Cool on Fire - Daniel Johns

I find this kind of mesmerising.
And it's steadily growing on me.
Daniel Johns certainly has presence.
I hope you enjoy it.

Kylie + Hot Guys Miming = too much fun.

I just stumbled across this while web surfing and I thought I have to post it.

3min 42s

Get Outta My Way (Boys) Tribute from Jeremy Lucido on Vimeo.

Traveling Tracks

I hold one ear piece up to check which side it fits and then place each in the appropriate ear, turn on the tiny switch at the base and thread the ipod-on-a-clip through my shirt clipping it onto the belt loop at top of my shorts. I press play and look up, it's a whole new world. I'm in a subway, it's Paris, there's a city of people I'm threading through, and they me, there are sounds of trains here and on other levels, people, clattering, footsteps, I can hear them all, but it's a little more distant now, the background sound to my opening credits with a sound track that changes tack every few minutes.

A woman stops and enters my movie. She has a casual Parisian elegance as she pauses, looks at the time and continues off at a faster pace. She's on her way to meet her lover and he's always on time. She wants to arrive just after him but needs a quiet graceful entry at the restaurant so she needs to make time to slow time. She disappears in the tunnel just as a young blonde tourist comes into view. He's standing at the platform dressed in khaki cargo shorts, a white t-shirt and a golden tan. He looks at the map a friend is holding and laughs confidently before turning it the right way around. This is not his first trip to Paris, and while now he speaks in accented English, his French is fluent and unaccented. A combination of an affluent education outside this country mixed with plenty of local exposure. He is staying in an apartment, that he shares with his brother, which has a slightly interrupted view of the eiffel tower. He secretly loves the strobe lights that flash on the hour every night all over it and tries to be in a position to see them without being noticed. He laughs again with his friend and his white teeth glow in the crowd, then the train comes to swallow him up, and he's gone. An older man replaces him. Dark grey hair and a few too many chocolate eclairs have filled out his dark blue shirt. He is standing on the train expressionless. Swaying irregularly in sync with the movement of the carriage. He's on his way home from work in the interior ministry. It's been a busy day, half of his staff away on leave has made it a tough week. He's looking forward to his own week off, just a few days away. He will visit his new grand daughter with his wife. She has been busy preparing meals for their daughter over the past week in preparation for their visit. He thinks of the fluffy little stuffed monkey he has bought for her, wrapped delicately inside his briefcase and a smile edges its way onto his face. The train starts to brake, his smile subsides and he picks up the case as the doors burst open and is flushed out with the crowd onto the platform.

I look down and feel for the button skip tracks, when I look back up, I'm in Athens. A baggage carousel is spewing mostly black but some splashes of red and blue suitcases to a tired looking crowd. A woman is standing in dark orange tights, something of a flamenco look blouse with hair that has been coloured and recoloured a thousand times and is now a mix of reds and blondes all frizzed on a bed of grey. Eye makeup has exploded onto her face, half of which is now blue, it seemed like a good idea when she woke early this morning for the pre-dawn flight here. She feels a little more awake than she did then, but her eyes have looked completely awake all day. She's returning home to Athens where she lives by the port. She had never travelled much until the cheaper airlines started to fly and her weekend in London with an old friend was lot of fun, but more expensive than she had planned. She will have to wait a few months for the next trip now. Work at the port isn't exactly well paying, but her son who lives in central Athens helps out when she needs. She is sure that his flat-mate is his lover but has never had the courage to ask. She invites them both whenever there is an event on just in case. A cute couple in their late 20's walk by pushing a trolley stacked with bags. A fuzz of blonde hair is trailing them on the body of a toddler who has been so out of control, they now have little energy left to chase him. He has run into the security lady, picked up an old baggage tag off the ground but just before putting it into his mouth found another distraction and is running off towards a dog emerging from a fellow passenger's hand carry on the floor. His parents laugh together recalling the man from the Hotel this morning who joked about their son "The Destroyer" as he called him. The dog now freed, the toddler runs laughing towards the carousel with those bags that look like a great challenge to climb.

Madonna's "Give it to me" bounds into the sound track and the rest of the movie is paused while a short film plays out in my head. This one's a real one, unlike the other ones I've concocted in my travels, so my imagination is less essential right now. It is another holiday experience though. The track ends and a new one begins, and so my journey continues.

P!NK Perfection

We ventured out to one of P!NK's record breaking live concerts here in Sydney this weekend. It's an uncommon thing but The Frenchman and I have both found someone we'd turn straight for in P!nk whose concert was spectacular. Loved it to bits and would go again if I had the chance. I'd heard great reports and had seen her performing live only on TV in the past but the reality did not disappoint. There was some spectacle I really wasn't expecting and emotional hits which were right on target. Full of energy for the whole of the performance, singing upside-down spinning and still hitting the right notes. The hype was certainly up to speed. Sign me up as a definite fan. Can we do it all again please?

Some Day Soon

I don't post a lot of women here at Superchilled, it's true. But today is an exception, obviously. Readers from Australia will know of Natalie Bassingthwaighte through a number of media sources. More recently she has released a series of singles and just last week her new album 1000 Stars. I got to meet her at a friend's party on Saturday night and I have to say she's very sexy. She happens to be from my home town as well, which is better still, but what I like even more is her music, and while I've just downloaded the album from itunes, I'm already a fan. The single Some Day Soon (cover image above) is a great feel good track and I'm enjoying turning it up loud. Definitely worth checking out. 

Jay Brannan in Sydney

I just discovered that Jay Brannan is performing in Sydney on October 30th. I also just discovered that October 30th is a Thursday and I have 2 work commitments I can't change for that date, which is typical. I don't see a lot of live musical performances, but if I could I would see Jay live - damn it. 

So your job, superchilled readers, is to make sure the first performance is a sell out and that way they might be inclined to offer more performances! That's my vain hope anyway. You can see an example of a performance below for Half Boyfriend. You may recall him from the highly recommended film, Shortbus.

4min 20sec

More details of Jay's concert schedule and how to book online here.

Lazy Active Retro

A lazy weekend of activity. Impromptu dinner parties, slow cooked breakfasts, trips to the beach, to the Italian deli, hikes in the bush. Close friends visiting, some planned, some spontaneous. Animated conversation flowing from relationships to politics to family planning. Chance meetings of friends at the pool and on the street, and long conversations that follow. Strengthening new and old bonds that will last a lifetime. 

There's nothing quite so refreshing as the freedom from being in the company of people with whom you have the knowledge that you're at home, that you can say and express what you feel, and you're going to be accepted, and listened to, and sometimes challenged. People you know you can trust, who make you feel a warm glow from within.

I was playing this song at one of these slow breakfast mornings on Sunday, and it has the lazy, active, retro feel of the summer I am planning to have.

Paper Aeroplane : Angus & Julia Stone

3min 38s

Wild - things to do with Milk - Wednesday

I was at the gym Tuesday when the music video below came on - I was mesmerised. Not only is the song from Australian group The Presets great , but the video is quite spectacular - milk features quite heavily in the photography so I figured it would make an interesting wild wednesday theme. 

What can you do with MILK today? 

You might drink it, cook with it, make it into something particularly tasty, or maybe you'll be a bit more creative and bathe in it, make milk bombs (ie balloons filled with the white stuff) making for quite the splash or something more grand. There are a few examples below. I'm starting by pouring it on my cereal and then we'll see what I can do with it through the day...

Grab yourself a pint and get whited.

Inside or Out.

The Presets: This Boy's in Love   4min 11sec

Things New

I bought Madonna's new album HARD CANDY today. On first playing I was waiting for a track that I liked, and there were one or two that were OKAY, but not exactly getting me dancing on the spot. I was wondering if I'd made the right decision to buy it unheard... but now that I'm playing it again now, it's actually starting to grow on me. I wonder what I will think about it in a few days time?

Anyone else have the album yet? Your thoughts?

There's also a new iMac out - or an update of last year's edition. I was impossibly close to buying one last year, but held off. I'm thinking this might be the time for me to head back to my roots. I started off life as a Mac Boy and now it's time to return home. Everyone I know who has gone Mac, has never gone Bac.

wild wednesday

Got an ipod filled with tunes you've had for an eternity? Tired of the same old same old? Today's wild wednesday is for you - it's time to find some new tracks to listen to. They might be ones you've lost from old and are happy to bring back into your world, they might be a whole new generation of listening pleasure. I've started it off by downloading an extended version of Madonna's "Express yourself" - an oldie but a goodie. Another current fave is 1234 by Feist (used in the ipod ad). I'm hungry for more.

If you have a track that's your absolute fave - let us know - maybe we can all share the passion...

Monday

Monday morning, I wake up to alarm 2. It's not looking good. I feel so completely lacking in energy I want to ignore the alarm - but sensibly it's placed away from bed so I have to get up to turn it off, and it's not nearly as pleasant as alarm 1 which is the Kylie cd which has now stopped. (I snooze to Kylie every morning - I've tried a host of different cd's but she's consistently the best wake up music for me so far... not that she actually makes me get out of the bed) . The damn beeping one wins and I'm on autopilot to the shower. Shaving next stop, a bowl of cereal and fruit eaten in front of my pc with the latest news and blog updates. London Preppy has usually posted by now and I laugh myself awake, look at the time and rush to finish the cereal I'm eating because invariably I'm running late. The garage door closes remotely and I'm testing the supercharger my German engineering has installed to delight and propel me. I wonder as to whether I should accelerate so heavily as an environmentally responsible citizen, then I look at the time and my mind moves on, to the tempo of Bob Sinclair's Love Generation. My staff smile and welcome me in, they will have told my patients that I'll be there about now, and the day is underway. I have a mix of people to see, from the superhunk blonde 25 year old with muscles that need no more defining to the middle aged woman with a work injury that she doesn't seem to want to get better, to the kids pointing at the jelly bean container that I have mixed feelings about in the glassed in cabinet.

I escape into my seriously shortened lunchtime, after spending 50 minutes removing an implanted rod from a woman's arm that is not nearly as easy at they say in the promotional material, into a scorching day. Despite my sense of reason I go running in the heat and saturate my t-shirt with a sixpack-seeking sweat, then dive into the pool with 2 minutes of my lunch time left (lunch is still back at the surgery). Work continues evenly yet intensely for the afternoon. There was one patient where think I lost count at 6 yawns - but my post prandial somnolence thankfully doesn't last too long. They were in another world anyway - so I get away with it. And for the first time in weeks I finish on time.

The supermarket is filled with my patients, one of whom is the 25 year old I'd seen earlier in the day, this time with his girlfriend - it was quite funny given the personal nature of the consultation to cross paths at almost every aisle and then again at the checkout. But I'm not complaining.

Home with the wind in my hair - a balmy evening - & collapse onto the couch with Norah Jones playing - The Frenchman spontaneously vomits on hearing her, so with him still on his way home, I'm safe - and I know I can sleep to her. A candle is lit for atmosphere, but completely wasted given I'm snoozing. The Frenchman arrives home and we prepare a dinner of roasted fish and salad and discuss the day with a volley of text messages interspersed to various third parties following up things from the weekend, and a selection of news programs dissecting the current election campaign. We were given some home baked choc chip cookies today and a third of them survive the night.

I read Single in the City and wonder why I didn't add him to my list of blogs before, then watch a man showering on Aussielicious but wonder why, and ponder what to post today - something different and innovative - because I like to be different an innovative, but I end up with a web log of my day, which is I guess what this is supposed to be in the first place. And then it's finished and I go to bed.

I have played, I don't know how many, Norah Jones songs on my ipod today because I slept through most of them.

Destination Unknown

Destination Calabria: Alex Guadino - 3min 4sec

Last week I had no idea where I'd end up. So this week I'm embracing the uncertainty and randomness of life and am starting off with something a little sexy, and a little unexpected.

Turn it up loud and enjoy.

Express Yourself

Madonna: Express Yourself - Music Video

It's an oldie but still one of my favourites - probably better on a huge screen with the perfect sound system - but this will do for now. And apart from the beautiful imagery - including the men - the basic message is pretty good too.

The Weekend is here - have a great one!!

Jay Brannan New Music Video

Here's the new Jay Brannon video for 'Body's a Temple'
You can download his music through itunes. (3min 40s)
I'm a big fan. (link on the right to his web page)
Curiously I've just read that there's a new movie he's in just completed called 'Holding Trevor' - spooky.

Mood Music... Rain

Madonna: Rain - one of my favourites, and topical...

Weekend Music Video

Bob Sinclair - Love Generation
First heard it a year ago - still love this song and the video clip
(3min 34sec)

Being Boring - music video

Pet Shop Boys - Being Boring - My all time favourite music video.
I guess it has inpired me in a lot of ways. The gorgeous men aren't bad either. Thanks Bruce Weber. Enjoy. (4min55sec)

Pet Shop Boys - Liberation

an oldie but perennial favourite
if you haven't seen it in IMAX 3D you haven't lived

music video of the day

David Guetta Vs The Egg: Love Don't Let Me Go

Jay Brannan

Those of you who have seen the movie Shortbus (which I highly recommend) will recognise Jay from it. He sings in the movie once or twice and he's great. We have conversed briefly by email and he's really sweet and its worth having a listen to his music. For more, click here: Jay Brennan