I condemn gigs that are on a week night where the headline act doesn’t come on til (allegedly) 10.45pm. And I condemn the fact that my fellow M Ward fan friends aren’t coming with me because it’s a school night. And I condemn the fact that I’m bored twiddling my thumbs with a glass of wine not wanting to see the support acts.
Anyway, time again to condemn. So here’s a sixth open condemnation thread. What’s getting up your goat this week? Which evil political, cultural, social and religious phenomena need condemnation? How has 2007 annoyed you so far?
You can condemn anything except M. Ward himself. And no doubt I’ll cheer up after I’ve had a shower, wended my way down Brunswick St, had a slice of vego New York pizza, and entered the cavernous Zoo to enjoy the gig…
A mate came through with a ticket to the Ashes tomorrow. I have absolutley nothing to condemn at all.
I condemn the midnight curfews that restricts bands that come on at 10:40 to playing under 90 minutes and bad public transport that makes it difficult for you to get home after gigs.
I can’t condemn the public transport, really, Oz, because I live about 15 minutes walk away from the Valley. But I condemn on your behalf the fact that the state government introduced nightline trains and buses only operate on Friday and Saturday nights.
I condemn for now and evermore people who drive cars in the bike lanes and then swear at cyclists for getting in their way. Pollutants!
A good friend of mines sends numerous letters to her local Councillor condemning such people!
I condemn the fact my boss expects me to work rather than watch what sure seems like it will be the last day of the ashes series, not to mention McGrath, Warne, and Langer’s last day of Test cricket.
I condemn the mould growing in my entrance hall and the real estate agent who said they’d send me info about how to fix it, but that only has obvious ideas that i’m already doing. oh and myself for not working on my chapter that’s due … next week.
I condemn the fact that at 8 pm in Adelaide it was still 34 degrees.
I condemn him playing the same night in Perth as the Mountain Goats – first two gigs I wanted to see in about five months.
Brisbanites get surprised when I explain to them that Adelaide is hotter than Brisbane in summer. But then I go through the concept of:
Monday 35
Tuesday 33
Wednesday 37
Thursday 40
Friday 36
And then I explain about the grey, depressing winters down south as well.
It’s a balmy 9 here today, can’t really complain. And, it’s going up to 11 tomorrow! (Oh for some 34!)
I condemn 2008 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6222153.stm
I condem the constant passage of time. Time should be variable. I should be able to halt time when things are not going right. I should be able to restart time when I am ready to enjoy its passage.
As I mentioned to Bono just the other day, I condemn fucking activists.
I further condemn the fact that, unlike Britain, Australia doesn’t know how to deal with its extreme summers ie air conditioning for all…Having such luxuries might have helped me avoid the hideous sleep I endured last night in stifling heat.
I condemn noun/adjective ambiguity. Does the phrase describe the activists’ unmentionable activities or is it simply peppered purple prose?
At least its a dry heat.
I condemn my real estate agents too. We are trying to leave our rental property and it appears that they’ve gone on two weeks’ leave and closed the place without informing anyone. This means that we can’t deliver the notice of termination to them until they return, costing us an extra two weeks’ rent even though we’ve found another place already and my partner is currently unemployed.
At least I assume this is what the bastards will claim, considering they’ve been “going to” fix the hole in our wall for 12 months now. It lets in elements, fleas and slugs. I don’t like it.
*resumes calm demeanour*
I condemn the failure of the Labor Party to take a stand against uranium mining, at the same time as they fail to explain why nuclear power is wrong for us, but OK for other nations. It’s not just a matter of economics, but of immorally exporting nuclear risk.
Having read Peter Garrett’s recent piece in The Age, I wrote to the paper asking for ‘part two’ as follows:
(Published in Wednesday’s letters)
I condemn purple proseurs’ dismissal of the gerund’s deliciously subtle indeterminacy.
I condemn the fact that Australia got another wicket just as I turned my back to go and get breakfast. Can’t they wait for me?
A few things:
- I condemn teenage girls who go to gigs AND TALK IN THE QUIET SONGS. STFU already. I did not pay $50 to listen to you talk about your new goddamn phone. I came to LISTEN to the band.
- I condemn my excema prone skin and the fact that knitting seems to exacerbate it on my hands, esp. wool.
- I condemn the Fly By Night Club for not having the fracking Neko Case tickets on sale already and she’s playing in two weeks! Jaysus H. Christ on a crutch people, get your shit together!
- Finally, I condemn the fact that Australian TV sucks and that I am up to season 3 of Battlestar Galactica but I will probably have to wait ages until it comes out on DVD and I want one of the channels to put it on here, preferably on Tuesday nights, so I can watch it in a timely fashion.
Dear Dark Helmet,
I think you should rethink ‘purple proseur’ given the colour scheme of this blog!
Do you have any specific examples?
‘Fucking’ is the verbal pause of choice for today’s modern speakers of English, from New York to Newtown. I condemn, though, the screenwriters of Deadwood for overusing it in the cause of shock.
Trevor Haken and Chook Fowler did it far more effectively, casually, and authentically, on their little candid camera show. Kiddies: wanna hear some class cuss words? Slip the nearest NSW detective a gorilla and fucken’ get in on the fucken’ laugh, ya cunts.
I condemn pseudonymous bloggeurs too lazy to explain their tiresome in-jokes.
Dark Helmet, I see your schtick is as worn as mine. I condemn you for it.
Kate, have you seen the BG “webisodes” downloadable here:
http://www.scifi.com/battlestar/video/index.php?cat=webisodes&vid=30793
They’re only a few minutes long each and form a bridge between seasons 2 and 3. They might whet your appetite while you’re waiting for Oz TV to screen season 3 (if they ever do!).
Of course you could bypass TV and use TEH INTERNETS to obtain ad-free season 3 episodes. But that violates copyright laws and is something I would never *cough* *cough* ever do myself!
Audrey, have you ever been in the London Underground on a dizzyingly hot 25 degree day? Or bought a bottle of drink from an English shop at similarly high temperatures and discovered it’s lukewarm?
I condemn English refrigeration.
I condemn oxymorons.
Paulus, yes, I’ve watched ‘em.
Also, I condemn myself for not knowing how to download TV shows illegally. Not that I would, if I could.
I condemn Shaun for the reasons stated in his post.
I also condemn holidays for eventually ending
That would be the result of baiting the master once too often, young Piebaulker.
I condemn you for underestimating the power of the Schwarz.
I’m afraid I’ve no choice but to condemn M Ward for reportedly offering this almost Hiltonesque moment:
“Most of the books I like, most of the films I like, most of the music I listen to have a lot of abstractions in it,” he says.
“I think abstraction is necessary for people trying to say what they’re trying to say and don’t want it to be narrowed down to one specific interpretation … but I think there are universal truths that somebody living on the west coast would believe is true and somebody on the east coast would not believe is true.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/gig-reviews/m-ward/2007/01/04/1167777204278.html
I condemn Nancy Pelosi, kiddie killer http://www.wonkette.com/politics/funny-pictures/nancy-pelosi-now-free-to-hammer-children-226200.php
I condemn Cricket Australia for programming the five tests over the shortest period possible, not allowing enough time to absorb the victories without the next test starting
I condemn Cricket Australia for 50 over cracket (correct spelling)
I condemn Cricket Australia rushing my summer.
I condemn the AFL for having such a short season, starting so late
Bugger, I’ll have to be social
Robert Merkel [at 11.32pm]:
Sometimes I might disagree with you on social or poitical issues but this time I am on your side (even though I’m no cricket fan).
Doesn’t your boss want productivity improved by a bit of give-and-take with the staff? Is his/her management style Taylor’s Scientific or Stalin’s Stakhanovism?
Fat Freddy’s Drop doing a gig in Sydney on a Sunday night with a support and not coming on until after midnight. Unforgiveable no matter how good they were and yes they were good.
I condemn myself for not installing an air-conditioner. It is currently 36C in my second story west facing computer room here in Thornbury, Melbourne.
I also condemn myself for planting a deciduous shade tree under the window of my computer room seven years ago. Last week I noticed the roots of the bloody thing had cracked my front porch, so I’ve had to cut it down.
Sometimes it isn’t easy being a good greeny.
Kate, Neko Case is playing at the Zoo later this month so I condemn on your behalf the fact that tix in Perth aren’t on sale yet.
I also condemn the Zoo for having terrible acoustics.
And I condemn Megan Washington for telling me last night she’s moving to Melbourne, though it’s good news for Melbourne jazz lovers!
http://www.meganwashington.com/
http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=56624691
I condemn to the lethal chamber EE \’Doc\’ Smith for being such a spineless appeaser always slanting his words in favour of that do-gooding, nosey parker Civilisation. Does he know not that only force is all and that force will always prevail?
And always with the lensmen – they can read minds, they have mighty strength, incorruptable, good dancers, nice to children, blah, blah, blah.
Well I can dance too and I can read the mind of that seven sector callout in the thigh-split sheath dress over by the smorgasbord. Juicy!
I condemn my boss for not paying more attention to what the expats get up to when he grew up in Hong Kong, and then he might appreciate my pain at not being able to watch the cricket!
Condemned are those who combine humid heat with lack of imagination, Steve Munn. You have a fridge, I assume, use it for beer or chilled drinks.
In the era of the British Empire and Captial-C Colonialism proper, gentlemen would have shot each other in battle, if they weren’t too busy shooting each other civilly at peace, for the chance to chill their four-water grog in your freezer. May I suggest a pink gin? Take a fist-sized glass, tap a few drops of Angostura bitters into it and roll it around, then fill to your taste with gin and ice cubes. Mmmmm, chilly.
By the way, your computer produces most of the heat in your computer room. I command you! Turn it off and resign yourself to those lonely occupations of your colonial ancestors: scholarship, religion, substance abuse, solitary card games (with real cards, not Windows Solitaire!) and/or the heady private friction that supposedly condemned Onan (but didn’t, if you actually read the Bible).
As they say, I believe, in this century, game on?
TheDevilDrink:
LOLraog.
Goodness gracious! How concise! How apt! Now …. exactly how do we go about nominating your brilliant short response to Steve Munn’s problem for the Nobel Prize For Literature? Ahh, I know, the ONAnists in Canberra will have the answer ….
RobertMerkel:
Sadly, I can offer no solution for your all too familiar but incurable problem. Nothing can ever change the mindset that prefers looking franticaly busy to actual productivity and prefers smash-and-grab profiteering to long-term riches …. Hey, wait on, have you got a mate of Oriental appearance who could come into your workplace, do a bit of very dodgy feng-shui on it and discover that money and good luck is seeping away because there is no TV set aligned in a certain direction (and on the channel broadcasting the cricket/football, of course)? It might be worth a try.
“…had a slice of vego New York pizza…”
I condemn this steady and heinous devaluation of the word “pizza.” I humbly submit that if one has had a slice of something called ‘vego New York pizza,’ then in fact one has not only NOT had a slice of ‘New York pizza’*, but one has in fact not had a slice of pizza at all.
Heh heh heh. Just the other day I ducked into the old Pizza Box on Bleecker, where I haven’t been in a dog’s age; and they still do a pretty bang-up job. And those fuckers aren’t even in Brooklyn!
*– this phrase ‘New York pizza’ has got to stop; it is a redundancy. Pizza can in fact only be found in New York — the rest of you are eating a regrettable species of cheese and tomato-flavored bread. It’s like ‘appellation controlle’ w/ champagne and such… maybe you can call it ‘sparkling flavor-bread’ or something, to designate whatever it is you’re doing. And I especially condemn the city of Chicago for their barbaric crimes against pizza. And fancy hotels that think they’re being Euro or something by dribbling bad sauce and a half-melted square of mozzarella over a fucking crepe. Savages! Kill ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out!
Well, I condemn those who don’t realise pizza is Italian!
I can’t condemn the New York pizza on offer on Brunswick St because it’s a rather yummy mixture of ricotta and spinach, but on j_p_z’s behalf I will condemn its marketing techniques.
“Well, I condemn those who don’t realise pizza is Italian!”
Well, it WAS Italian, until we vastly improved it… I’unno, I guess it’s the world spirit on horseback or some such. But hey, you’ve got plenty of Italians down there, so I’m told. Put them to work at once! Patent some marvelous antipodean delicacy that we all get jealous of!
Whatever this spinach and ricotta contraption is, it does indeed sound very good, and long may it run. It’s possible to like both Johnny Ramone and Tom Verlaine, just don’t confuse the two.