Are you as sick of Twilight as I am?

Good. Then maybe we can get back to some real vampire stories, like the sort Poppy Z Br–

*kaTHUNK* … *TWANG!*

Sorry, that’s me hurting myself over beginning that suggestion. Let’s start over.

Are you as sick of vampires sparkling in the daylight as I am? Thanks to a half ok written set of books, and a really shitty movie (soon to have a sequel), Vampirism has basically been turned from the dark and brooding mystery it was when I was a lame teenage wannabe vampire goth thanks to Anne Rice, to basically being the next misunderstood minority now that it’s ok to be gay… And like movies about gay guys, they’re thin, pouty, and you really really want to sodomize them.

Well, all is not lost. Thank the powers that be that the Europeans still now how to make good movies based of decently well written books, instead of turning them into steaming piles of crap.

Let The Right One In is one such book, and it’s been made into a remarkably good film.

The gist is that Oskar, a 12 year old ideal of Aryan perfection notices a new girl, Eli, move into his apartment building… And that he only ever sees her at night… and that she doesn’t need to wear heavy padded clothing in the middle of the night in the middle of winter in the middle of Sweden. Being the outcast at school that he is, he quickly befriends her

And then people in the town start to die mysteriously and they fall in love.

Where this deviates from most vampire films that don’t sparkle is that it is: a) a romantic drama; b) not about the vampire; and c) you’ll go to jail if you happen to have topless shots of the main characters on your computer, regardless of the fact that the film actually does do a couple nude scenes.

Now, I’m going to be honest and say I know dick about the Scandinavian film industry, but this really is a masterpiece.

The sets & costumes made it almost impossible to believe that this movie was not shot at some point in the 80s and simply digitally remastered. Terribly out of date clothes, tiny CRG TV sets, little government built apartments, awful haircuts all round. Simply impeccable set and costume design.

The score was very well rendered by one Johan Söderqvist (who I am now trying to find in the torrents). At all times it was appropriate to the scene and well blended instead of attempting to force the emotion of the moment on to you. So much so that you can’t even distinctly remember a catch. It’s just… pleasant.

The acting was rather impressive. In the film industry, you’re never meant to work with animals or children. Especially first timers. Yet Kåre Hedebrant and Lina Leandersson pull off some amazingly realistic performances. The awkwardness of a young child, and the even more awkwardness of a child that is now dead and cant’ even remember when it happened. The build the characters in a most believable way.

Honestly, my accolades shouldn’t be that surprising. The book and film have won over 50 awards combined, and not just crappy European ones. If you’re the sort of person that doesn’t really mind reading subtitles, this movie is well worth it.

Go see it before it finishes its runs at the art house cinemas.

 

As we’re all entirely aware from anecdotal evidence, teenagers become a lot more easily obsessed with stuff than regular, normal human beings. They begin to behave oddly. They collect things about the object of their obsession. Like photos, news clippings, memorabilia, bits of my hair, faked items on eBay in the hopes that they’re real.

 

Those kinds of things.

What you may not have been aware of was that these teenagers, usually girls that like my hair, are also substantially more likely to turn violent than their adult counterparts.

Frankly, I can see where this becomes totally awesome though. 

As we all know, teenagers are impressionable, naive and easily manipulated. They also tend to hallucinate their own versions of reality which may or may not involve being raped in front of a live TV Studio audience*. So the upside comes in when you start directing their violent tendencies towards you into a more constructive pursuit, such as violent tendencies towards others. 

 

Go into business with a bevvy of martial artist, gun crazed, blood lusting, sexy teenagers for hire. You’ll have clients lining up. Just make sure you’re discreet about selling the girls out, because while the world loves sexy violence perpetrated by 15 year olds in skirts shorter than my briefs, apparently it’s not cool for those girls to actually be doing what 15 year olds have been doing naturally since time began.

 

If you’ve only got one stalker, this may not really be all that possible, unless they’re insanely good at the violence. But surely it can’t be all that hard to get multiple stalkers and slowly warp their minds. I have friends that seem to do it on nearly every interstate trip we take to one of the many and varied conventions we attend each year… And he wasn’t even goth until last year!
 

Admittedly, one of those stalkers did turn out to be a guy. 
But this is the 21st century, so that kind of thing is ok now.

 

*Least tasteful product plug EVER!

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.

So, after Harkonnen posted something about one of is friends’ Valentine’s day rants, I thought I’d post one as well… Of course, I’m not going to do one myself, as I already intended to give my lady love herpes.

A very dear friend of mine, who is most likely certifiable at this point in time thanks to a certain guy in her life whom she pines for like a dea parrot does for the Fjordes, wrote a big rant about said male’s insensitivity in general, which can be read here: http://thinking-jaywise.blogspot.com/2009/02/cheesy-nothings-of-romanticism.html

In the vitriloic rant, she actually hits on something that seems to elude almost everyone I know. The stuff in the block quoted section, about hugs, and being asked to stay around, and not wearing out a welcome. That’s what a solid friendship is about, and a solid friendship is the basis for a real lasting relatonship. I should know, mine’s almost 9 years now, and I’m the rebound guy.

Yes, there are ups and downs. There are fights. There’s us doing gross things. Irritating things. Wanting to kill each other over the most trivial shit like not havng scraped off a dis before putting it in the dishwasher.

But do you know what real love is?

It’s waking up next to someone for 5 years, and not stabbing them in the face with a pencil!

… Or just breaking up with them. Which ever works out better for you.

Because, by far and away, the good fun times will always outweigh the bad ones if you actually happen to get along with the person.

So, if your partner won’t play Nintendo with you, if they won’t take you for a country drive to go antiquing when you ask, or if you won’t sit down watch some sort of sport on TV while drinking beer and scrathing your crotch when they ask, there’s a good chance that the relationshp isn’t going to pan out. Find someone you can do those things with.

In the meantime, enjoy the next 364 days of trying to find someone you can do those things with… And if you can’t, fuck it, I’ll throw up some links to a goth/metal/fetish dating site or something.

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