‘They’re fucking gross, man. Look, I love beautiful girls too. I think everyone should be free to have their knee socks and their sweaty shorts, but I’m over it. I’m over this weird, exhausted girl. I’m over the girl that’s tired and freezing and hungry. I like bossy girls, I always have. I like people filled with life. I’m over this weird media thing with all this, like, hollow-eyed, empty, party crap.’

– Amy Poehler on American Apparel

And she was content. An ink flooding sky meant nothing but the birth of future, the unravelling of next and the promise of a new and welcoming day. She was unaware of you tearing her from her own solitary, prying her open until there was nothing left to hide. Your voice, your words, your constantness grew inside her, whispering their way through her body. And it was steady and filling. She inhaled you, not out of want or desire, but out of need. Her body compelled her to breathe and so she did, and every cavity, every hole once burrowed, every wound now scarred and healed was gaping and susceptible, stripped and naked.

And you suffocated her with your closeness, and in her serenity, her sheer naivety, she still could not hear herself gasping. That the air was becoming thinner, the ground that once held her so firmly was now sinking and the floating reeds were now still, held in a single moment by the closing world around them. he field, a fading picture, once clear and defined now melted between her fingers and she could not make it stay, she could not wish it to be what it was. And suddenly she was present, a statue amidst a swirling vortex of colour. She watched the horizon blend into nothingness and the taste of life disappear from her lips until she was dry and cold. She could only hear her heart, tremoring, scared, retreating from a battle now lost.

She saw the sky turn, a thick black canvass giving way, collapsing into a menagerie of reds and blues.
And right then, right there as she listened for something more, she knew for a very brief moment that she was not the only one in the field.

BLW

The first time I saw Donavon he had the most distinguishable moustache, with immaculate curling and outstanding symmetry without being at all genteel. He turned up to Centennial Park to support Jack Johnson, clad in leather pants, a button down red shirt and a cowboy hat. I thought Mick Jagger and Tim McGraw had run off and had a love child. He was smooth and as the rain fell he played Swing on Down to an overwhelming mass and I knew, at that very moment, that Donavon Frankenreiter would break my heart.

With his new and fourth studio album Glow floating in the virtual stream, Donavon once again returned to Australian shores for the fifth time to unleash the casual, infectious, heart lifting rhythms he is so well known for. Playing to a sun-bleached sea of surfing misfits, Mona Vale Hotel on Sydney’s Northern Beaches could not have been a more appropriate venue for him to ring out his new tunes as he made his merry way, surf board in hand, up and down Australia’s East Coast.

As darkness dispersed, beer taps deployed, fake IDs flipped around and general good times got underway Sticky Fingers, a psychedelic rock band from Sydney, opened the show. With long locks curtaining faces and eyes shut, two baby-faced boys bellowed out a well-versed mix of soul, reggae and indie rock. Bringing quiet to the room and chills to the spine, it was something akin to watching the Kooks when they were still unsigned and doing it for the love. Playing their own songs, Headlock and Juicy Ones as the room filled out, Sticky Fingers warmed the atmosphere, along with a few swooning female hearts, and brought my friends and I to the conclusion that they were indeed good, and possibly too many years our junior. The band, now steadily amassing a strong fan base, have previously supported the likes of Art vs Science, Amy Meredith and Children Collide and it wasn’t hard to see why.

With a well-lubricated room, Donavon stepped out onto the stage. A little more weathered than I had last remembered and a few more kegs in the engine, but he was the same moustached, shaggy haired surfer that originally sucked me in to the world of laid-back, coastal tunes; the same music that inspires community and a brief detachment from the gravity of the world. Wearing a genuine smile and striking the first few chords of Free, the writhing congregation began to sway harmoniously at his feet and for just a moment that was all that mattered. Once again, rain fell outside and the room was congested with nothing but waving beer cups and hugging sun-kissed kids.

The night flowed and Donavon brought his new album to the forefront, playing Glow, Hold On,Keeping Me Away and Shadows. Without a hint of pretence, his songs are always exactly what they say they are and if you were lucky enough to lose yourself in the night you wouldn’t notice that each one was strikingly similar to the next in tempo, structure and rhythm.

But Donavon isn’t part of the new age, soy latte drinking, and hipster-moving scene. Sure, just like his buddy Jack Johnson, he gets paid to be a free surfer and an all round fun guy, but he’s not tied to the visual expectations that the ‘uber-cool’ Sydney community might demand of him. His songs reverberate light, melodic and carefree lyrics and are matched with husky acoustic vocals to reassure an identity-searching crowd that everything is going to be just all right. And that’s why we all fall in love with him.

When people begin to move from swaying to shaking, to downright old fashioned hip swinging, Donavon slips some well loved oldies into the mix playing his soft rock likes of Call Me Papa, It Don’t Matter and Heading Home, which only inspires the more intoxicated to jump on the stage and join in, much to Donavon’s pleasure and encouragement. When Donavon sends Swing on Downsoaring through the room, people tip their heads back in utter euphoria. Arms go over shoulders in campfire camaraderie and others raise their hands to the roof and begin to make a cult like butterfly motion, back and forth, a sign also related to the airy and sunny acoustic beats of Jack Johnson.

After a long extended encore he sends his people off into the night to enjoy fine wine and finer company. I, on the other hand, return home to wallow and prepare myself for his departure and what will inevitably be his long awaited return.

BLW

Feel free to also view this here: http://musicfeeds.com.au/gig/donavon-frankenreiter-mona-vale-hotel-19032011/

Dear Mr McDonald,

I have recently visited one of your fine dining restaurants and feel that perhaps some of your more highly qualified staff are going rather under-appreciated. It would be very gracious of you if you could kindly hear out my concerns.

On Sunday morning at 4am, which I hear is the best time to experience your menu as it pulls some of society’s most notable of characters into it’s depths, like Brett Stewart- I hear he says you have the best beef in town!. Anyway, my colleagues and I encouraged our driver, whom I believe was middle eastern, to chaperone us to your establishment for some gourmet delight. However, when we arrived we were not allowed entry but asked to use the ‘drive through’, some sort of innovative mechanism now being used in Hatted restaurants due to over capacitation, i’m sure. If I had known this was the case I would have booked ahead.

Nonetheless, this is not the problem.

On being served at the ‘drive through’ we were greeted by a very hairy man, with mutton chops and an incredibly robust gut, whom I believe went by the name of Nick even though his name tag said Nicolas. I’m not sure that you know this Mr McDonald, but Nick is surely at least 28. I was under the impression that your policy on employment was to grow and groom them while they are young and then set them free in to the wide world of gourmet dining.That is what Matt Moran does over at the Paddington Inn Bistro, but I’m sure you know this and have swapped recipes time to time. So you understand my shock when I learnt that Nick was not even the head chef but merely the front of house. Have you kept Nick all this time for your own selfish desires? For the last 16 years? You’re only meant to clip their wings, not cut them off.

Not to mention that your exotic dishes aren’t proving advantageous to Nicks life beyond work. I fear that he needs to have a health check up very soon. He seems a nice fellow though, very eager to please. He wanted to broaden our cultural experiences so he provided us with these julienne potatoes from France. They were delightful. But I was not Happy after my Meal like you promise. All I could think about was poor hairy Nick, forever doomed to live at home with his Golden Girls mother and navigate his way around skinny, acne ridden teenagers all day wondering why he didn’t take up that internship when he was 15 at the highly famed poultry house, KFC. And although Nick seemed to enjoy the idle banter with me and my colleagues as we joked about the current state of our economy, he seemed very shy. Perhaps you could create a window for him that doesn’t frame his head so harshly. And perhaps you could provide him with a uniform without vertical striping. I don’t think it’s very flattering on him. I’m sure Nick feels the same way.

Apart from that, your take on modernism is exciting. I like that you aren’t afraid to use bold colours in your decor and the minimalism in your furnishings is just genius. Your use of pop art, statues and the art deco nature of your beaming restaurant sign is also inspiring. If you look after your staff well, I’m sure you will have a booming business on your hands in no time.

Kind regards,

Gossling. One to watch.

Forever yours………..

Forever yours,

BLW

It’s not a fleeting contemplation, this is a conclusion purely drawn from example. There’s an epidemic occurring; mothers have lost their baby bellies and found a new sense of self-righteousness. The pram is now like an Access All Areas pass.

Whether it is walking along a path, meandering around shopping centres or strolling in parks, mothers with prams have the general attitude of ”you’re in my way and if you don’t move I will run you over with my three-wheeled chariot of newborn fire, then I’ll give you a dirty look after I’ve sufficiently rendered your toes lifeless”.

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If you women – and you know who you are – haven’t yet noticed, the general population is clearly disgruntled by your rude and deserving manner. We know that your children are the only things that matter to you in the world, you would die for them, you would kill for them, etc, etc. Surely you can extend a small thank you to the people that make way for your little bundle of joy, the ones that clear the path and straighten out the hiccups.

Surely you can throw a wave to the old guy who stops his car so you can push your pram across the road that doesn’t have a marked pedestrian crossing; surely you can thank the young girl in the supermarket who helps you carry your pram up the stairs even though she is in a rush. But no, all we hear instead is, ”I am fertile, hear me roar!” Well done, genius – we can all have sex without a condom.

Yes, life is a beautiful thing. And, that’s exactly what a baby is, new life, but we all have rights and responsibilities. A baby in one’s arms does not negate the need to be considerate to others. Nor does it afford you the right to be rude or place expectations on society for the way you should be treated.

What about the poor women that can’t have children, the ones that have tried every option available but still have not had success? They probably don’t resent you; they probably step out of the way at a crowded event so you can push your glory buggy through the cluttered human mess.

Surely, at the end of the day with no new life to go home to, they are the ones that need a smile and a thank you.

BLW

See the original:

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/hey-mum-push-that-pram-not-your-luck-20110223-1b5pl.html

It is a dangerous beginning to talk about the colour of skin in a public sphere. But, there is much to be said about having a tan; it is essential when wearing a flowing white maxi in the summer, it is best when natural, and most importantly, it is the basecoat to skin cancer. So, given the unavoidable media coverage of Australia’s ‘Anti-sun exposure’ campaign, it is surprising that Melanotan would be making such an obvious debut as of late.

Melanotan, also known as the ‘Barbie Drug’, is a substance developed in America to mimic the action of melanin in our bodies. It is a man-made synthetic hormone injected in to the skin, generally around the stomach region, which boosts the skins natural ability to darken. Melanin is a natural substance found in all humans and it influences our colouring. People with more natural melanin have darker skin and those without so much melanin will have a paler skin tone. It is produced naturally but production is also stimulated by exposure to the sun.

It’s not a hobby for a genius, lying in the sun all day, but it’s a tragedy of the commons. Tanorexia has been floating through this country for years and just when we were on a return to bourgeois snobbery, where a paler palette was the sign of beauty and class, we are reeled back in by the grips of the commercial market that is lifestyle drugs. We all need our Vitamin D and for most people, the sheer act of being in the sun is a pleasure that does not need explaining, but this takes tanning out of bounds and straight off the cliff. While using Melanotan, just like if you eat a bunch of carrots or apply one of those glorious supermarket-tanning creams that’ll leave a sour smell for days, your skin will turn an eerie yellow if you don’t spend some serious hang time in the sun. Many recent users of the drug have also noted a type of patching that occurs where their skin will become noticeably darker in certain areas rather than others.

See the full story at Lipmag

I haven’t smelt roses in six months. The last thing the boy gave me was the remote and even that’s dependent upon conditions. Everywhere I look girls bleed frowns and swing bare wrists in the wind. Lonely tears drop but are desiccated by the Visa bill. The naked silk lining of our purse is the symmetrical emptiness of our hearts. Someone give the economy some anti-depressants; we want to be loved again.

It’s undeniably egocentric, I know, who would compare one’s happiness to the current state of their, or their lover’s bank account. But, nothing warms a girl’s heart like a pretty little gift and love has become known to encourage this altruistic giving. Most importantly, love-gifts beget a rise from feminine despondency and make us feel, well, loved. Lets face it; we’re poor. Some of us have six dollars to last us til next Tuesday. Our phone bills are backing up and the old saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’ doesn’t work when your draws are over flowing with second and third notices for the electricity bill. The attempts of Labor to boost the economy obviously aren’t working. Forget the past sullied attempts of KRudd to increase our spending with his ingenious stimulus package in 2009. All that reminded me of was the wiry old man that used to hang on my street corner handing candy out to kids. It’s sweet while it lasts.

Still on the periphery of the economic crisis, crime rates have gone up in the last year, which has meant; increased robberies, break and enters and car theft while merchant spending has more than gone down. So, not only am I getting my Karen Walker sunnies stolen from my Astra late one night, but inevitably, there is no equilibrium for me and now I have burnt retinas and no chocolates to bury my sorrows in.

See the full story at Lipmag

BLW