I said everyone’s dying! Now Peter Brock has joined in. What is going on?!
There was an extremely annoying woman on the bus to Subiaco the other day. She sat right behind the driver and for the entire duration of the trip talked at him non-stop in an incredibly loud voice about… well anything that popped into her head seemingly. I was seated halfway up the bus and could clearly hear every single word she uttered about football, the healthcare system, mobile phones, and a dozen other subjects. I was dearly tempted to stand up and berate her, sweeping my coat around dramatically perhaps and declaiming (in my best Shakespearean tones) “Hold thy tongue thou garrulous crone! Mine very ears do bleed from thy intemperate prattle!!”, but I didn’t of course – I’m too polite :). It was certainly a relief to reach Subi though.
While I’m on the subject of annoying things there’s a very annoying song around at the moment. It’s called The Devil was in My Yard and it’s by Perth’s own Sleepy Jackson. It’s annoying in two specific ways – the music, and the singing (which frankly doesn’t leave much does it?). The music is a horrible smushed up mass of instruments, smeared together into not so much a wall of sound as a kind of upright, linear, auditory bog. It’s like white noise but more annoying. And the singing, well… I am reliably informed that the lyrics of the first verse go,
The Devil! The Devil was in my yard! But the Devil! Ain’t in my yard no more!
Unfortunately the singer doesn’t feel constrained by the lyric sheet, or indeed the English language, and – well sings isn’t the verb, bawls would be closer to the mark – bawls the following in a nasal voice,
Yeeeewoooooww! Yeeeaaaarrrevilzinnnnn-maaaAAAAaaaAAAAAdddeh! Buuuuuhhhrruhhrrevil! Aaaayeffffmyaaard-naaawwwaaah!
It’s absolutely awful! And naturally doing quite well in the charts (funnily enough however the video clip ain’t bad.)
On the subject of video clips (see how hard I’m working on my segues today?) I’m watching JTV Saturday at the moment which is Triple J’s fairly new foray into television. Basically it’s a clip show – but they count down the 20 most requested songs from Super Request from the previous week – so there’s actually the possibility of something worthwhile getting in at number one.
In any case the host of JTV Saturday is the host of Super Request, Rosie Beaton. And while I have absolutely nothing against her, I’m finding her irritating almost beyond belief.
Why you ask? Well, after much thought I’ve reached the conclusion it’s because she’s used to radio rather than TV. You see, on radio all you have is your voice. You can’t communicate with your face, or with body language, so you need to put everything into your voice. You need to ramp up the emotion, ramp up the expression and basically say with your voice everything you’d normally say with your face. Rosie does this very well, and listening to her on the radio is quite enjoyable.
The problem is she speaks exactly the same way on camera – and it just doesn’t work.
She talks so loudly, and with so much forcefulness that she comes across as some kind of crazy person – the kind who comes up to you on the train and starts babbling out their life story, or why they like Steve Earl, or how the aliens took their knees. Or alternatively like she’s trying to sell you a used car. Now, if you look away from the screen and just listen, she’s fine – it’s just that normal people don’t talk like that face to face, and it’s damn disconcerting.
So Rosie – in the unlikely event that you’re reading this – you’re great on the radio, but chill a bit on the TV, OK?
Apart from Rosie Beaton freaking the life out of me JTV Saturday is pretty good. And educational! For instance this week we learned…
- The video clip for Here it Goes Again by OK Go features the best treadmill dancing ever!
- Kick Push by Lupe Fiasco is almost as annoying as the Sleepy Jackson.
- Muse should do an album of Coldplay covers on a container ship.
- For all her freaky-speaking, when Rosie Beaton straightens her hair she bears a notable resemblance to Lauren Graham.
So, if you have some time to kill on Saturday mornings, tune in.
Abandoning clever segues for the moment, my new tooth is performing quite well. It hasn’t fallen apart and I’m getting used to the fact that it’s not quite as pointy as the old one was. Presumably there’s also slightly less mercury seeping into my system now, which is probably a good thing. I intended to mention this last week with all the other tooth related stuff, but the dentist was very impressed with my teeth. She said they were in absolutely excellent condition, which is nice to know (in light of this information I like to think that in 1000 years a distant descendent of Dr Alice Roberts will dig them up and completely underestimate my age at death).
Teeth of course used for eating, and on the subject of eating (now that one was just forced wasn’t it?) I went out to dinner with Rebecca and Dom last night after work. We hit up Wagamama in Subiaco where we had quite a good time despite the appalling noise levels, rampaging children, problems with the loyalty card system and a server apparently named “Trial” who forgot to bring the wine (not that I minded too much about that :). We decided to splash out and be daring and tried a side of the steamed soya-beans, which were actually much nicer than you might think. Afterwards we walked up to the Gelare place at the Regal, and mocked the Nova FM DJ visible through the window on the other side of the street. So a good night had by all really (apart from maybe “Trial”).
Anyway, I have things to do today (probably) so I’d better go and do them (or not).
