise bar manages to be one such place. In its defence, it has a well stocked bar and a stage with live performance that you can hear perfectly well from the area where you don’t actually have to pay to see the performance. I believe by the time we arrived the Funky Brews & Bastian were long gone, and we were down to Dawn Curfew… A totally vampiric name, steeped in stygian darkness beset by mesmiroh fuck it, I really wasn’t paying attention to the music. I cared that much. I had Care Factor Zero. Amazingly enough, the same name as the band playing at the Eltham RSL.

It was around this time my errant friend ZhengQi had managed to get himself amazingly wasted, and be all over an ersatz friend without even realising it… There is nothing funnier than the look of put upon woman who normally handles three year olds for her day job, and is now being handled by someone in a state of similar mental capacity.

Well, maybe someone with a thick Indian accent telling you about big breasted strap on lesbian porn they watched the night before… I’m amazed I don’t have a link to send you to for that one. Clearly I’m slipping.

As it was I left for the evening, having much to do the next day. Apparently those remaining thought otherwise, and wandered off to the Men’s Gallery. And this is, for me, the funniest part of the evening. About this time, yet another friend was at Red Moon, being abandoned by her friends and asking to meet up with us. I mentioned the strip club plan. There was some hesitation and delay… before being asked which one. In ZhengQi’s mind however, it was none. He insisted that he didn’t want to go somewhere that made you pay without getting to touch… so he went someone where you pay to touch, so I’m told… although no pix, so I guess it didn’t happen.

I decided to have a good night’s sleep as I had much to do th…

To Be Continued… tomorrow…

So, being the angsty gawth what I am, I needed to go and see something to cheer me up lest I put a loaded .38 in my mouth, pull the trigger, spraying my brains out all over the wall, and then leaving a little cardattached to the wall with the following text:

Title: Don’t mind, doesn’t matter
Medium: Human ejecta on brick veneer
Price: $3,800 Gst inc.

And as I’m clearly writing this post, I obviously went to see a show.

The problem I have with the Comedy Festival is you don’t know what to see. There’s a lot on, and if you don’t like the style of humour (i.e. Chopper’s Bingo) it’s going to be crap and bore you to the point where you contemplate how you could market your own suicide as a piece of installation art (i.e. Chopper’s Bingo).

So I decided to go see a show that a friend of mine actually happened to be in. Massage My Medium with Marc Fennel (from JJJ) and Dan Ilic (from 10). I figured if it was good, I’d laud them and heap praises… you know, sucking dick basically. And if it was shit, I’d give them so much hell, they’d break down and cry like Emo bitches… Just like being at a club, basically.

A good thing for them that the show was fucking brilliant. And I mean that from both a comedy perspective, and an intellectual perspective. Massage My Medium is a witty romp through TV in Australia, and how as a medium it’s going to die, thanks to the internet, and that “Freeview” is about a decade too late to actually stem the tide of people downloading better content in their own time.

There’s some hilarious stuff in there that shows how pretty much everything on Channel 9 is stolen from US networks, how TEN attempts to use subliminals, how 7 has no idea what it’s doing, and lamentations about SBS’ decline. Contrary-wise, there is some educational content on the new televisual medium of choice for our generation (and Gen-Y, those lazy emo bastards) is basically on demand, on topic, and online.

The show is not without faults though. It certainly needs more polish, particularly in the rehearsal department. Dan & Marc know what’s going on, what to do next, etc., but they keep referring to their scripts / notes. They’re both confident and witty guys, so the notes in hand really makes them look like they don’t know what they’re about to say next. Unfortunate, because from the way the show went, I think they knew… Security blanket, I guess.

Perhaps for me, the most confronting thing about the show, wasn’t the content as I’m already well aware of online entertainment and marketing trends (although I was not previously aware how much money a viral meme can make someone if their Tshirts hit a major retail chain). It was that Dan has a very striking resemblance to Jon Lovitz. I found this resemblance remarkably creepy as I’d recently been re-watching The Critic on YouTube (it stinks!)… And here he was, criticising TV. I just kept thinking he could be the live action Jay Sherman.

If you like to laugh at things that aren’t entirely one liners, and rest at the polar opposite of the intellectual scale from Dave Hughes, give this one a go. It’s 8:15 each night until Sunday this week at 95 Flinders Lane.

I profusely apologise for the hiatus that caused the weekend blackout of this blog. I don’t know what happened, I still haven’t heard back on my support ticket.
I know a lot of you were looking forward to trying a new drink to get wasted on last Friday, and that didn’t happen… I’m very sorry.
But it’s all back up now, and the drink is posted.

But screw you all, it was my 9th anniversary, so I’m not really all that sorry. I was out with Jaz, getting wasted, getting laid, seeing comedians, meeting comedians, and getting laid some more. We went to see a couple of shows at the comedy festival. Our first few dates were to the comedy festival, so there’d be something funnier to the basis of our relationship than my genitalia… I figured we continue the tradition.

The first show was Jamie Kilstein. He’s a left wing philosopher, writer for left wing rags, university drop out, atheist non-zionist jew… You know, the basis to most decent comedy routines that aren’t predicated on one liners.

Now this guy is being billed as the next Bill Hicks. I wouldn’t say he’s as good as Bill Hicks. Frankly, it’s a really tough yard stick to overcome… But I can see where the comparisons are coming from.
Like Hicks, Kilstein is amazingly acidic to the current state of US & World politics, and hates the sheer level of stupidity and ignorance that most people are kept in. He makes a lot of valid points.

And that’s what really bugs me about his routine.
This isn’t comedy. This is a guy venting, raging at the world, and people are laughing at it. I suppose, like Hicks, the only thing to do is laugh at it in a nervous, uncomfortable fashion, or burst into tears at how right he is about how fucked up things are… And possibly the worst part of it, the very worst part of it, is that none of this material is exactly new. These are the same fucking issues Hicks was ranting about at the beginning of his career… almost to the letter. The names of the figureheads may have changed, but the issues are the same.

If it weren’t for the alcohol, I would have been crying.

As it was, I was merely laughing obnoxiously and getting weird looks from the sound guy who was directly in front of me.

After the show, I actually ran into 3JJJ’s Marc Fennel (he & I go back a few years now, which is cool) while we were waiting to talk to Jamie. We caught up a little… He totally didn’t mention that he has his own show on, so I’m not sure if I’m going to go see it or not because of time constraints and not having set aside time for it (nice promo, Marc! )

So, after all that, we wander around a bit, get some dinner in China town, and back to the town hall we go for more comedy. This time we went to see the Ali McGregor “late night variety-nite night”… Basically vaudeville, with some comedy, some acting, a little dance, and a variety of musical numbers… oh, and a midget strip tease.

McGregor has a great singing voice. It’s a pity she’s wasting it on comedy (oh, and I suppose professional Opera, but it’s not like anyone goes to that), because she could easily be a lounge singer. Jessica Rabbit style, getting people to play patty cake. Her styling were tempered by a few nightly guests, which change on a regular rotation. We saw Wil Anderson who is kinda funny, I guess, but it’s too scripted. He seems like he’s working to get a laugh which is literally what he’s doing, I’m aware, it’s just that it doesn’t really seem like a natural conversation or even anecdote.

Kent Valentine was amusing, but clean. The humour didn’t really work for me, because he was telling airplane jokes. They’re an old staple, especially in the era of “domest airborne terror”, but considering I get everything just shy of being strip searched every time I fly, it’s not so funny. I do sympathise though.

Rima the itty bitty Burlesque Dancer kind of weirded me out. Being a midget, she basically was an 8 year old in lingerie with tits. This wasn’t helped by the fact she was basically dry humping a rocking horse and whipping it with some of the things implements I generally see people putting in their mouths at Vedette. I wasn’t sure if it was meant to be amusing, or erotic… the disturbing factor really made it a bit of neither for me.

The real highlight of the show was Celia Pacquola. I can see why she’s sold out every one of her shows. She’s that freaky, nervous chick from highschool you really wanted to fuck, but you know would burst into tears the moment you got a hand in her pants, and maybe scream “No, Daddy! Not there!”A turn on for some, certainly… I prefer my women with less odd sexual issues. Like Elmo suits with appropriately cut holes.

If you haven’t made it to the comedy festival yet, both were good shows. Tickets are available through Ticketek, and considering how a lot of these shows tend to sell out, I strongly advise pre-booking tickets. Also cuts down the waiting time because you can skip the queue.

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