australian rozie

Poppy King is someone I have long admired. She was doing an in-store appearance at Myer in the City to promote Lipstick Queen, so I thought I’d say “hi”. Then I bought a lipstick (you know what say about recession… lipstick sales go up. Well I’ve bought 3 in the past month).

I finally got to see Beyonce in concert on Saturday 19 September, 2009. It was friggin’ awesome! One of the best concerts I’ve ever been to (and I’ve been to quite a few). There was a fantastic atmosphere, we had great seats, and Beyonce was a shining star! Her singing was fantastic, the costumes were cool, her dancing and the backup dancers were amazing, the all female band were tops, the visuals were… big and sharp (Dave noted that the screen was very high resolution for the size).

Jessica Mauboy (Australian Idol 2006 runner up) and Flo Rida were the supports. I was somewhat disappointed that Flo Rida didn’t come out and duet with Jessica during Running Back. They did a good job of “supporting” Beyonce and the crowd were polite enough to cheer and scream (especially when he took his shirt off and jumped in the crowd).

My favourite tracks of the night were: Crazy in Love, Halo, Single Ladies (especially when they played the montage of all the crazy youtube tributes), the Destiny’s Child Medley and Baby Boy.

I have been a long time fan of Aimee Mann, so when her first ever tour of Australia was announced, I had to be there. You may be familiar with the film Magnolia, in which Aimee Mann contributed much of the soundtrack. Dave doesn’t really get into my favourite female singer/songwriters much, so I went with my Aunty instead.
Aimee was supported by Ben Lee. I like him. I’m not ashamed. Most people I know hate him but I think he writes some cool songs. Anyway, it was great to see him live for the first time as well. You can also download for free some of his Noise Addict stuff if you like.
When Aimee Mann came on stage there was rapturous applause (I guess some of these people had waited more than 10 years to see her). She writes great, deep & meaningful, sometimes witty and sarcastic lyrics, see Wise Up. Her voice is fantastic too. My aunty said, “very pure”. I knew the majority of the songs she sang, and I bought her latest album, @#%&*! Smilers at the show. My favourite songs that she sang were: Wise Up, Save Me, Red Vines, Thirty One Today and her one big hit from the 80s when she was in Til Tuesday, Voices Carry.

I heard about this via Tom last year and was keen to check out their next event. Interesting South gathers a group of random “interesting” people and they get 5-8 minutes to talk about their interesting topic of choice in front of a paying audience. Here’s a quick review of what I thought of some of the speakers:
Anatomy of cool – Remo Giuffré. The host introduced him as the coolest guy he knows (or something like that), I thought, well he used to be cool. Remember he had the REMO boutique department store on Oxford Street, that later became Gowings and is now American Apparel. Remo sold quirky and classic items which were big in the early 90s. Remo General Store also had the coin operated black & white photo booth where my friends and I would regularly take silly photos. Anyway, the moral of the story was, a cool person can make an uncool thing cool, but an uncool person cannot become cool by wearing something that is cool – or something like that.
I also enjoyed the talk by:
Steve Maxwell – Stand up! Be counted! – He brought his own “soap box” aka milk crate.
Miles Merrill – Perform your own stories (reminded me of The Moth). He made everyone stand up and pretend they were a talking alien!
Patrick Hofmann’s – Away with words – Creating Icons and Images To Satisfy All Audiences. it was fascinating to see what children recognise as symbols for the telephone, save a file etc. Not the same thing we Gen X plus folk do!
Cale Bain – How improv can save the world. – Actually I’m getting confused about whether it was this one that reminded me of The Moth. This is what happens when you don’t completely geek out and take notes during the event. Not that it isn’t geeky enough, that I’m blogging about it afterwards.
We also received free snacks from Central Baking Depot and lots of bananas! As well as a Rhodia notebook and a pen. Overall, Interesting South 3 was a very interesting night and I really enjoyed it. It made me think about all those interesting (to me) things that I want to do…

Hello, world!
Well I finally got around to getting Dave to update my Wordpress Theme! As they say, a change is as good as a holiday…
It’s called iBlog2, whaddayathink? I like how it’s got the search feature now, so you can search for every time I’ve mentioned you.
And I’m going to try and blog more often… yeah, yeah…

Here are some of the tracks I played at The Uplift Mofo Party Plan party @ the Hollywood:
Don’t be Cruel – Bobby Brown
The Way You Make Me Feel – MJ
I Wanna Sex You Up – Color Me Badd. Have a look at this live version from Arsenio Hall Show!
I’m Looking for a New Love – Jody Watley
Showing Out (Get Fresh at the Weekend) - Mel and Kim
You Got It (The Right Stuff) – NKOTB
Turn it into Love – Kylie
You Keep me Hanging On – Kim Wilde
Too Young For Promises – Koo de tah
Ride on Time – Black Box

Well done Dave! I remember when we used to laugh/point at those people heading out to the start of the City2Surf early on a Sunday morning… See his official results here.

I borrowed The Mindful Woman By Sue Patton Thoele from the library. I really enjoyed reading it and recommend it to anyone who would like some calming inspiration in your crazy world. I started trying to practice meditation over a year ago, but it’s kind of fizzled out. It is really hard to meditate properly! Anyway, this book gives you small chunks of “gentle practices for restoring calm, finding balance & opening your heart”. I also discovered Google Books today – you can have a really big preview of the book online! Warning, the language is a bit “hippy”, but hippies are pretty chilled out.

Dear Clark Rubber,
Why did you put a brochure for “Wow, fabulous deals on family pools!” in my letterbox when I live in an apartment?
Hmm?

Well, here are my comments on the terrible tragedy that is the premature death of Michael Jackson. I used to love him so much in the 80s! So much! Off the Wall, Thriller and Bad were on heavy rotation in my bedroom. He really was an integral part of my childhood and teenage years, fuelling my obsession with pop and dance music.

Some of my 80s memories of MJ are:

Getting Thriller for Christmas 1983.
Buying a Michael Jackson showbag at the Royal Easter Show! I can’t remember everything it contained, but I still have the little MJ address book. A quick eBay search found MJ tattoos were in the showbag.
Buying MJ badges when I went on holidays to Canada in 1984.
My cousin working for Pepsi when they sponsored the Bad Tour and getting lots of posters for the concert.
Seeing him in concert twice at Parramatta Stadium in 1987 for his Bad Tour. I’ll blog about this separately later.

I always had a soft spot for him after all this time. I still have a penchant for wearing the Bad Tour T-shirt every now and then. Every time one of his crazy antics were reported on the news, I would stop and listen. About 6 months ago, I watched a doco called Michael Jackson: What Really Happened which kind of gave me the heebie jeebies about him. The ironic thing was that someone said they hoped that when MJ died he would be remembered for his music and not being a child molester. Well, it looks like he has according to all the tributes coming in.

Do you know how many times a Michael Jackson song has saved a party? When no-one is dancing at a wedding, nightclub or whatever, all you need to do is play one of his many dance floor fillers and the next thing you know everyone’s going off. It works for me!

Where was I when I heard the news? Standing in my kitchen with the Today Show on. I think I stood there with my mouth open for 60 seconds. Luckily the Today Show kept going on and on about it for another two hours in case it wasn’t clear. It wasn’t until I came home that night and watched the 6pm news that it really hit me. Seeing the reaction of the media and people around the world really showed the enormity of the event. And yes, I’ll admit it, I shed a tear for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson.

Beat It

Originally uploaded by Australian Rozie