The latest Making Girls Run Caption is just too good to go unmentioned.

See it here.

I finally did it.

Yesterday I registered www.hammygoonan.com and www.goonanism.com. I don’t have web hosting or anything yet – I’ll worry about that in due course (ie when I have the time and a few spare bucks lying around).

For now I plan to have a few things on my site. My blog will be the main one (this blog that is) – I’ll move it over eventually so I can have all the added luxuries of WordPress.

Now part of this site will be a public view of me. Part of it will be password protected for either myself or my friends and family (ie photos etc). And part of it will just be an opportunity for me to fuck around with web-based programs.

but I have two questions. 1) what do I use as an email address (ie bigfella@hammygoonan.com or hammy@goonanism.com) and 2) what else can I use it for.

Let me know – I’m dying for your comments (without sounding desperate).

I was keen to go to the Bugg’n tour but at nearly $100 a pop I wasn’t going to go to a show costing that much when I don’t even own one of their albums (I do own a little Wu-Tang but this wasn’t Wu-Tang). But mostly I was spewing because it meant I’d miss Rahzel. Again.

So on Monday it’s announced that Rahzel will be playing a solo show at the Prince on Wednesday (last night). I purchased a ticket immediately with a good dose of ‘I don’t care if I have to go on my own’ – which I’ve had a fair bit of lately but haven’t ended up going to anything on my own (actually that’s not true, I ended up seeing MixMaster Mike on my own). Fortunately a couple of other friends jumped on board at the last minute. Over at To the Bar from Hell Ms Cynic has assured us all that he was pretty ‘dope’ (that’s what the kids call ‘good’ these days). And she is on to something here.

He was AMAZING!! I think my favorite was when he did ‘drop it like it’s hot’. Of course he did all the classics: ‘all I know’, ‘Wu-Tang Clan aint nothing to fuck with’ and of course finished with ‘If your Mother only knew’. That said, there were also some rather tedious bits. Like the bit where he started handing out roses to the ‘ladies’ and then got a bit weird when he started giving roses to the ‘fellas’ on the condition that they went home and gave it to their mothers. All a little too oedipal for my likings but there you go.

All in all, a very well spent $25. I’m now sitting at work struggling to keep my eyes open though.

I won’t deny it, I want to go to Operation: Ceasefire. I’d want to go even if it wasn’t a political thing.

Jello Biafra (aka god himself) is hosting an all star line up including The Coup and LeTigre.

I wasn’t going to comment on Latham but having watched Enough Rope I feel like everyone else in the blogsphere I’ve got an opinion that should be voiced.

A couple of things struck me. Firstly how Latham was really open, particularly emotionally, about somethings while defensive and closed – almost dismissive – about others. He was really happy to talk about his love for his kids – to Mark that was safe. But he refused to budge on other things. I agree with Andrew Denton here:

ANDREW DENTON: I find this profoundly sad putting aside any political view whatsoever, profoundly sad that somebody of your intellect and your capacity who spent so much time and energy and invested so much of your heart into attempting to correct society’s ills. And now, you know if people wanted to put it in a tabloid way, spitting the dummy or whatever, just going no too hard, can do nothing, I find that profoundly sad. What happened?

MARK LATHAM: Well you shouldn’t be sad. I mean this is the story of social reform through the ages. You’ve got a whole litany of social movements and people interested in a fairer society who didn’t achieve their goals, I mean it’s…

I often disagreed with Latham (far too right-wing for me) but I also considered him a huge intellect and someone who did have a lot to offer the world. It’s almost like the super hero who hurt someone once because of their super powers and now refuses to use them.

The other thing that struck me was that Mark was clearly emotionally unstable. I hate to sound like a tabloid or the Murdock press (probably don’t need to make the distinction there) but there were obvious delusions. A lot of the things he wrote and spoke about were things he had heard second hand – including the actions of his mentor, Whitlam. If I’d heard that the man, whose name I’d given to my child, had said what Mark thinks he said (remembering he heard it second hand) surely your talk to him rather than shut him off.

Moreover, hearing these sorts of things second hand in the climate he describes is surely foolish and no one should know that better than Latham.

The final point I want to make and it’s one I’ve made here many times before, is that what ever the truth may be and what ever Latham’s agenda/delusions are, the ALP is a toxic organisation. As the opposition, particularly in the time of Howard, this is so grossly irresponsible. We’ve got a ‘boys club’ that has lost touch with it’s grass roots and is more concerned with its internal bickering than it is with providing a genuine opposition which is the greatest betrayal of working people there is. My anger with the ALP grows almost daily. They have truly let at least half of Australia down.

Hello everyone. Just reminding you that everyone’s favorite NGO, The Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice is running it’s second forum in the Evatt Room at Trades Hall from 6:30 on Tuesday (20th)

The Forum is called: “The role of public relations in a democracy”

All the speakers are really good and I’d like to suggest it’s a really interesting topic. So please come along – we really need your support.

Big up yourself.

(perhaps a worthwhile reflection in the context of the current debates around national identity and so on)

The Bastard From The Bush
(Attrib. to Henry Lawson)

As the night was falling slowly over city, town and bush,
From a slum in Jones’s Alley came the Captain of the Push,
And his whistle loud and piercing woke the echoes of the Rocks,
And a dozen ghouls came slouching round the corners of the blocks.

Then the Captain jerked a finger at a stranger on the kerb
Whom he qualified politely with an adjective and verb.
Then he made the introduction: ‘Here’s a covey from the bush-
Tuck me blind, he wants to join us—be a member of the Push.’

Then the stranger made this answer to the Captain of the Push,
‘Why, fuck you dead, I’m Foreskin Fred, the bastard from the bush.
‘I’ve been in every two-up school from Darwin to the ‘Loo,
‘I’ve ridden colts and black gins—what more can a bastard do.’

‘Are you game to smash a window?’ asked the Captain of the Push.
‘I’d knock a fucking house down,’ said the bastard from the bush.
‘Would you take a maiden’s baby?’ said the Captain of the Push.
‘I’d take a baby’s maiden,’ said the bastard from the bush.

‘Would you dong a bloody copper if you caught the cunt alone,
‘Would you stoush a swell or Chinkee, split his garret with a stone?
‘Would you have a moll to keep you, would you swear off work for good?’
‘What? Live on prostitution? My colonial oath I would!’

‘Would you care to have a gasper?’ said the Captain of the Push.
‘I’ll take the bloody packet,’ said the bastard from the bush.
Then the Pushites all took counsel, saying, ‘Fuck me, but he’s game.
‘Let’s make him our star basher, he’ll live up to his name.’

So they took him to their hideout, that bastard from the bush,
And they granted him all privileges appertaining to the Push.
But soon they found his little ways were more than they could stand,
And finally the Captain thus addressed his little band.

‘Now listen here, you buggers, we’ve caught a fucking tartar,
‘At every kind of bludging, that bastard is a starter,
‘At poker and at two-up, he’s shook our fucking rolls,
‘he swipes our fucking liquor, and he robs our fucking molls.’

So down in Jones’s Alley all the members of the Push
Laid a dark and dirty ambush for the bastard from the bush.
But against the wall of Riley’s pub, the bastard made a stand,
A nasty grin upon his dial, a bike-chain in each hand.

They sprang upon him in a bunch, but one by one they fell,
With crack of bone, unearthly groan, and agonising yell,
Till the sorely-battered Captain, spitting teeth and gouts of blood,
Held an ear all torn and bleeding in a hand bedaubed with mud.

‘ You low polluted bastard,’ snarled the Captain of the Push,
‘Get back to where your sort belong, that’s somewhere in the bush:
‘And I hope heaps of misfortune may soon tumble down on you,
‘May some lousy harlot dose you till your ballocks turn sky-blue.

‘May the pangs of windy spasms through your bowels dart,
‘May you shit your bloody trousers every time you try to fart,
‘May you take a swig of gin’s piss, mistaking it for beer,
‘May the next push you impose on toss you out upon your ear.

‘May the itching piles torment you, may corns grow on your feet,
‘May crabs as big as spiders attack your balls a treat,
‘Then when you’re down and outed, to a hopeless bloody wreck,
‘May you slip back through your arsehole, and break your fucking neck.’

Go here. Click on the first image (the one of the out side of the house) and look very carefully.

Now I dialed 911 a long time ago
Don’t you see how late they’re reactin’
They only come and they come when they wanna
So get the morgue embalm the goner
They don’t care ’cause they stay paid anyway
They teach ya like an ace they can’t be betrayed
I know you stumble with no use people
If your life is on the line they you’re dead today
Late comings with the late comin’ stretcher
That’s a body bag in disguise y’all betcha
I call ‘em body snatchers quick they come to fetch ya?
With an autopsy ambulance just to dissect ya

- Public Enemy 911 is a Joke

For the benefit of puck There was a lot of this last night:

And what a night it was. The aural onslaught that is Fantomas was witnessed and it made me very happy.

*sighs, then starts jumping around on the spot screaming a lot*

In a mildly antagonistic way at work yesterday I played a colleague who quite likes sting a few bars. She replied “that’s just stupid, I could just scream a lot and record it too.” The thing about Fantomas is that I whole heartedly accept that they are far from everyone’s “cup of tea”. But fuck they’re talented. They were so tight last night. Not a bum note in the disjointedness.

Mike Patton remains the love of my life. He took on an almost James Brown conducting style (ie conducting with his dance moves).

Yep, words defy what I experienced. That said the closest description I found is cartoon-thrash.

I worship the ground you walk on Mike Patton et al.