OK peoples,
Update. I am definitely getting that tattoo. I want this picture on my arm. I met a lady whop does tats and it’s happening.
Does it hurt?
Do you have tats?
Do they make you feel better?
S.
THe OLD POST
I’m kind of bummed out.
I played a gig last week that SUUUUUUCKED. Technical and tuning problems ate up about a quarter of the time on-stage. Fucking embarassing.
Also, one of my projects at work has gotten reticulous. I should never have agreed to do this but I was desperate for cash at the time. Now I am involved in this giant farce with everyone ducking for cover and me lying to people on the telephone about it. Several of my projects are going fine, but this one is so poorly thought ot that I’m embarrassed to be involved in it.
Xmas and the silly season are coming and I don’t really know anyone fun in Adelaide any more. So instead of a good time, all it really means is more time spent with my stupid in-laws so they can politely monster me and then ‘help’ me solve the problems they invent for me to keep themselves feeling relevant in my life. And then me drinking too much, and sarcastically sniping at them in return.
How come no-one except me ever wants to ask the whole question of why people who obviously don’t like each other should try so hard to spend quality time together? I have managed to bargain it down to one evening next Friday and then one on Xmas Eve, but I fear it will just end up being intensified on those two occassions. It’s all just embarrassing. Honestly, I hate seeing my in-laws.
Also, let’s be honest, this site has slowed to a crawl and I am cheating online elsehere which makes me feel dirty. And I happen to know, so is Daisy. She’s posted FIVE times over at her new collaborative site. Which has so much more vision and focus than this one that it is, well, embarassing.
I want fun goddamnit. I want to spend the summer hanging out with people I like, drinking, going to see bands, smoking pot, writing songs, and playing awesome shows with everyone telling me how good it sounds.
Instead it looks like dog days at work, awkward suburban paddling pool piss parties in the afternoon, and fru-fru cups of tea with good old Auntie Bitchface on the weekend. It makes me want to scream.
Basically, I am not a cool guy and I do not have a cool life. My life is so far away from what I want it to be like, and such a cliche of suburban disappointment, that is is actually embarrassing to me. If I met me I would probably not want to talk to me.
I am considering a tattoo.
chartreuseviolet
Costa
epanchinriot
Great Southern Steve
janet5
maggieloveshopey
miranda bastard
Daisy Anne
Steevo
sjmckenzie
mystery boy
xxadaxx
The DFP 
“Basically, I am not a cool guy and I do not have a cool life. My life is so far away from what I want it to be like, and such a cliche of suburban disappointment, that is is actually embarrassing to me. If I met me I would probably not want to talk to me.”
Dude, that is way too long to put on a tattoo. Seriously.
Yeah, I know Daisy has been cheating but I love her anyway. Besides, I ‘follow’ her on Twitter, so what kind of a pathetic lifeless loser does that make me?
I don’t have any fun either, by the way. That’s why I come here – to stew in resentment over how talented and clever other people are and then think about the fact that I am over forty and don’t have a life. While I’m sorry about your in-law issues, at least you *have* in-laws, which means that you are married, which means that you occasionally have sex or something like that. Did I mention that I’m over forty and I don’t have a life?
So you’d better not leave this place unless you tell me where you’re cheating. And by the way, you have the guts to get up on stage and the talent to make music, regardless of sucking tech problems. So there.
me too, me too. if it’s any consolation, i think you’re cool. probably is not reassuring at all. i could post here more often, but i already feel i subject people to my dog and pony show too much. any of me = too much of me.
i was in a foul mood just this morning after a friend said she “doesn’t really have time or energy to hang out, lol” . this is the same girl that called me over last several semesters all the time to do her homework and to go to ceremony, but now that i’m feeling all old, dejected and disconnected from all of my previous life, she’s wittily busy. well, ha ha ha, not funny.
i too wish i had any kind of meaningful or fun life. i don’t even have a significant other or close friend or artistic project to distract me. but i guess i never significantly connected with anyone at punkplanet anyway, it’s just another microcosm of things i’m not fully included in. truth be told, i had many many manic depressive cycles precipitated by my social issues with punkplanet. but i digress. way too much information. but at least you know there are people who relate, probably too much.
anytime you feel the need to wander the earth, near nebraska, look me up! now on to the beer.
Damn it! These are the last things I wanted to read before going to bed. You people are suppose to make me laugh and feel cool and smart. You’re not holding up your ends of the bargain.
You don’t expect me to come up with another gem about poo-flags on Uranus, do you?
which means that you occasionally have sex or something like that.
Yeah, I have the sex. Quite often really. Actually, that part is good. I feel for you with the non-sex having thing.
anytime you feel the need to wander the earth, near nebraska, look me up! now on to the beer.
Thankyou. I really might do this one day.
The thing is, the last two people I have met that I even wanted vaguely to be friends with are both women from the USA. For example, the lady who is giving me the tattoo is from the USA. Both are kind of outsider characters.
I feel odd in middle-Australian society very often because everyone is like: “hey, we have plentiful beer and sunshine and our economy escaped the GFC so what’s the problem?”
The problem is, they try to talk to me.
God, my social life is seriously dreadful.
I dunno maybe it would be even worse in another country.
But these two U.S. refugees at the moment feel like small fragments of fun and sanity in a situation otherwise filled with the sort of people who assume that the fact that they are comfortable and happy means their views are correct.
I realise that wasn’t very clear. Violet wasn’t the only person who went on to the beer.
he’s been with the world
i’m tired of the soup du jour
he’s been with the world
i wanna end this prophylactic tour
afraid nobody around here
understands my potato
guess i’m only a spudboy
looking for a real tomato
smart patrol
nowhere to go
suburban robots that monitor reality
common stock
we work around the clock
we shove the poles in the holes
(shove it).
Ah, Devo. Devo have helped me in my hour of need. They understood.
Devo was right. Devo knew. And all their crazy prophecies came true.
I have not finished reading this yet, but I just wanted to say that I really like that this has made “paddling pool piss” the most searched term on the blog.
Finished reading. I understand a bit what you’re going through. I’ve been feeling incredibly stifled and directionless lately. I had to drop most of my classes because of being sick, so now all I do is work and sleep. I don’t go to shows because friends of the guy who raped me when I was 17 tend to harass/shit talk/push me at shows. But I don’t know many people outside of punk. So I stay home and read the news. Stay up all night angry and stressed, sleep all day, work. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Anyway, I’m sure I’ve cheered you up quite enough. I think I’m going to try some new project over the winter to get myself feeling better and out of this funk. Maybe that might be a helpful path for you also?
I think you’re cool, Steve!
I know it sounds stupid and naive to say, but things will get better. It might take some time, but it will. Everyone has low points and low moments but then something happens, even something little (or something big) and stuff starts to look up.
My girlfriend felt like shit forever, but then managed to turn just one or two things around, and now shit’s slowly getting better. I thought that I’d be in a slump forever, but I got some good news, and now I know that my personal/professional life will start to get progressively better.
Stay posi, it can’t be like shit forever.
But I don’t know many people outside of punk.
I don’t know anyone in it.
I don’t go to shows because friends of the guy who raped me when I was 17 tend to harass/shit talk/push me at shows.
Well, that puts my shit into perspective. That sounds truly nasty. I’m sorry to hear it.
Really, my main problem is an almost complete lack of people I relate to in my personal life. They’ve all moved away. Now I have my wife, and maybe a few people I just met, and that’s about all. With nearly everyone else, it’s all about “making an effort.” A lot of energy goes out, none comes back in. It’s a a drag. Where’s the fun?
Yeah, I have a few new projects going on, but creativity for it’s own sake is starting to fail on me. I need t feel like I am getting some exposure or am involved in something bigger, otherwise I can’t sustain it. I can’t be the lonely hobbyist forever.
And I know things will get better, except I know they will get worse again too and at the moment I am really not sure why I should bother making an effort with anyone.
Bleh.
Have some fun for me in your winter, my disgruntled, dismembered e-friends.
weird double post
There’s really nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said.
I’ve been in situations similar to yours- and when in those situations, people usually/often unleashed the usual chestnuts: “join a club” “take some classes” blah blah blah.
One thing I’ve noticed, is that, in my experience, meeting people becomes more difficult as you age. Especially, at punk shows. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped going (well, im not going to ’em right now, mainly, because I’m jobless). I’m just hesitant to talk to anyone, unless they look around my age.- and outside of band members, there are very few people over 30 at shows.
Reading Miranda’s post made me feel really sad. In part because I tend to spend a lot of time stuck in my own issues and not really thinking about anyone else (which is one of my issues), but also thinking about how such a creative, interesting and wonderful person can be subject to that kind of pain. AND that that has undermined your ability to enjoy the scene the way you used to. Miranda, I’m sorry. And I would bake you some cupcakes and fill you with hot tea if you were here, for as long as you wanted.
I think it also makes me sad because of what Steve and Steevo have written, too. That connection with something vaguely resembling a punk scene used to be the only connection I really had with music, art, society, whatever. And I have to add that I always felt like an outsider to the San Fran scene in the early 80s, anyway (too shy, too awkward, never ‘cool’ enough). But at least it was something. Not only is it a lot harder now that I’m older – all those high school kids wondering what some old retro-girl is doing at their gigs – but it doesn’t really offer the same kind of connection at all. As much as I have an incredible respect for the kids in this community who are involved in the music and art scene – this place is pretty hostile/indifferent to a lot of that – the connection isn’t there the same way. I’m not that young. I can’t hang out with fifteen year-olds (sorry Reams!), no matter how cool I think they are.
So did I miss it? Is it over? I’m tempted to head to Nebraska, or the DC area, or Geneva, or Adelaide, or somewhere where I could straighten my head out for a bit.
you should all go for it. head to nebraska and we can collectively take over the teenage fauxpunk scene here. you know they’re all doing it wrong. of course i say this in light of the fact that i spent all night in my bro’s basement drinking way too much and watching invader zim. now i feel all shaky and sensitive and stupid, but at least it’s something approximating a life.
miranda, i feel like i should say something to you, although it probably will sound dumb. you must be pretty damn tough, although i know how tiring that is, to be able to still face all these fuckers in pursuit of your own life and interests. i’ve been going over this awful autobio piece i did a couple years ago about my own abduction and rape when i was 13, and it is always fresh, always a twilight zone-vortex kind of thing. my friend from school who wanted to read it actually suggested i try to rewrite it from the perspective of the people who sent me back to my perpetrator, so it’s strange to me that this is the first thing i run into after that email convo. and let me add, yuck, and no way. something seems to be going on here. but at some point i hope and know that you’ll get some comfortable distance on it and it won’t have to be on your mind. i would love nothing more than to go to your town and fuck some people up now. but that’s my version of fun and justice. anger anger anger. but it gets me through. damn that just fucking sucks….
the problem sounds like there’s no concentration of us in any one place. although i’m shy enough to know that even when similar people congregate, they still rarely connect the way they should. i never had a good social experience of the punk scene, even as a teenager, so i can’t really pine for those days. my friends always wind up being people vastly different from myself and usually younger or much older than me. it would be nice to have something in common with someone though, and to know anyone reliable and loyal. but that’s my personal problem of the moment. i’m tired of being fucked over, or people dying on me, or relationship’s running their course. ugh. i am settling for any kind of fun right now, and as bad as it is for me, alcohol is the only reason i can tolerate how artificial most of the world seems. i don’t anticipating that changing. maybe this is getting older. if i had a relationship in friggin ten years it might help, and something physical in the last 8 wouldn’t hurt either. i can attest to how insane-making that is. alright, i’m depressing myself.
suffice it to say, i try to focus on my understanding of the universe and contributing something positive to the world rather than anything personal. it feels unfair and sometimes exhausting because i can’t really get recharged, but life is unfair and i try to accept that. i have fun with the little things and i hope one day that something clicks, particularly artistically, but what i want has nothing to do with the universe’s agenda. but i really do mean everything i say, and i think it would be great if everyone came here and i hung out! i miss the days of the phone messages on that weird line, the taco house, the traveling texans, the pp summits; even though i barely got to participate in those things, they were great ideas. and i’m always up for more!!
You are all welcome in Adelaide, bearing in mind that you would probably hate it. I only live here because it’s cheap. There’s no scene here, at all.
Plans to make my life better:
Get a tatoo (does this work?)
Get more piercings (ditto)
Learn Irish dancing
Go to local shows
Talk less to people I dislike
Join a pistol club and practice shooting bullets at things
Badger more people into reading my writing
Get totally buff, ripped and shredded
Didn’t Paul Kelley once do a song called “Adelaide”? If I recall the lyrics (from twenty-plus years ago), it sounded. . . pretty much as you describe it today.
I would settle for just ripped, myself. And I don’t even know what that means.
Yes, from the Album POST, his best by a mile.
The wisteria on the back verandah is still blooming
And all the great aunts are either insane or dead
Kensington Road runs straight for a while before turning
We lived on the bend it was there I was raised and fed
Counting and running as I go
Down past the hedges all in a row
In Adelaide, Adelaide
Dad’s hands used to shake but I never knew he was dying
I was thirteen I never dreamed he could fall
And all the great aunts were red in the eyes from crying
I rang the bells I never felt nothing at all
All the king’s horses all the king’s men
Cannot bring him back again
Find me a bar or a girl or guitar where do you go on a Saturday night?
I own this town I spilled my wine at the bottom of the statue of Colonel Light
And the streets are so wide everybody’s inside
Sitting in the same chairs they were sitting in last year
(This is my town!)
All the king’s horses all the king’s men
Wouldn’t drag me back again
to Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide, Adelaide…
Funny, my Dad used to live on Kensington Road, and he died under a year ago. I had sort of forgotten how relevant this song was.
PS – Ripped means totally buff and shredded.
I’m sorry – I hadn’t read what you wrote about your Dad until after I responded (flippantly, as usual).
Hey, it’s OK, I added it in a little afterwards.
Ah yes: “And all the great aunts are either insane or dead” was the line that stuck in my head (and wisteria. We had wisteria at my parents’ house when I was growing up. Near the neighbors’ eucalyptus, actually).
I will settle for ripped, then. Unless it takes work.
Where would you get the tattoo? No, they don’t hurt. I have two. I like my tattoos simple. I’m a minimalist in some things.
But the best thing to do on your list is: “Talk less to people I dislike.”
To quote one of the greats:
“In my life
why do I give valuable time
to people who don’t care if I live or die
…
In my life
why do I smile
at people who I’d much rather kick in the eye”
sweeeet. morrissey.
I love you guys. I really do.
The last time I went out dancing, I felt hella old. I think punk clubs the world over are populated by 14 year olds, and I just end up feeling like everyone’s mother. Plus, a lot of the younger bands don’t hit me the way the older ones did. Maybe because I just can’t relate to those lyrics anymore. I can still relate to the ones I grew up with, because the associated memories are always there, nostalgia etc.
I don’t go out of the house unless it is necessary (you all know my reasons) — but, in 2010 I’m moving to Texas in the Summer, and before that I’m going to be doing lots of live readings with my collective. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be perma-housebound.
Miranda — I know how hard that is. But I know you are so far beyond it.
Is this your first tattoo?
I have two, one on each arm.
And of course they fucking hurt, but whatever, we do it for Art’s sake. And looking cool. And because for some reason that we can’t fully explain, it feels like the right thing to do.
Tattoos really don’t hurt that much, but really, the pain level varies greatly depending on your own pain threshold (obviously) and where it’s placed. I will however, add that the healing process sucks, especially when you hit the “itchy stage” (btw- scratching a fresh tattoo is a very good IF you want your tattoo to look shitty), secondly, having tattoos covered up/re-coloured hurts a lot more than a new one. Thirdly, the pain also depends on how well you psyche yourself up for the process.
Honestly, the noise produced by the tattoo gun goes along quite nicely with the sensation it produces, and don’t be surprised if you find yourself: sweating a lot (while getting tattooed) and wanting to get more tattoos- they’re a nice little endorphin rush, but not as much of a rush as piercings. Good luck and remember to follow your tattooists instructions and remember to tip.
I will say that depending on where you get it, it might go smooth enough that you fall asleep. My girlfriend passed out while getting a color back piece on the guy’s table as I was already done and was wandering around munching on candy.