Jun

29

Sit Rep

Filed Under Personal tedium | 10 Comments 

I have no internet. I am 12 days away from experiencing potentially massive, time-rending head explosions. I am hungry. I am cold. I spent all my money. I am shit at PS2. I have to dramatically change my life. I have to wear matching socks. I have to spear something for lunch. I have to straighten my hair with more resolve. I have to finish reading the Anatomy of Melancholy, it is the business. I have to sign up for winter school - is it too late to do that? I have to find out if it is too late. I have to install some blinds.

Primarily, I have no internet, so blogging is sucking a bag of cocks. I don’t know how long this technological siberia thing will last. It’s in iiNet’s hands now.

Jun

18

Filed Under Personal tedium | 7 Comments 

I’ve received lots of questions about my time at Penthouse, and I assure you all I will post a comprehensive account of the experience, but yes: All the writers look like models, there are naked women swanning about with champagne on silver trays and everything is covered in gold.

Jun

14

Huh? What?

Filed Under Personal tedium | 3 Comments 

I’ve decided to do my assignment on the plane. I leave in a few hours. I don’t know what to pack. My brain is dissolving, send help.

Jun

9

Fillergreed

Filed Under Blogging, Music, Personal tedium | 5 Comments 

Five days until I leave for Sydney. After that adventure is finished, I’ll have several weeks to continue on the path of enjoying life without the scourge of university assessment.

During my downtime I’m going to dedicate myself to finding out the answer to one thing at least: What the fuck goes on with musicians like PJ Harvey or Adalita, who morph from awesome but feral to unspeakably sexy without so much as a breast augmentation. Au naturale evolution. How, why, what sets it off, what is involved? Answers: I want them.

I’m sure that won’t last my whole holiday though. Please send me ideas. What should I think about? What should I unlock? More importantly, what should I blog?

Email me if you don’t want to comment.

Jun

4

Koko Taylor - Dead

Filed Under Music, Personal tedium | Leave a Comment 

What the FUCK, Koko Taylor died.

I’m breaking my uni-motivated blogging moratorium to make sure everyone knows. Hang your god damned heads.

Click.

Just when I needed some howling to comfort my defeated soul. Now I can’t listen to the blues without thinking about Koko.

Jun

1

Interim blogging

Filed Under Blogging, Local music, Personal tedium, Photography | 9 Comments 

I had to go underground for awhile there because I was going through the process of contracting, enduring and recovering from either the black plague or swine flu. Whichever one it was, I am Queen Of The Universe because I didn’t seek medical attention and I didn’t die.

I’ve got some photos coming for you - eventually. Once I can look at a computer screen for longer than ten minutes without passing out from spiritual and ocular pain. Friday night I took some photos around the 4zzz studios. Saturday night I shot the Brisbane Sounds gig at the Zoo. Sunday night I dropped in on the Vegas Kings at Black Box Studios and took some photos of them recording. Stay tuned.

Thursday I went to the Walkley Foundation’s (maybe?) journalism EVENT whereat the who’s who of next generation reportage gathered, ate egg sandwiches and listened to an extensive panel of experts pontificate on the state of the industry, the future of the world and the potential of the job market. Much of that sentence is hyperbole but carry on with me regardless.

My FAVOURITE part of the day was the fact there was a panelist blogger. This is perhaps my next segment of the World War IVI series. Panelist bloggers? You must be kidding.

One of the secrets uncovered and bestowed upon we naive idealists that day was blogging. Also known as (AKA for you non-bloggers out there) the way of today AND tomorrow, the single key element to securing one’s place in the media world and the best avenue to propagating the brand of Self, ID, ego and - ah, that favourite concept of the writing world - one’s Voice. The most sacred, sure-as-shit ritual of laying down at the altar of the Church of Verse and offering up sacrifice to content management, multi-form expression (pictures, videos AND words - holla at me) and literary clarity. This here, my friends, is the path of publication righteousness. Welcome.

Web 2.0 and social networking were big players in all discussions. Across all corporations represented and all niches explored, the answer was inevitably: Know Your Twitter. Twitter was the game face cum god head of any and every socially-propelled abode on the internet. Use the internet. Go regional. Explode.

There, I’ve given you the keys to the kingdom.

It makes sense that bloggers would have their panelist advocate then. In a way, I can understand it. But it still makes me laugh. Must we really, REALLY elevate the most self-indulgent platform of publication to the level of credible media? I’m not suggesting that bloggers cannot sit at that level. But I’ve been watching the call lists for these events over the past several months and there is always a token blogger. Always. Even if a good one is unavailable or disinterested. The requirements of such a role being something along the lines of an ability to generate paltry ad revenue and a template that does not come with your sign-up email. I’ve looked at the blogs in question. It’s the same old shit: promotion, links, lollipop commentary. Dull.

I’m beer typing so here is my point straight up: That’s the model you’ve been working with since the printing press blew everyone out of the water. You just moved it to the internet. As far as I’m aware, that model is not working so well for you anymore.

The whole day was just about taking old values and trying to squeeze them in to a new framework, a new technology, and one that admittedly goes mostly misunderstood by the corner office suits - the same minds making all the decisions about how information is going to be presented in this baffling New Era.

Keep looking, guys. All that came from these insights was a resounding, 50-idiot strong resolve to start blogging. Does the internet really need MORE of these people? The answer is no.

May

28

This is not a LOLBlog.

Filed Under Blogging, Music | 6 Comments 

…Sorry, Jo.

So last night I booked my flights to Sydney, and my ticket to the Brian Eno concert at the Opera House. Yes, envy me. I’m going to indulge in some Eno, Abrahams, Hopkins and The Necks, then spend a week at Penthouse, surrounded by media perfection during the day and liquor during the night. My friend will also be passing through town while I’m staying there and mischief will be had.

And yet, I feel so empty. Distraught. It’s 8.35AM and I am awake. The life of a dandy should not begin so early in the day. The question, I suppose, is why has it? Because I’m to attend a journalism symposium today, up in the big smoke. Panels, forums, free lunch. Free beer?

I’ll let you know.

May

26

Brian Eno Art In Stereo

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment 

Video stream of the Sydney Opera House’s sails - lit up by Brian Eno’s artwork like some freaking massive projector screen.

May

21

Filed Under Blogging, Personal tedium | 1 Comment 

The last few weeks have been a lot like fucking for me. They were incredibly satisfying and a little sweaty but entirely exhausting. Care of flooding and truency, I’ve finally had a few days to recuperate, as it were. Hence no contact, no substantial blog posts, no email responses, no local appearances or evening constitutionals.

I’m going to let that trend continue for a day or two longer, but this lady “Jen” has emailed me the same question about twelve time since the 9th of May, and I’m beginning to feel suffocated by guilt/persistence, so I’m going to give you a Twitter-esque answer and then go about my business.

from Jen xxxx <##>
to maggiegrumble@nospamplz.com
date Tue, May 21, 2009 at 3:28 PM
subject Interested

Hello Maggie,

It’s exciting to see you putting up compelling journalism based content. Can you make a post about the state of journalism? News is being overwhelmed by bloggers. Journalism is dying. What do you think about the whole thing?

Cheers,

Jen.

Why Twitter-esque? Becase, point one, there is a pretty short answer to this: Newspapers may be dying, but journalism won’t.

And number two, the time lapse between my post intro and here has not left me any less “spent”. Even the therapeutic copy-paste process did not help.

There will always, always be a high demand for good quality journalism. Despite how wanky it might sound, societies revolve around the transmission of news. Yes, I’m going on record to say I believe that the news reflects society back to itself. You can be sceptical if you want, but then you need to formulate an answer to the question: Why does China’s fascism in 2009 still rely on a censored, hobbled media, if news is irrelevant?

Mediums are transient. This is true in news, in music, whatever. When mediums are conflated with companies, the transience is even more assured. Newspapers and record labels may be experiencing a threat to their status quo, but stories and music are no less appealing than they were fifty years ago.

So.

Will print publishing die out? All of it? Completely and forever? No. I very much doubt that. But it will change. It has to regroup and go with its strengths. A new model, a new focus, something new needs to interrupt the old guard’s routine. Because it’s no longer the best at what it has traditionally set out to do.

Digital solves so many problems. Consider the two main strong points of digital media: Perfect, infinite copies (free), and limitless distribution. In terms of advantages, those two are devastating in the world of publishing.

There’s also fewer middle men, immediate market information (statistics - browser type, locale, loyalty, favoured post, least visited post, etc - as well as instantaneous feedback), free advertising and on and on and on..

It’s not going anywhere, and it is a viable competitor.

But print media still has a place in the world. It’s still regarded as the real forum for serious readers and serious writers to lock in to their serious tango - it is the spiritual heir to the written word’s entire history of credibility. That alone could keep it afloat until someone figures out how to remake the medium in its own image.

Okay, so this strayed past Twitter-esque in to barely connected paragraphs. I don’t have time to apologise because I have to go. I have a fever and my kitten is grappling with some big lessons about flies and rooftops.

May

20

The Linked Outbursts of Everett True

Filed Under Blogging, Music, Personal tedium | 4 Comments 

Everett True is letting me intern his new book. Everett True is part of a dying pantheon, and he needs fresh libation. Everett True, the man, the myth, The Legend, has two blogs, but I always forget to read this one. Everett True told me that optimal posting rate for blogs is possibly 1.4 times a day, but he was not certain on the decimal value. Everett True might note that I have fallen short of that ideal.

You might too. I’m looking in to something that makes me laugh, but I’m almost certain the laughs will be lost in the transition between my head and your screen. So it goes!

I’m stranded in Helensvale. The floods, the floods. Send help (by plane).

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