Author: Richard Irvine

  • Dress you up in my love

    Here’s a great article on fans who dress up like their idols from Chuck Klosterman.

    It is perfectly normal to love the music of Rod Stewart, and not unnatural to feel that appreciating Never A Dull Moment says something essential about who you are; it is, however, pretty goddamn weird to try physically to resemble Rod Stewart while watching him perform in concert.

    My own awkward attempts to look like a pop star may or may not include the following:

    Cardigans – perfect for showing off the latest band t-shirt at the gig, these
    – A chain and padlock – single outing, EXTREMELY uncomfortable. Sid Vicious must have suffered terribly from rashes
    Leather jacket, natch. Urban rumours said you’d be beaten up for them randomly in the street, though
    Floppy fringes were huge, and got slightly out of control. High school rules stipulated hair must be above the collar – there’s no collar at the FRONT, though is there?
    Paisley shirt – I resisted the other signature ‘Gurus look of waistcoat over bare chest,  luckily
    – A fawn corduroy Levi’s jacket

    Quite a few of these items had to be rescued from Mum’s attempts to ‘disappear’ them in the wash. I’d be greatly interested in comparing notes with Keith Richards on this.

  • 1001 books and films you must see before you die

    Inspired by Jason Kottke, I’ve been through 1001 books and films you must see before you die and ticked off my reading (28) and viewing (215). It’s fair to say I’ve seen more of the films than read the books on these lists- I tend to read more contemporary lit, and the list focuses more on classics. There’s some glaring ommissions. And while I enjoy Brett Easton Ellis – Glamorama? Hmmm.

    I’ve seen a lot of the films from the 00s, 90s, 80s and 70s, but it trails off fairly dramatically after that – but the list seems pretty fair. If you fancy doing the same, let me know in the comments, I’ve marked my favourites with an ‘*’, just so you know.

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  • Foo Fighters – Vector Arena 06 May 2008

    I went along to Vector Area on Tuesday night to see the Foos. I’d kind of drifted away in recent years, thinking they’d gone too ‘we are SERIOUS rock band’ – case in point: compare this to this.

    Rock snob that I am, it puts me off that too many people that buy NickelBack records like them now – I mean, there was a Rock FM Dodge RAM parked in front of Vector Area with the Foo’s faces painted on the side. Hey! Dave Grohl used to be in Nirvana, you know! Get your own band, bogans!
    IMAGE_067.jpg

    But – I loved it. I’d forgotten they had so many great songs – and I kind of forgive them for bringing a violin player with them, and playing an acoustic set lasting almost an hour.

    They’ve definitely kept their sense of humour – Grohl’s quite the comedian, and me and me mate were giggling like the schoolgirls we actually are throughout. Sample dialogue:

    “I wanna say one thing…” *crowd goes wild*

    “New Zealand fuckin’ SUCKS!” *crowd doesn’t know what to do with itself*

    “No wait, just joking!”

    Maybe you had to be there. But you know, I was greatly entertained for 2 hours 40 minutes by great songs and great touches like a tongue in cheek blues jam and Grohl embarrassing the lead guitarist with a male stripper for his birthday. It was the last night of this tour, they were obviously having a ball, and had an almost Springsteen-like desire to give the fans their money’s worth – unlike some recent visitors. Thoroughly recommended – it’s hard to stay cynical sometimes, eh.

    Bonus vid – Dave falling arse over tit. I got a great park, too.

  • A cynical experiment – LOL!

    I’m fascinated by people that make money from nothing on auction sites – like this guy flogging a Casio Vl-1 ‘possessed by Satan’.

    So… a weekend tidy up yielded an innocuous cheese grater – and I decided to write a ‘hard case’ ad on TradeMe, taking full advantage of current hoo-hah over rising food prices. Oh Sunday Star-Times hysteria, you came in handy at last.

    Best case scenario – lots of hits and comments, with loads of ‘lol!’s with a couple of people getting so carried away they actually bid actual money for something they could pick up themselves with their supermarket shopping.

  • Katz cartoons

    Katz is my pub quiz team’s logo (blogger-wordpress poorly formatted backstory here).

    Katzbutteo 050508

    Katzattoir 050208

  • Get serious about lunch

    Like eating? Like eating in Auckland? Like eating stuff that’s not crap? Like paying feck-all for it?

    If you answered ‘yes’to all the above, you need to check out Auckland Cheap Eats Reviews – fine lunching for the tight of fist.

    My mate is reviewing Auckland’s out of the way eateries, dish by dish. My favs are the Mee Goreng, the Mutton Thali, and of course, the wondrous Xotic.

    ACER is going to point you gently away from McDonalds and toward the authentic, proper food that’s all around us – and tell you where to park. Here‘s a bit about where he’s coming from. Get in there.

    BTW, never trust anyone telling you breakfast is the most important meal of the day. LUNCH. Now there’s a meal.

  • What’s your top Auckland song?

    Cross-posted from the New-Look Aucklandista

    When I type ‘Auckland’ into my itunes I get exactly, ah, no results. Alright, there’s the Muttonbird’s ‘Dominion Road‘, a great song ruined by homesick ex-pats, and that punk-AK’79 affair about jumping off Grafton Bridge. Dublin must be shitting itself.

    We live in a very pretty city, team, so how come there’s no catchy pop hits proclaiming sunny late afternoons on Ponsonby Road, driving around Tamaki Drive at night, or even a sea shanty to getting pissed down the Viaduct and jumping in the water? Surely we can do better?

    To get us underway, I’m nominating ‘Silverdale‘ by ex-Bressa Creeting Cake guy Edmund Cake as my top Auckland song. Recorded in a secret Gore St lair, Silverdale is an bubbly ode to the joys of tripping around the shops on Saturday with your loved one. The whimsy-ometer goes off the clock on lines like “Driving to Silverdale – Bendon has a sale”, and “I’ll put my hand in your pocket, I’ll keep that docket.” Even Rendell’s gets a special mention.

    Between us, we must be able to expand the Auckland Canon – what’s your top Auckland song?

  • Del.icio.us – where to-dos go to die

    I’ve been using Del.icio.us since April 2005, and saved 2200 pages to the site. Recording and tagging my web travels is great, stopping all those wonderful links from slipping into the digital never-never land. Firefox makes link getting really easy, with Apple or Ctrl – click I get a good eight or ten tabs open in no time in a light surfing sesh: Apple-click! Ctrl-click! Apple-click! You should see me go. Then it’s a simple tag – release with the del.icio.us extension. No problem.

    Trouble is, now my Del.icio.us page is more or less a dumping ground for stuff I’m never going to do – I’ve got 605 ‘toreads’, 415 ‘toblogs’ and 95 ‘todos’. There’s even 27 tobuys – unlikely, to say the least. When I do get some web-reading time, I’ve got plenty of material just waiting, and all those links are bloody handy for link-blogging, but still – it’s the digital equivalent of a tire fire.

    Languishing further down there’s loads of tags with one site each, like bobbyfischer, cohenbrothers, gambling, ikkahalso, and nationallampoon (along with bolg, bloggign, and bloggin – mis-spellings are very popular with me).

    What I really need to do is sit down one weekend and re-tag them all properly. But hang on – what kind of douche-hat loser seriously contemplates expending valuable leisure time re-arranging tags for fun? I mean, I saw Revenge Of The Nerds. I keep on expecting a hairy gaggle of Jocks in cardigans with big letters on them to come around the corner and hit me with a keg. Or something.