A few quick bullet points

Hello. I haven't blogged lately because I've been having too much fun. I do have what I hope will be a tremendously exciting internet meme coming up very soon, but in the meantime, here are some squibs.

• Old School Unionism - In which an old school Fabian has Ms .45 punching the air and going "Fuck yeah!". It's about the continuing decline in union membership in Australia and the unions' frankly inadequate response, particularly in reference to young and casualised workers. I didn't know the stuff about recruiting shearers in the early days of Australian unionism, so this was a useful eye-opener.

• I've lost about 5kg since leaving uni in mid-2007, and have been utilising my workplace's small but SUBSIDISED gymnasium with inspiration by Stumptuous. Stumptuous provides a feminist view of health and weight training and is refreshingly free of faddism (if you don't count Krista's obsession with squatting). The recent Stumptuous Fitness Model competition was intended to reward women who have made improvements to their fitness in the face of difficulty, perhaps starting from a position of advanced age or obesity. Give it a shot, you're probably nearly as fat as I am anyway.
  

• Just in! Greg Wadley has recently had the opportunity to interview DC Root of ROOT! fame. It's a good interview - obviously done by email, giving both parties the chance to extemporise.

This is my terrible problem: if I sense everyone raving about a band, I'm out of there before you can say Thom Yorke. And I'll wait till about 5 years after they've had their day and disappeared off the face of the planet...and secretly love them! I must have rock-historian disease, or something. I have to enjoy everything retrospectively... I'm also still trying to catch up on artists I never knew during their day -- so last week I was listening to Dusty Springfield, Hunky Dory by Bowie, the Temptations. I had my experimental music phase a long time ago when I was hanging around black clad bookish girls in the vain hope that after a night of Jarry's Ubu trilogy performed by some avante garde troupe in a hell hole somewhere in Fitzroy we could cruise over to the Black Cat for a chinotto and light discussion about how becoming precedes being, and then maybe later she'd let me pop my Converses under her bed.

These days I prefer air guitaring at home to Thin Lizzy. I get about as much sex.

• NEW EYEZMAZE!!! Great idea, too - solve four separate mazes, you win when the family members are brought together. Not original as such, there are lots of games where you need to get multiple figures to the portal, but the fact that the mazes are in completely separate frames fucks up your shit just that little bit more.

Coming very soon - Rufus from Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure...

ROOT! Supposed He Was Out of the Question

Having seen ROOT! several times over the last few months, it was inevitable that the album wasn't going to be as awesome as the live shows. Whereas on stage DC Root sounds angry, or as angry as he ever gets in public, on the album he sounds like he's on Play School. It's like Tony Martin's story about seeing Neil Diamond live, but in reverse - whereas Diamond failed to deliver the line "Good Lord!!!" as promised on Hot August Night, on the otherwise awesome album version of Back to Mine, the bit about wrapping a brick in the cover of a book on management theory to take someone out of their comfort zone is mysteriously missing. Similarly, on School Mum (see below), the line "skinny girls with big fat issues/see you later, ain't gonna miss you" just disappears. Don't get me started on the fact that Crown Tower Blues isn't on the album at all.
Still, not everyone has had the privilege of having seen ROOT! five times in as many months, so those of you who have been cursing us Melbournians to the sky can finally taste the ROOT!y goodness. You'll like it - it's funny, it's bouncy, it bears only a cursory resemblance to country & western. And if you buy it, they'll be able to afford to tour, so you know what you need to do. Give ROOT! some much-needed touring money.

School Mum
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I took the "the temperment type" quiz on gURL.com
		I am... melancholic According to Galen's ancient theory of temperaments, people with melancholic temperaments are often perfectionists, and are analytically oriented. They are said to be sensitive and loving, but may also be hard to please because of their high standards. Read more... What's your temperment?

Got a ROOT! out of it

ROOT! on Best of the Brat, 3RRR, 60Mb

I have no idea how to do streaming audio or any of that fancy-schmancy shit, so there you have it - 1 hour of the singer and guitarist from ROOT! playing their top 5 rooting songs. Highlights include The Legendary Stardust Cowboy and the exquisitely named Smegma (played with the spindle in the wrong hole...).

The next ROOT! show is at the Retreat Hotel, Sydney Road Brunswick, Cup Day November 6th. I shall be there in my fascinator. If I can find one that costs less than $250, I mean.

Root exclamation mark comma the band

An exercise in both kinds of music (country AND western), which TISM fans may find oddly familiar...

ROOT! The Band

(For the benefit of non-Australian readers, the word "root" is a slang term.)

A gig is being played...

Sunday 17th June
Spanish Club
59 Johnston Street Fitzroy (Melbourne, Australia)
2pm kickoff
$15 - it's a big show including Bob Log III, The Meanies, Adam Simmons of Toy Band fame, and a big stack of others, to 'celebrate' the closing of the Spanish Club as a music venue (it's too close to residential homes, apparently).