Had dinner with friends a few nights back, and during the extended wine soak that followed conversation got on to one of my TV unmissables, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. For the uninitiated, each episode of RKN features foul-mouthed and tempered UK celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay troubleshooting a struggling restaurant and seeking to turn business around inside a week.
Recalling some of Ramsay’s spectacular irascible moments – eg: throwing Joan Collins and her food critic companion out of his restaurant; bellowing something along the lines of “fuck me, who the fuck do you think you are, you arrogant French PIG” into the livid face of a blinking continental chef resisting advice – we chuckled heartily (veritable beacons of humanity that we be). But then from across the table came a comment that sliced apart the bonhomie of the night like a Gustav Emil Ern carving knife:
I’ve got a love-hate relationship with blogging – or is it writing? Whatever, when I get into it I love it. It inspires and stimulates me, sets off new trains of thought…but if I absent myself more than a few days, those trains rattle on their way without me, disappearing into gloomy tunnels of lost opportunity, leaving me sitting idly at some station of inertia. I know these barren platforms too too well.
My inactivity begins to gnaw at me like some inner rat, but perversely I routinely choose to tolerate the discomfort – it’s almost as if the act of writing is some authority figure I engage in a contest of wills. I’m James Dean, writing’s my father. And he wants to keep me home while I wanna go out. So I grab me coat and slam the door and kick in me grandma’s portrait on the way out. Then when I’m “out” I realise I’m restless with inactivity. So back home I go and the old man looks smug so I go out again just to spite him… Continue reading When Is A Blog Not A Blog?→
Inaugural and haphazard, these Boomtown Rap Awards are disorganised, ill conceived and pretty bloody random. There’s an Australian bias, but awards are not restricted nationally. They can be positive or – more likely – negative.
While the awards naturally reflect my own prejudices and tastes, being a democratic and inclusive type o bastard, I will gladly accept reader nominations and suggestions for additional awards not covered below. Just post ‘em in the Comments. And there is no particular deadline. I’ll happily keep adding to the list until such time as it kinda sorta feels too far into 2008 to be relevant.