Australia Day 2012

Today I am reflecting on the true custodians of this wide brown land who were oppressed in the name of imperialism, the young men & women who went to far off lands to fight for freedom and never came home, those that have lost their lives or livelihoods battling natural disasters in this nation of extremes, the children born & bred here, and all that have come to this beautiful country in search of a better life for themselves and their families. I also hope that those that harbor bigotry one day come to the realisation that we are really all the same.
Happy Australia Day & Happy Triple J Hottest 100 Countdown day!

My Triple J Hottest 100 list of 2011

It's probably no surprise to those that know me that I love music. I also love Triple J. It's a radio station I've been listening to since I was 12 (more than half my life). I spoke to Rosie on Super Request when I was 19, and again at 21. I've voted in every single Hottest 100 since the turn of the century. Why do I love it? I love the  polarising variety of what is played & voted for, I love the focus on Australian music (we underrate our homegrown talent in my opinion, which is why I was so happy that Kimbra and Gotye are getting the recognition they deserve - they are both fantastic & I have no doubt if you pricked them with a pin, they'd both bleed music).

Here is my Hottest 100 2011 list. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have enjoyed listening to and discovering these gems.

10. Cosmo Jarvis - Gay Pirates

I was listening to Triple J through my phone headphones while walking home from the bus stop one day and it literally stopped me in my tracks. I'm not ashamed to admit a tear or two fell at the end of this heartwrenchingly written story in a song. I love the highschool-play feel of the video too.

9. Seeker Lover Keeper - Light All My Lights


Blogger is not letting me post the YouTube video direct, so you'll have to click on the link below.

Seeker Lover Keeper - Light All My Lights

Sally Seltman, Sarah Blasko & Holly Throsby. For an Australian female indie music lover like myself, it's a heavenly combination. The harmonies in this song are like flying on the winds of beauty.

8. Calvin Harris - Bounce


This song just makes me want to move my booty on the dance floor & raise my hands in the air like I just don't care. Enough said.

7. Ball Park Music - It's Nice to Be Alive


It's the lyrics of this song that seduced me, so I'm going to post them in entirety. They may be simple, but they've lifted me from the depths of despair a few time over the last few months or so since I first heard it while getting ready for work in the morning. It puts a smile on my face I can't shake for the rest of the day.

Boring as bat-s**t you people make me feel so
Curious and I don’t know why 

You think you’ll end up in the sky

Happy as Larry and riding sheep on clouds, well,
I’d prefer your enthusiasm, while you’re here with me
So stop! Don’t get carried a-way
Darlin’ don’t you understand that every time we wave our hands
We’re, we’re fucking a-mazing
We dropped down from some other dimension,
Just to be with you

Don’t stress
That’s dumb
I’m here, and it’s nice to be alive

Chill out,
It’s alright

kiss me,
It’s nice to be alive

Lovers need lovers and I’m impressed by all the goods out on display
I don’t know what to say
I’m thinking, I’m thinking
I’d prefer your enthusiasm,
While you’re here with me

It’s nice to be alive
It’s nice to be alive
It’s nice to be alive

6. Lanie Lane - Ain't Hungry

This lady is a perfectly packaged concoction of cute, sweet, naughty, kooky, mysterious, sexy and talented. The delivery of her vocals is like pouring chocolate sauce in my ears. Early rock 'n' roll, blues & rockabilly seriously rocks my socks. Also, pinup-meets-cowgirl styling. Yes please.

5. Arctic Monkeys - Black Treacle

There appears to be no official video yet for this song. So here's just the song:

I haven't yet had the pleasure of seeing Arctic Monkeys live yet, but I have a feeling I may just have heart palpitations if I do.

4. 360 - Killer 

Another homegrown talent who I've come to love this past year. There's passion in the way this Aussie hiphop MC creates music, it draws me in & his honesty makes me want to be mates with him. And he's just so fucking COOL.

Another video you'll have to click the link for:

360 - Killer

3. The Black Keys - Lonely Boy

Old school perfection. I have to tap my feet & fingers to this every time I hear it, and I can't ever get sick of it. I don't mind when it gets stuck in my head for days. BRING IT.

2. Gotye - Somebody that I Used To Know (Ft. Kimbra)

This song has become so mainstream now, everyone knows it. I had my heart stolen by Gotye a while ago and I'll always love this man. His music is true escapism for me.

1. Kimbra - Good Intent

Well here it is folks. My #1 song of 2011.  Kimbra is... well, she's... I can't honestly describe her with words. Shall I describe her through interpretive dance?

Music like this is why I love living. 

Also my biggest girl crush since Eliza Dushku in True Lies when I was 14. 

Please be my lady love, Kimbra. ♥

For me, it's been one of the best years for music in Australia. There are a lot of artists paying tribute to styles of old and putting modern twists on them, and those exploring entirely new territory. I feel so luck to be alive right here, right now to experience it.

Miss Yolie xx

Saskia and Rahelja

For a while I've been wanting to start incorporating my (very amateur) creative writing into my blog. When I write, the words tend to flow easier for me if I use a pen rather than a keyboard. So, some of this has been written in notebooks and on scraps of paper here and there, when I wake up or however I can get it down when it comes to me in a coffee shop or on a train. I feel as though I'm trying to get across a kind of childlike wonder and a sense of freedom in these words. I might continue it at a later date, or I might leave the two women to form lives together in your imagination :)

SASKIA AND RAHELJA

Looking down at the gleaming waterhole below, she briefly wondered what lay beneath it's silky surface before Saskia took her hand and gently pulled her off the edge of the sturdy rock's edge. They plunged into the velvety warm water, falling deeper until all they could see above them was bubbles and scattering fish. Finally, after what seemed an eternity beneath the translucent blanket, they could push themselves upwards towards the baking sun.

Saskia's laughing voice pierced through her consciousness as though she was trying to pull Rahelja out of a deep dream. "Hmmmmmmmmm?" She smiled and closed her eyes. She wanted to stay in the moment a while longer, savouring the feeling of freedom, intense joy and delight that the water dripping over her dark brown body provided her senses.

"I said, do you want to open the lunch box now or later? Jeez it's like I don't even exist! Who ya thinkin' about, Anita or Em? They both have eyes for you..." She playfully splashed in Rahelja's general direction, and the sparkling water, although flying high in the air between them, barely dropped a drip near her. Rahelja's ice blue eyes changed with her suddenly playful mood and sparkled as vividly as the water Saskia lazily splashed about in.

She moved slowly and stealthily over to Saskia, who by now had started floating leisurely with her eyes closed, humming softly. Her long cherry hair billowed out behind her under the surface of the water - she could see tiny cream coloured fish darting in and out of her curls. Her pale skin, below her neck, took on an unearthly blue tinge. She looks like some kind of dangerously mesmerising mermaid queen, thought Rahelja, with a sharp intake of breath at the sight.

Recapturing her playful mood, she drew up next to Saskia. She readied her hands beneath the blue-tinged body, and at once tipped Saskia over. She dived underneath her and the two women momentarily held a position imititating the "Ying Yang" sign, Saskia's head at Rahelja's feet & Rahelja at Saskia's. Rahelja could see the long bright white scar that ran the length of Saskia's right leg, from a cycling accident when she was 15. She was riding in a group of 10, and only 5 survived the bloody chaos that followed when the semi-trailer had hit them on the long winding desert road. One of those lost was Saskia's childhood sweetheart, Melanie. Saskia had told her about it beside a campfire while battling tears and Rahelja had held her through the cold night, as if her touch could burn all the stabbingly painful memories into non-existence. Rahelja turned around and kissed Saskia in the last few moments of breath they had left. Then they both quickly twisted away from eachother to tumble and rise, coming together above the surface with heads touching.

There was no need for words now. Lunch was forgotten. The two beauties, the pale redhead with the scarred heart, and the dark, blue-eyed daughter of the desert, held hands and walked slowly up the bank and through the gum trees to where they laid their campsite two hours before.

******************************************************************

The winds of change

A lot has happened since my last glowy post. In one scary, violent night (involving my poor defenseless cat), my relationship with the man I thought was amazing and wonderful a month ago ended abruptly. After I said I was leaving due to his treatment of my cat and myself, I found myself physically removed by him from the house, on the street with nothing but my phone, my kitty and my handbag, in my pyjamas, in the middle of winter. Not the most fun Friday night I've ever had.

I'm going to find it so hard to trust again. When you meet someone, and they seem to be everything you want, how can you foresee that things could go horribly, terribly wrong? What signs are there, that scream to you "stay away"? This is the second time I have been involved in a relationship with a man that turned violent. The first time, there were many signs. I stayed because he made me feel like no one would want me, that I had no one who cared for me, and couldn't survive on my own. I was young, naive, mixed up in something I couldn't control or escape from until I finally managed to be persuaded by someone who had come back into my life to leave forever and never look back. But this time? I couldn't read the signs if they were there, at the time. It's only since we got back from Thailand that things started getting weird. Now I look back though, I realise that he did have a controlling streak. But it wasn't enough for me to think "One day this man is going to push me into a corner so I can't move, after kicking my cat & saying he'll break his ribs next time then physically remove me from the house". He says I pushed him to it because I suffered from depression (after having a few things in my life happen that overwhelmed me). Yet I was never violent to him or nagging (not that nagging warrants violence), I just happened to not agree with some things he did or said and was sad sometimes. Years ago I would have thought I deserved it, but now I do not. Leon (my kitty) certainly doesn't.

Yet I now question my instincts. My intelligence. My judgement. I'm going to be much more wary when I meet people, let them in to my world and open my soul.

Today is a new day, I've just turned 30... a new decade of possibilities. And this time, I won't be letting any person control my destiny. It's mine, and it's now. I have a lot to look forward to, and a lot to learn from.