America Land of the Free and Confused

You see, Americans have apple pie and halloween. This negates the need for ingenuity. I think it is precisely Australia's blandness (as Germaine calls it) and relative lack of cultral heritage that gives rise to the incredible arts and music scene that we've got happening. Sure, travelling makes you a bit more nationalistic and patriotic, but I can see objectively that cultrally Australia really has it going on.

While I really like America, it is kind of frustrating. It's almost as if people here delight in fostering a culture of confusion. It's already written into the road laws - the give-way-to-whoever-is-first-at-the-stop-sign rule which relies too heavily on people's judgment and good will, which would be fine if people here consistently exercised good judgment and good will. And it's unwritten into the hospitality industry, where workers income is almost completely reliant on the tenous conscience of the customer.

The confusion goes right on up, through conversation and dialectic, where conclusions without arguments are boldly stated and no one really seems to care about getting to the heart of the problem. Or maybe it's not that they don't care, it's more that as a culture, Americans are short on intellectual tools for dealing with complex issues.

The confusion continues of course at a national level, where people are polarized on issues from gay marriage, multicultralism, the war in Iraq and the place of faith in universities. I don't think it's that people aren't listening to each other, it's more that no one attempts to engage with issues on the other side, instead they use emotive, of-the-man arguments in the hope that their opponents will retreat in fear.

I Don't Feel Like Dancing

I've been having trouble sleeping. Sure, I'm anxious and excited about coming home, but above all, I cannot sleep because The Scissor Sisters are sold out. I feel tears form in my eyes as I type this, and I've got a lump in my throat. I wasn't one of the lucky many to get a ticket to my favourite glamour group playing at the Vodafone Arena, Melbourne. It would have rocked my world to go. I would have entered an altered state of consciouness. I hope I meet someone who went and they tell me it was a rubbish show. But I doubt it.

Maybe they'll come Aussie way again. Hey, we've got lots of flaming prancing queens who lurrve your stuff darling... maybe that's a drawcard?

What's going on.

Lady Luck did look upon us favourably last night, and Seth and I came home with $117 (I called BINGO on a black-out. Yep, got the jargon already). Not bad for an hour of fun. The Bingo hall is pretty classic. Not nearly as classy as Crossroads' old meeting place, but it certainly retains that gungy, lower-working class feel. Thankfully, I avoided the gambler's fallacy and was not tempted to return tonight.

I'm staying at Natalie's place now. She lives a few minutes drive from Seth's place. I've decided to make the most of the free time I have. I'm reading a bunch of books, doing artwork (sketches and plans for projects to undertake back home) and I'm going to try to work on a possible Masters thesis that's been in my head and on scraps of paper since late 2005. I'm still doing Museum studies when I get home; this will be a parallel project, in philosophy/metaphysics/philosophy of science/theology.

In other news, I'm discovering new music and I've bought some CD's. Right now I'm listening to Talking Head's Stop Making Sense, it's awesome. I bought The Flaming Lips, Bell and Sebastian's Feeling Sinister, Scissor Sisters's (when you say this over here, people will always ask you to repeat yourself) Ta-Da (such a camp album title and such a camp album, which is entirely suitable, since it is uber disco-pop)

the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack and Gwen Stefani's Love Angel Music Baby (her first, better album). I love Gwen, even though I "shouldn't". I love Gwen like I love Valleygirl. Gwen is by no means a Brittany or a Jessica. She has talent and her verse is good.

Bla Bla Bla If you read this you are very kind indeed

Tonight Seth and I flirted with Lady Luck, but she rejected us. Seth thought I'd almost wooed her when I falsely called "Bingo" on just one line in the last round. Perhaps she shall favour us tomorrow night, when we return for more Bingo buzz (the buzz is like caffeine crossed with exams, you enter the zone, get jumpy, stay high for a few hours, hit the wall and then look forward to the following session). We'll go with Seth's friends Chris and Natalie, who are really cool; the sort of people I would choose to be friends with even if Seth wasn't by boyfriend. They are both photographers and artists and Chris writes for an online music magazine.

I'm getting sick of the whole indie, fringe, gonzo, punk, kooky, quirky thing. You know, like scrappy little drawings stuck to the wall and people writing in thick, obscure, subculture vernacular while wearing thick-rimmed glasses and vintage skirts. It's rampant here, and much worse than Australia because it lacks the intellectual credibility. Art should be genuine and far more concerned with substance, quality and history than trendiness. I'm either going to ignore fashion (in the broad sense, not just clothing) as a lens or just be reactionary and embrace normality and orthodoxy (because fringe is now mainstream). I now have no intentional eccentricities. I am completely bland. Beige.

But it's not about swimming against the trends for the sake of it. It's about being authentic and genuine, and ignoring the superficial tokens of passing trends.

It would be cool to finally get to a point of being-myself-ness were I don't even reflect on how eccentric I really am, I just be and do. Kind of like returning to innocence, when I was eccentric and didn't know it would become hip and tried to supress it. Orwell.

But enough ranting. I can be such a hypocrite sometimes.

Seth's sister Allison and I saw Apocolypto the other night. It's excellent. Ground breaking cinema. I'd be interested to know what the folks back home think.

New Years was spent at Seth's workplace with his friends, since Seth was working. I think I just celebrate New Years to make other people happy; they might be offended by my antisocialness. I puzzle why we celebrate something arbitrary. To keep us sane maybe. Deconstruction of social conventions possibly leads to ennui.

I should like to study the causes of ennui as an epidemic more. Physiological (the crap they put in food)? Social and Psychological(secularisation, the rise of raunch culture and the decay of sexual morality)?

Talking of the crap they put in food, here organic food is embraced by middle class folks. It's one of those American exports which is entirely uncessary elsewhere, where food is not nearly as hormone and toxin pumped. The live meat is diseased and the donuts are choking in transfats. You can tell that Australian food is much more organic (yes, that is a term you quantify; it is strictly non-binary) by the way it tastes. It has a certain freshness to it. So we really don't have to go out of way to by food labelled organic in Australia, because most food already is pretty good, relatively speaking.