My Birthday

It was very nice to be together.

Mum made my favourite carrot cake, adorned with the blue toy bike and white ‘happy birthday’ sign that’s sat upon every birthday cake I’ve ever had, and kept saying things like, ‘you stay there and talk Fiona, I’ll get the tea’.

Dad read out his latest musing about the importance of time spent together as the single blue candle flickered down to the wick.

Fiona was fresh out of a course at tafe that she’s doing to become a counsellor.  Perhaps most importantly, her presence allowed me to sit and watch and listen, and that’s my preferred position.

And with the allotted slices of carrot cake eaten, it was Fiona who turned up the volume on Midnight Train to Georgia so that we could dance and sing along to Gladys Knight and the Pips.

Every bit of it a familiar tradition. It was in its familiarity that we sat, and watched each other.

Long Distance I and II by Tony Harrison

Long distance I

Your bed's got two wrong sides. You life's all grouse.
I let your phone-call take its dismal course:
Ah can't stand it no more, this empty house!
Carrots choke us wi'out your mam's white sauce!

Them sweets you brought me, you can have 'em back.
Ah'm diabetic now. Got all the facts.
(The diabetes comes hard on the track
of two coronaries and cataracts.)

Ah've allus liked things sweet! But now ah push
food down mi throat! Ah'd sooner do wi'out.
And t'only reason now for beer 's to flush
(so t'dietician said) mi kidneys out.

When I come round, they'll be laid out, the sweets,
Lifesavers, my father's New World treats,
still in the big brown bag, and only bought
rushing through JFK as a last thought.

Long distance II  

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

I Couldn't Agree With Me More - Episode 3

This week on I Couldn't Agree With Me More, Ray and Ray tackle:

1. The Tah Tahs
2. Anthony Mini-Cello retires
3. Alan Border and those Brisbane Heat
4. AFL - The Coward Elbow
5. Israel and Gaza solved!
6. Ray Regrets - The Cyclist
7. This Week in Politics - Scotty Morrison and Pyne-O-Clean
8. Ray Reads - Nelson Mandela's (very) Long (and frankly a bit boring) Walk to Freedom

Damien Jurado - Rachel & Cali

yum

I Couldn't Agree With Me More - Episode 2

Episode 2 of 'I Couldn't Agree With Me More' now up.

This week, Ray and Ray get stuck into:

1. The Empire Games
2. The Lawn Bowls
3. Trouble In Tigerland
4. Shithouse Rugby Union
5. Coward Punching Eddie
6. Ray Reads - Les Mise-Rab-Les
7. Ray Regrets - Mudgee Country Women's Society

Gonzales - Gentle Threat

Just...

Lights off. 

Silence.

And this:

How cultures around the world think of parenting

http://ideas.ted.com/2014/07/15/how-cultures-around-the-world-think-about-parenting/

Interesting ideas on parenting from different cultures.…

I like the dutch: Ii you teach your children to read before they get to school, they won’t have any friends.

Thanks Holland. 

Kabhi Kabhie

This is strangely haunting.

The songs is from a 1976 Bollywood movie called Kabhi Kabhie. In the film, a poet, Amit, presents his first book of verse titled ‘Kabhi Kabhie’ to his beloved Pooja as a wedding gift after she tells him that her parents have decided to marry her off to an industrialist's son. Ironically, Amit turns out to be Pooja's husband-to-be's favourite poet and he recites this song to her on their wedding night, oblivious to the fact that its writer is the man who still holds his bride's heart.

This song is about unrequited love and I think you can hear that in the performances of Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh. The people you see in the video below are the actors from the film. In Bollywood, it's commmon for songs in films to be dubbed by what are known as 'playback singers'. Lata Mangeshkar and Mukesh are two of Bollywood's most well known playback singers. I can't help but feel that subject of the song, unrequited love, is appropriate for these singers who's voices are allowed to sweep through India's cinemas and lounge rooms, but who's faces remain unseen.

Schmulz-ometer - 11/10
Haunt-ometer - 9/10

kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n khayaal aata hai	Sometimes the thought crosses my mind
ki jaise tujhko banaaya gaya hai mere li'e	that you've been made just for me.
tuu ab se pahale sitaaro.n me.n bas rahii thii kahii.n	Before this, you were dwelling somewhere in the stars;
tujhe zamiin pe bulaaya gaya hai mere li'e...	you were summoned to earth just for me...
kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n khayaal aata hai...	Sometimes the thought crosses my mind
ki yeh badan ye nigaahe.n merii amaanat hai.n...	that this body and these eyes are kept in trust for me...
ye gesuu'o.n kii ghanii chha.nv hai.n merii khaatir	that the dark shadows of your hair are for my sake alone,
ye ho.nTH aur ye baahe.n merii amaanat hai.n...	that these lips and these arms are charged to my care...
kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n khayaal aata hai	Sometimes the thought crosses my mind
ki jaise bajtii hai shahanaa'iyaa.n sii raaho.n me.n...	just as the shehnaii sounds on the roads...
suhaag raat hai ghuu.nghaT uTHaa rahaa huu.n mai.n...	that it is my wedding night, and I am lifting your veil...
simaT rahii hai tuu sharmaake merii baaho.n me.n...	You're shrinking for shame, blushing in my arms...
kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n khayaal aata hai	Sometimes the thought crosses my mind
ki jaise tuu mujhe chaahegii umra bhar yuu.n hii	that you'll love me like this our whole lives through,
uTHegii merii taraf pyaar kii nazar yuu.n hii	that you'll always lift a loving gaze to me like this.
mai.n jaanta huu.n ki tuu gair hai magar yuu.n hii	I know you're a stranger, but even so,
kabhii kabhii mere dil me.n khayaal aata hai...	sometimes the thought crosses my mind,

Bon Iver - I hate you

For years now I have tried to express it.

I've written it down on scraps of paper since I was 16.  I've tried to talk it out with my father on the back porch of our house in South Turramurra.  I've submitted pieces to various magazines searching for it.

The push and pull of it. Catching glimpses of understanding from the wind, and feeling - just for a moment - warmed.  Only for the next gust to bring with it more questions, and the cold confusion returns.

Well. Bon Iver just wrote it all out of him. In 4 minutes, and 197 words.




ever since i heard the howling wind
i didn’t need to go where a bible went
but then you know your gifts seemed heaven sent
just lead me to a choler, dad, thats the thing

i don’t know how you house the sin
but you’re free now
i was never sure how much of you i could let in
am i free now
won’t you settle down baby here your love has been
heavenly father
it’s defiantly lava
why you don’t carry other names

heard about a day where it dropped the Know
to go another day as we learn to close
cause I’m a known coward in a coward wind
but you’re free now
you turn around now and you count to 10
to see you go now
well i know now honey that i can’t pretend
heavenly father
is whose brought to his autumn
and love is left in end

i just been up here for god damn years
can you see now?
filling up hulls with god damn fears
i am free now
i know about it darling i been standing here
heavenly father
is all that he offers
a safety in the end

Clueso - zu schnell vorbei

Clarke and Dawe reviews the greatest flop in Australian film history: the Australian government

They just keep punching them out. This week's is a good'un.

Number one dads releases new album

Big Scary frontman Tom Iansek will release his second solo album, About Face, in August.
About Face is the followup 2011’s Man Of Leisure– which Iansek released under the name Dads.

The album’s lead single ‘Return To’ is a collaboration with singer Tom Snowdon of Melbourne indie crew Lowlakes.

Put it in your brain. Yum.

If ye love me - Thomas Thallis

Even if...

Even if this is all Tallis did with his life. Even if this was all we had to judge him by. From a lifetime; these 2 mesmeric minutes of bliss. I would not but conclude that it was, all of it, worthwhile.



If ye love me
Keep my commandments
And I will pray the father
And He shall give you another Comforter
That he may abide with you forever
Even the spirit of Truth

Stillways - Steve Bisley

Death.

There were other fires in other years. People died in them.

One family, new to the district, were overcome and incinerated in their house. They were found all in one room in a charred huddle. The mother and baby had melted together to be forever as one. The father, at the top of the pyre, had tried to protect them all with a wide embrace that would last for eternity. We all went to look, to lean what sadness meant.

The Milk Carton Kids - Memphis

The Milk Carton Kids - Michigan

That chorus...

Keinen Zentimeter - Clueso

German pop - what the? Yeah, I know, I know. Give it a listen though. It is tres 90s and damn catchy.

Sing along, you know the words: Ich will keinen zentimeter mehr zwischene uns...

Procedure for Disposal - Clive James

It may not come to this, but if I should
Fail to survive this year of feebleness
Which irks me so and may have killed for good
Whatever gift I had for quick success -
For I could talk an hour alone on stage
And mostly make it up along the way,
But now when I compose a single page
Of double-spaced it takes me half the day -
If I, that is, should finally succumb
To these infirmities I'm slow to learn
The names of lest my brain be rendered numb
With boredom even as I toss and turn,
Then send my ashes home, where they can fall
In their own sweet time from the harbour wall.

Arstidir sing in a train station

Love.

Richard Hawley - Baby you're my light

I definitely want to play this at my wedding. Pete on lead guitar. Andrew on bass. Hugh on egg shaker. Fie on Cello. Luke on drums. It's all planned. But who plays slide guitar?