Top 100 - Be Mine, Robyn # 7

Story by Anon

I love this song. In fact I love this whole album. I listened to the album a lot for basically my entire HSC year. The album and song have a certain amount of specialness on that basis alone, Year 12 is a good year. 

But that's not the end. There's a girl (there's always a girl, isn't there?). 

This girl was pretty special. We went to primary school together, I guess I had a little crush on her even then. We were friends in primary school, for as much as that means. But things happen. I hadn't seen her between Year 6 and Year 11 and then happened to stumble upon her at the end of Year 11 at a train station. 

I was getting on the train back to school, she was picking a friend up from the station. She'd just been named School Captain, I was on my way back to be be named prefect (a rank lower than school captain, but my school was better so let's call it even).I was wearing a uniform with blazer, she was wearing a flowery dress. I was pretty excited to be honest. We chatted. It was nice.

For some reason it didn't occur to us to swap phone numbers. Like six months later or thereabouts we 'friended' on Bebo.  Then we reconnected in earnest. Chatting heaps, texting, whatever it is that teens do on their various forms of social media.

We then met up in the last holidays of Year 12. Our first meeting was at some temporary ice skating ring (why it was there I will never know). It was rad.  We hung out heaps, cruising around as 18 year olds do. Went to gigs, parties etc. 

Went back to school for the final bit. Then, post HSC, we spent a lot of time together. Almost everyday we'd be hanging out. We'd be out 4 or 5 nights a week. We played pool regularly during the day, there were a lot of parties on. I don't know exactly what we did, but there was a lot of it. Yeah we were pretty tight there for a while.

I guess I played the role of 'best male friend who wishes it was more than that' to cliched perfection. I could never work out if she was 'interested' in me or not. And I really did find her friendship to be very important and didn't want to fuck anything up.

She drove five hours with me to go to a New Year's / 21st party in Wellington. We hooked up that night. In that most innocent of ways - we kissed. 

She was moving to Melbourne like one week later, I was also moving a couple of weeks later. Nothing eventuated. We never even talked about it again.We kept in contact for a while after moving. Initially a lot. When I realised that Robyn was coming to Australia I was crazy excited. We went to the gig together in Melbourne.

This is where the song comes back in.

It was a pretty small venue, absolutely packed, with my then favourite artist playing, hangin'  with one of my favourite people. So that was a pretty good moment. But at this point I'd pretty much come to terms with 'us' as not going to happen. And Robyn played Be Mine. I loved this song.

I'm not one who listens to lyrics that closely, so having reviewed them prior to writing this it seems I was probably desperately clinging to any sense of relevancy, but if you extract just a few lines, as 18 year old me did in his mind, it certainly seemed pertinent:

Just a sweet pain of watching your back as you walk away / As I'm watching you walk away...There's a moment to seize every time that we meet / But you always keep passing me by / But you never were and you never will Be Mine.

When I hear this song I still think about her a bit. Not a vivid specific memory. More conceptual.


Artwork by Karin

Tropical Punk

It's true. Tropical Punk hits JJJ. Read how the Fighting League began their band as they saw a major need for society to understand the full consequences of sexual driven tropical PUNKS...all from Canberra the tropical capital of the entire world. The Fighting League, Triple J unearthed artist of the week:

All horsies go to heaven

A little while ago my friends horse died, and on that day I walked past my fridge and spied this little painting I did a few years ago. I meant to post it earlier for my gypsy friend and her horse....but here it is now.

Before and after - vegetable garden

Top 100 - Smells Like Teen Spirit, Nirvana # 6

Story by Alex


My first ever surf trip we camped on the beach at Bicheno. It was cold, it rained, the tide washed away our stuff while we were asleep, the campfire burnt down our tent and sleeping bags ... and we listened to Nirvana and drank vodka to keep warm.


Artwork by Karin

Bill Cunningham - New York

Do you know anything about Bill Cunningham? I didn't, and my goodness what a story about a wonderful, gentle, inspiring and generous man. Credit to Richard Press who captured Bill with the sensitivity he deserves. A wonderful documentary - go see it at the cinema for this film is a thing of beauty.

Balloons and confetti make me happy

Who cares that it was like the gig in 2009. I could see this show once a year for the rest of my life and be mesmerised with happiness each and every time. Such a thing of beauty, the sky raining with colour, and beautiful lyrics filling the air. The Flaming Lips are generous, creative souls and there is a lot to be said for spending your life making people happy.

Do You Realize - that happiness makes you cry

Do You Realize - that everyone you know someday will die

And instead of saying all of your goodbyes - let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It's hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun don'-go down
It's just an illusion caused by the world spinning round

Reminds me of Sydney and Californian coast all at once

Sunny days in Sydney town

The hippest cats at Harvest

Two wrongs...

Don't make a right

Nearly 52 books in 52 weeks

Would you believe I came so close to doing this, but because I was so dedicated to hitting the target I just didn't have time to write about it...True!! I did get 3 books finished and 49 partway finished. In addition to this I read lonely planet guides to the Philippines, Turkey, and India. I also read 3 cookbooks, and a design book about sheds. Aside from books I have read 43 blogs regularly, so I believe folks, by my calculation this exceeds the original target. Success!

Drive

Like Goodfellas, but with more driving.

Attack The Block

Taffy Bubblegum suggested this film (he was planning tickets to surprise his girl), and I'd managed to not go to the other three films I'd planned to as part of the Canberra film festival - so along I went with. Attack The Block was funny, scary, cringeworthy and had a great original soundtrack. I felt sad for the dog. Go see it.

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

The internet tells me this album turned 20 yesterday. Flip.

Top 100 - Everybody wants to rule the world, Tears For Fears # 5

Story by Daniel


There were a lot of good songs in 1985.  That was the year that I left home for university (those who know me may be surprised that I'm actually that old), and living semi-independently on campus at ANU. It was one of those self-catering residential colleges with a huge communal kitchen and dining area. The kitchens were grouped in bays of 12 lockers where students stored their pots and pans, crockery and foodstuffs, sharing two stoves and a fridge.  Some of the bays had those cheap radios that were always turned on, often to commercial stations 2CC or 2CA for the music (and in those days, on AM channels).  Everybody Wants to Rule the World was a huge hit for Tears for Fears in 1985, reaching number two in Australia.  The song could often be heard from some corner of the kitchens.

The first couple of bars of the song starts off with a distinctive guitar riff followed by an equally distinctive drumming before launching into vocals by Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith, "Welcome to your life, there's no turning back..."  That summed up living independently and away from home for the first time.  Young, naive and with a lot to learn, we all thought we wanted to rule the world...

Artwork by Karin

The Canvas Project: a visual encyclopedia

Remember the Canvas Project ? It was where artists from all over the world were sent 3 canvases and 3 words. The aim was to create a visual encyclopedia. The catalogue arrived today, which I wasn't expecting - and is a fantastic a - z of works and words. I'm on page 46...h for hands-on.