218. 5:30pm
Oh my blog, hooowww I’ve missed yooooouuu...

You’d be forgiven for looking at the time of this post and thinking, “Ah, Dom’s just come back from something and is posting in the aftermath.” Well, be amazed at this knowledge – this is probably (I can’t be arsed checking) one of the earliest entries ever. And the reason it’s early is because I never start writing an entry just after I’ve got out of bed. But here I am, doing just that!

Yes, nearing 5:30 in the afternoon. It’s even gone dark outside and everything.

In other words, my biological clock is hopelessly out of whack.

I did want to go to bed earlier last night but, being me, I left various bits of work to the last minute and ended up doing them. Not that it was massively hard – it took me about five minutes, if we’re counting the actual time I worked. All I had to do was copy-paste info off the net, shave it down a bit to the essentials, and reword bits and pieces. If we’re counting how long it took me in the sense of “When you started and when you finished”, well... six hours.

Having the internet on this computer now is a double-edged sword (dammit, I thought I made fun of this phrase. Why am I now using it?). On the one hand, it’s utterly brilliant. I can talk on MSN to Ugmoers for hours. I can post things straight away. And it’s even meant that I’ve returned to Myspace, two years later – sans fanfare – and am using it fairly excitedly again. Yep. I’m using Myspace. And I cannot imagine using this computer without the internet.

On the other hand, it’s a curse. The sheer fact that I’m on the net means that I constantly look over the same sites again and again, in a huge non-effort of procrastination that ends with me not doing work, not writing this script I’m supposed to be writing (a film version of ‘Danse Macabre’, called, would you believe it, Danse Macabre), and – of course – not writing this Journal. I did actually get dared on Ugmo to not update my blog for a week, and I won’t go against that, but there’s nothing stopping me writing it in this Journal and then posting it later. Indeed, the sheer fact that I thought of my blog first, before this Journal, is rather worrying. Oh, and the other bad thing is that I’ve returned to Myspace and am using it fairly excitedly again. Yep. I’m using Myspace. And also, I cannot imagine using this computer without the internet.

Hmm, two sides to every coin, and other vague clichés.

219. Image First, Music Second
Isn’t Myspace just irritating? Don’t get me wrong, I’m perfectly aware of how brilliant it is, in a lot of respects. Heck*, I was arguing semi-recently about how important things like Myspace now are to a band; not just for promoting themselves, but in terms of their personality as a band. I was reminded of this when looking at various Newcastle band members’ Myspaces, and noting that the “About Me” things tended to – whilst referencing the band – also be full of “random” humour. I’m wondering what this actually means for the music industry; image has been important in music for a very long time (there’s an element of “uniform” to the clothes worn in the classical and jazz eras, for instance), and arguably from Elvis Presley onwards, a successful band’s image has been both a trend setter and a key part of identifying who they are (the Beatles being a really good example of this). And then, album covers went on to fulfil the same function (again, something the Beatles arguably pioneered; Sgt Pepper’s, or Abbey Road, for instance), with imagery that cements the album but also says a lot about the band and their status at the time. And now... well... now it’s Myspace.

It’s still a dramatic shift, too. The thing about the decades before now is that it was surely much easier to hear a piece of music and not really immediately know what the respective band looked like. You’d end up finding out fairly quickly if you were that enthused, I’m certain, but it was always “music first, personality later” for the audience (even though for bands, it’s arguably been personality first, because that’s what drives their own music and makes them themselves. Or, what makes them cheap clones of other bands – Wolfmother, I’m of course looking at you). But now we’ve gotten to a stage, with Myspace, where the music and the band go side by side. Suddenly they’re equally as important, equally as in-your-face.

And I’m wondering whether that’s a good or a bad thing. Keeping in mind that someone looking up the Myspace may enjoy the music, but not the humour/biography that’s been left by the band member. It’s much like how I’m certain Steve Vai is a brilliant guitarist, but I can’t actually watch him on Youtube because he’s a pretentious wanker. And so I’m wondering, with the usual sort of intense obsessiveness that I tend to exhibit, just how easily someone could be turned off by a band’s immediate image before bothering to listen to their music.

220. The Importance of Image
Yep. Whoever thinks image isn’t important, leave now. It’s vitally more important than it’s ever been before. And I’d hazard a guess that, when new aspiring musicians start to clue up to this, we’ll stop seeing lots of images of band members playing as display pictures, and start seeing freaky bits of artwork as drawn by either someone professional or just some friend they know. Before we know it, we’ll have a huge wave of Gorillaz; bands that are identified by their image first, and their music second.

Is that a bad thing? Surely the whole point of music is that it comes first, that it’s the most important? Well... that basically comes down to what someone personally gets out of music. If it’s just something to tap your foot to, something to get you pumped for a bit, to get you dancing, then of course the music comes first, and good riddance to the band in question. There’d be a certain comfort in going to a rave where the music was provided by yet another faceless DJ whose name is “DJ” something, because there’s no personality attached at all.

But for those who enthuse about music on a personal level, who are as obsessed with music as me, who almost live for it... well, imagery is going to be essential. TISM may be funny, but without the balaclavas and their video clips, I doubt I’d have as much respect for them as I do. The Residents are another band that trade on their image first – and look how old they are! And the irony here is that both of those bands deliberately set out to have a lack of an image; to make themselves faceless. And yet the opposite has happened; it’s difficult to see balaclavas and not think of TISM for me now, and to see big eyes on bodies and not think of The Residents. Almost certainly, when they started out, the musical situation showed them up to be the opposite of image, but now they’re actually the leading lights of band’s image (along with the Gorillaz, and perhaps Aphex Twin. Bjork, too, actually. There’s probably loads, but I’m sticking to the biggest guns). Haha, how times have changed. And other clichés.

Funny thing about that quote – Bob Dylan’s “the times, they are changing” lyric may not be the most amazingly profound in the world, and yet ironically his ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ videoclip is so iconic, and so resolutely a part of the big shift where imagery became important to music, that it’s so utterly apt.

*I deliberately used “heck”, because, according to a Myspace quiz I took, the type of person I tend to attract is a redneck. This surprises me, mainly because I didn’t even know we had rednecks in Australia. Maybe redneck snakes or something. Still, it wouldn’t surprise me. Maybe I do have this squeeing redneck online fanbase, their internet actually being two cans and a long wire.

221. Weak and Wormy
Getting back to the music thing – and this isn’t going to be posted on my blog... actually, wait, stop. I just referred to knowing exactly what I’m going to post and not going to post on my blog, and that in itself is an important indicator of where things are going at the moment. Do you remember me complaining a little while back about how I’m basically censoring myself recently, how I’ve been avoiding voicing my opinions too much? My “triumphant” return to Myspace has made things worse. Suddenly, I’ve stumbled upon blokes from school who are doing quite well with their music, thank you very much. Suddenly, I’ve realised that they’re all interconnected. Suddenly, I’ve realised that linking them to a blog which goes out of its way to criticise Silverchair and Vaudeville – even though both are in a calmly-objective and then bitterly-self-deprecating way, respectively – isn’t a good idea.

So I went to Tds4a Today, and wiped out all references to these bands. To make things even more certain, I wiped most of the Newcastle discussions too. Then I wiped the same things from Tds4a Yesterday. Suddenly, both of them are inoffensive. And I feel really, really shitty about it.

Why did I do it? Well... the problem is, I’m too diplomatic. Here’s an irony; I spend all of my time writing about how the world should be, writing about things I perceive as wrong and things I perceive as right. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words about these things (hmm, I suddenly thought of junk food when I typed that. Dammit, get back on track, Dom). And yet, as I pointed out in my “Things I Do that Sometimes People Just Don’t Get” thing, I don’t hate the mainstream, and in fact embrace other views. And yet, I’m also the first to jump in and go against said other views. It’s almost a walking paradox. Maybe I do it because I feel insignificant or something. I’m not sure. Either way, it makes me one of the most accepting and objective people I know, and yet one of the most opinionated and damned arrogant people I know.

God, if that mix weren’t irritatingly strange enough, I’m even talking about myself in pseudo-third person. Chrissakes.

So. Basically, the situation is this. I found this guy I’d gone to school with, yet only knew in maybe the last two weeks – which was irritating, because it turns out that we got on hugely well – called Cameron Bone. Two years later, I’ve found his Myspace, and am surprised to see that his name’s now Cam James (well, professionally it is), and that he’s now an Alternative/Folk musician, and that he’s obviously doing rather successfully. Surprise turned to admiration pretty damn quickly. So I added him, with the full intention of praising him and perhaps asking him to collaborate with me in the future.

Then I saw his friends list. Vaudeville, Mark Wells, Silverchair. All the usual suspects. And suddenly I felt... like I was deliberately distancing myself from everyone. And the thing is – apart from the fact that I’m sure they’re all top blokes, and that Mark Wells is the son of one of Mum’s best friends anyway – I certainly don’t want to insult or get on Cameron’s nerves, because I really do like him. I think he’s brilliant.

So that’s why I wiped all the references. I don’t want to get in anyone’s bad books. And yes, that’s because I’m a cowardly little worm. And yet... I can absolve myself, in a way. I’m just too early in my life to be making enemies now. Hell, I don’t want to ever make enemies, and the whole point of my arguing about why things are good and bad is that I do it properly, without stupid prejudiced opinions and highly offensive dismissive statements. I hope people think that I always have good reasons for disliking things, even if they don’t agree with me. But I’m not at a stage yet where I can immediately just prove that I’m doing more than just being a prejudiced twat. Despite the existence of my blog... well I mean, that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? I’ve linked to it on my Myspace, but really, is someone going to notice that I make a disparaging remark about Silverchair, and then immediately jump onto my blog to find out exactly why I’m not a fan of them? No, of course not. I wouldn’t expect them to. But that’s the whole problem here.

222. Censorble
And that’s how it is, right now. Here I am censoring myself, and the irony isn’t lost on me. Our first fucking album is called Sensiship, for chrissakes, and is resolutely about the Australian music industry at the moment. And yet, in real life, faced with the possibility of offending someone without meaning to, I’ve backed down. I’m not sure whether that makes me brave and loyal, or weak and stupid. Either way, it makes me feel uneasy. Heavens, apart from maybe collaborating with Cameron himself, I don’t exactly wish to genuinely start making connections with Vaudeville (particularly because of their name) and Silverchair and the like. Yet I don’t want to distance myself from them either, because – even though I’m not actually living in Newcastle – I’m still resolutely a Newcastle boy.

Well, until Liam and I move to Melbourne as we one day hope to, of course.

Oh god, though – at the end of the day, I’m not ever going to change Vaudewraith’s name. And that’s where we hit a snag, one that’s both exciting and fucking scary. How close do I get to these guys, and then reveal that my band’s name is quite close to Vaudeville? And reveal that I am never, ever, going to change it? That it’s an essential part of what the band is? I’m both anticipating showing them what a band truly is and being righteous about it, and hating the fact that I’m anticipating that. Again, I don’t want to make enemies. And yet, unconsciously, without even knowing it, I’ve already walked down the path of “possibly getting on someone’s pecks”. Which is a rather rocky path to walk down.

223. Legacy (again)
Here’s a question – why am I being so introspective these days? Why did I look at the Myspaces of these guys, notice how they’re rocking along with their stuff, and feel so utterly pointless in comparison? Why does the sight of peoples’ massive friends lists irritate me? Why does the sight of them even studying things at Uni depress me? Why am I suddenly finding myself irritated with Liam from time to time?

Easy. A load of reasons, of course, many objective. Friends lists annoy me because – unlike MSN – it’s almost a cock-waving exercise. My friends list is bigger than yours, and all that. I’ve not enjoyed most of Uni, and thus feel depressed that others have – and worse, I’ve realised that I’m at odds with the whole system. I’ve realised that TAFE was my favourite year of learning ever, because it was paced individually, yet driven as a class. It was the ultimate mix between control and freedom. Uni has too much freedom, and yet at the end of the day, if you’re too free and away from the mark, you’re pulled down spectacularly. As for Liam – well, he can be a bit bigheaded sometimes. Hahah, god, sorry.

But “easy”... well, yes. It’s me. It’s all me. I went to bed thinking about the whole Mungo thing with Cliché, and then about Vaudewraith, and then – suddenly, I just thought, “What the fuck, Dom. Why are you even thinking about this stuff? Nothing you’ve done has reached a wide audience. You’ve not actually released a single thing. What the fuck are you doing here, still planning, two years later?”

And then I realised that, at the moment, I’m writing about the same sorts of things in everything I’m doing right now. Identity – be that Australian, band-wise, or on a personal level. Legacy – be that children, historical representation, or on a personal level. And then, there’s Free Quay st, which is driven purely by sex. And yet, at the end of the day, what, ultimately, does the City get out of all that sex? That’s right – children. Legacies.

This is the problem, and this is, I’ve realised, the reason why I’m barely writing much at the moment. I’m at a stage where I’m spinning even the most mundane things into profound things. Suddenly, sex has become a huge part of my works – even though I’ve never even had sex, godDomdon’tevenfuckinggothere – and even piss has become a trademark. There’s R+R, ‘I, Yin and My Yang’, and then the film version of Danse Macabre. And at the heart of it, what does piss represent for me? Standing up for what you are. Leaving your mark on the world.

Isn’t that just stupid? It’s probably quite clever, but it’s also irritatingly annoying. I’m talking about something that people just do in the toilets to relieve their bladders, for fuck’s sake.

So I’m writing about legacy, and I’ve done nothing with my life. That’s the problem. Realistically, you’re supposed to write about that stuff when you’re near death, when you’re old and you’re wondering what you’ve done with your life. I’m wondering that already, and I’m only 20 years old. Unless that means I’m spontaneously going to die of old age two months down the track, it’s just ridiculous. It’s stupid, it’s idiotic. It’s potentially quite deep and clever and philosophical for someone of my age, perhaps, but that’s hardly going to console me.

That’s why I’m not writing ‘These Storeys’ – because I realised that the main character is me. And I realised that I’m writing about achieving things I’ve not even come close to. And it’s fucking depressing me, horribly. Writing ‘These Storeys’ is suddenly hugely painful, because it’s reminding me that I am nothing.

I’m Dom Kelly. I’m Tds4a. What does that mean? Fuck knows. And the worst part is, fuck cares. And – fair enough too – fuck’s the only one who does.

224. The Discovery, The Threat, The Solution
What’s the solution? Weeeell... releasing something. Unfortunately, I can’t release ‘These Storeys’ yet, because I can’t work on it until I’ve released something. God, what an irritating cycle. I’d be mostly fine with doing Sensiship, but of course that’s incredibly hard at the moment, what with me being in Singleton and Liam being in Lismore. So what’s left? The stuff that I left Liam, Scamples EP. Stuff from the DW13 soundtrack, and some vague distortion stuff.

Is it brilliant? No. Is it huge? No. Will many people listen to it? No. Does any of that matter? No.

When I last saw Liam in the flesh, I told him that I wanted him to mix and release it. Whilst he did say that he didn’t have all the synths, his main objection was that he didn’t see what the use was. He thought we could do better.

Well, leaving aside the fact that I like a lot of the stuff on it – that’s not the point! The point is that I want to release something. I’ve said before that anyone is entitled to argue about something even if they’re not well versed in it themselves – e.g. debating about music even if you can’t play any instrument at all – but it does make me feel bad that I haven’t released anything, because, well, I can’t prove anything. Someone could ask, “Well, if you don’t like Silverchair, why don’t you just do better than them?” And I can’t answer that, not now. I have nothing to show.

Is my stuff better than Silverchair? I don’t know. Is Scamples a good representation of my stuff? Probably not. Do I care? No.

I just feel like I’m nothing at the moment. I’ve written hundreds of thousands of words in this Journal – and heck, I’m repeating it like a mantra now, that’s how meaningless it is – and yet I’ve got nothing to show for it. These two years haven’t been wasted, not at all – but they’ve been compromised. They look, to anyone but Liam and I, like they’ve been wasted. And I can’t keep letting that happen.

225. Myst and Mulligan
CAREY MULLIGAN IN MYST!!

That’s right, The Book of Ti’anna is being adapted into a film, and that’s right, Carey Mulligan is their top choice to play Anna. I just... wow.

Carey Mulligan? Yeah, that’s a hint, perhaps; I’m probably going to waffle on about Doctor Who for a little bit here.

For a start, we’ve now just finished the Sontaran two-parter, which I found objectionably boring (I made a post on DWCA that was probably my longest and most ranty to date, and that’s even excluding the fact that I deliberately cut myself off). The next episode is ‘The Doctor’s Daughter’, which means... yep! I’m going to have to recount my experience of being inside Georgia Moffett’s body for a day.

God, why do I make these stupid promises? Never get whimsical again, Dom.

226. 1:30pm the Next Day
God, why do I always get cut off? Never start writing just before going to lunch ever again, Dom.

So; now that a day has passed, my main drive and urge to write about what I was going to, yesterday, is gone. For you non-Doctor Who fans, you’re probably mightily pleased.

Whoops, Liam’s started talking to me on MSN. Hey look, it’s another bit of distraction. And yes, I’m being grumpy about the internet, not about Liam; though then again, I wouldn’t at all want the net taken from me.

What was I going to talk about? Oh, well, a few members of the Christian Church are using Doctor Who as a symbolic guidance to capture the minds and attentions of new recrui-erImean clergy members. I was going to talk about the religious symbology in the New Series, and the fact that Richard Dawkins’ appearance later in the series is now going to be amusing if there’s fallout from that.

Fortunately though, I can’t be arsed, so perhaps just pretend I did my most intelligent and coherent discussion yet (hmm, that wouldn’t be hard) and we’ll go from there.

Oh wait, and that Barry Letts, resident Doctor Who Buddhist, commented vaguely-positively on it. Now that is odd.

227. Fashionably Depressed
I was thinking yesterday (yeah, again. I should stop thinking, shouldn’t I? It’s bad for my social health): readers of this Journal, and indeed my blog, may notice that – as I’ve openly stated at points – I’m often quite depressed, and, if not depressed, brooding and sick-of-it-all. I’m slightly worried about that in the sense of the blog; I don’t exactly wish anyone to immediately think I’m just a whinger. Which is why I tend to write emotions into this Journal in the first place, so that I’m not burying them, but I’m not letting them out either. A compromise.

But... it’s occurred to me that, maybe, just maybe, I enjoy being depressed. Those four words suddenly made perfect sense to me when I thought of them, even though I couldn’t exactly work out why. Is it because feeling dejected and lonely and depressed also makes you feel special? Is it because I like emotional complexity? Or is it – and this is my vague acting gene coming to foreplay here – that people simply like to complain, to be negative, and to be utterly and ultimately depressed? I’m not playing down depression, don’t get me wrong; there’s bound to be many serious cases out there. And yet I’m certain that, in this introspective self-indulgent decade, making yourself feel sad isn’t so much “something you can now let out” as “something you should let out, because if you don’t you’re not a real human being”. That’s why television is apparently character-based and emotional now, when in fact most of it revolves around the emotions “sad” and “happy”, with very little in between. And yes, depression is full of extreme happiness and extreme sadness.

That’s why soaps rarely work, I’ll warrant; because although they do show “normal” and dull moments in between, most of the scenes are driven by some sort of hardship. Which is bullshit, really. You don’t get friends just to complain and alternately screw around with them. You get friends who are there to have a laugh over the most minor of things; you get friends who will make you feel comfortable and normal even if neither of you has spoken for the last five minutes. That’s friendship; it comes down to trust, on a level, but it’s more about comfort. About not being nervous. About – and here’s the clincher, really – not needing to show your emotions. That may sound alien to those who believe friends are there to let your emotions out to, but... for me, it doesn’t work like that. My best friends are able to listen to my most awful conceits quite calmly – as an example, I told Liam about my “I would have committed suicide if it weren’t for my mind” thing (which I wrote about long ago, so don’t bother reading back), and his response was not only to take it calmly, but to say that he had the exact same thing. It’s then, when friends make you feel both part of a group and nothing special, that you realise how good they are as friends.

Yep, that’s right; friends are people who stop you from feeling special. Yep, that’s right; it’s a fucking good thing. “Down to earth” may be an overused phrase, but it’s exactly the point here; friends are a wakeup call to tell you not only that everything’s actually normal and alright, but that you’re a complete whingey barstard if you go on about it. Feeling sad is normal. Talking about it all the time is not.

That’s why I rarely let out my feelings. Not just because I don’t want to embarrass myself – that’s part of it – and not just because I feel that I shouldn’t make other people deal with unwanted emotional content – that’s a big part of it – but because there’s no point. There’s no point me whinging about my depression to other people, because guess what? They’re not me. They’re never going to feel what I’m feeling, not to the exact point, simply because they’re not me. And with that in mind; why bother? Why try and make them feel like me, to understand me?

And so, although writing about this stuff in my Journal seems fine to me – because I’m still unable to comprehend anyone but close friends and family reading it, and they’re not going to take my depression seriously. And good! – going on to post it on my blog is occasionally... well, difficult. I originally posted my little guilty-at-anti-Newcastle-rants rant verbatim just for Bz to read, but took it down immediately after. And I’ve realised that I didn’t do that just because I was cowardly – though that’s a part of it – but because it’s not worth crying on for too long about it. I’m intending to do a new blog post where this little rant is the end (that’ll be weird, if you’re reading this from the blog. Hello, friend!*), just to get over myself. You may notice that every time I’ve posted something where I’ve been in a bad mood, I’ve gone on to post something less self-centred and far more coherent and worth bothering with as soon as possible. But from now on, whenever I give in and write/post something depressed or moody, I’m going to deliberately finish up with something positive, or – more accurately – normal and dull and resolutely usual in life, because that’s what life is. It’s not just the big emotions, it’s all the little bits in between. And I’d hope that a good blog captures all the bits in between as well as the intensities.

*Because no-one else reads ‘em. :)