For that special woman in your life: Tramp perfume

Tramp perfume actually existed in the '70s!




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tShArz

The Spanish verb 'stonerosear' (written late 19.01)

Sorry to repost sh*t from Facebook, but this Bolivian I know made up the verb 'stonerosear', y ¡me encanta!

I am sharing this post written by xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx for one reason... he turned The Stone Roses into a verb! 'Se estuvo stone roseando'. Wow, that's art! I'm not even sure what that means, besides sheer genius! I salute you,

Stone roseando con todo antes de armar la previa del super clásico! Vamo los millo (TA)!!!

....  Over an hour later, and I am still absolutely marvelling over the new Spanish verb 'stonerosear'.

And now apparently The Strokes have a new single out and Phoenix are coming out with a new album.  Yay!  (Photo is Phoenix.)

And you thought you had financial problems?

'Zimbabwe finance minister reveals country has just £138 left in the bank'

Zimbabwe finance minister reveals country has just £138 left in the bank

And I thought the Argentinians had it bad right now!


I think for my mental health I'll take some kind of holiday between 16 - 23 February, even though I've been worrying that I'm not earning as much as I'm spending in January and February.  At least, unlike last year, I've got enough to cover it.  I'll probably go to the south of Chile....

Is it wrong to find this funny?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Wee Raccoons!

I posted this on Facebook on 2 January.  Someone asked me if I had robbed somebody!

I had seriously only copied it 'cos I thought it was cute!

So I went to Matucana 100 MFest last Friday night

For this!  Friday, 11 enero, as part of MFest: Centrofest  Manucata 100 where there were five evenings (indie-ish based) and I only went to one.  Good time of year, five days of, now competing with local opera and kiddies' place in February!  (Reminds me of catching Lo Bunkers in summer 2012, outside in a race course I didn't realise existed in Santiago up until then.)

I wanted to see Astro (who had played surprising short sets at La Cumbre del Rock and even Primavera Fauna.  So I was happy to see Astro do most of an hour, and of course I waited for Dënver's 'Los Ascedolentes' en el en core but both bands were amazing!

Makaroni impressed me.... I initially thought I'd missed them, got to the venue about 10.50am and Astro didn't take the stage, so I thought they'd've been before Astro, but they turned out to be really dancey, but played live with two singers, keyboards, other effects pedals/machines... but they actually did play live!

I'm not the biggest fan of Makaroni's music, but I danced the whole time, two keyboadists singing and playing  live on keyboards, plus one excellent bloke on a mini-keybroad and three little twirk-about objects, so he had four little instruments to adjust-- plus ALL had had to sing live into the mike when needed!

Whilst I came to see Astro and Dënver, I ENJOYED Makaroni mucho, less so que DJ Nico Castro.  Soomehow I heard the name, 'from Radio Horizonte', but not the music was much further out Makaroni's, which still had an element (however scance) of 'band' not 'dj', not that I dislike djd!

  Astro

 (pero ya fui una semana temprana!  ¡Ya buena 'show'!)

(Dënver male singer/guitarisat suprisingly hot!)


I even liked Makaroni's approach!


I went with the new electronic cigarette, but that's a whole 'nother post!

I hope this made sense!

Day 2 of the electronic cigarette

Quitting smoking makes people BORING!  It's the 'junkie' thinking, it's all you think about, you talk about it too much, and I've realised that even with the electronic cigarette that provides nicotine, you STILL need willpower!

So yesterday I bought 10 fags anyway and at one point almost felt sick smoking one after an electronic one, but today no fags!

1) It's not a replacement for the real thing. Real cigarettes are more satisfying. You still need some will power to avoid the real thing.

2) You really do inhale and blow out 'smoke' (vapour). If you suck really hard, you can actually cough.

3) It doesn't stay charged long, nowhere near 24 hours. I'm charging it before going out tonight, hope it lasts at 4am in a gig/club!

4) It has an electronic red light the tip that is automated when you inhale. When the battery's dead, it doesn't light up. What's really funny is that right before the battery dies, the 'cherry' actually flashes on and off! I cannot wait until I'm out somewhere and someone sees the end of my cigarette flashing on and off!

5) It's bad in a way because you know you can smoke anywhere, so you want to! I mean, I want to smoke in the metro now, yesterday I had a quick puff in a lift where I was working.

6) When you smoke a normal cigarette you light it, and then finish it. With this one you can just have a quick puff or two, so you could easily put it to your lips 30 or 40 times a day!

7) It's also weird having a few puffs and then just dropping it into my handbag, doing that feels like it's 'lit'!

 One of those little cartridges is like 8 to 10 cigarettes at the most, (not 150 'mouths' or whatever), so I'm learning when to know to change them twice a day (the red light doesn't get activated when it's empty).

So I've got to stick with it. Right now I'm wondering if I'm putting MORE nicotine into my system, but so they say smokers are also addicted to all the other shit in fags (I think I like the effect of the carbon monoxide), so I need to give it some days yet and see if my lungs clear with no tar, etc.

It's too early to give a full verdict, it's weird, and you really do have to tell yourself you won't smoke real cigarettes anymore, but going cold turkey made me ill, I was depressed and had to take a day off work last January! Hopefully if I stick with this I'll notice a difference in a few days.

(Haha, that is so not a smiley icon with sunglasses, that was item #8!)

At least I find it funny?!

My friend put this up on Facebook, and I find it funny as....  Strangely I didn't receive a single comment...:

Listening to indie! I HATE the word 'hipster'.

Of all things listening to Chapterhouse right now!  'If You Want Me' is gorgeous, but 'Falling Down' was always my favourite, can't believe that album came out TWENTY years ago!

'I Always Knew' by The Vaccines is my current favourite song.  They've played it on Chile's Radio Horizonte tonight!

I hate the word 'hipster'.  Such a thing existed ages before there was a stupid label.  But I'm so f****** hipster I was listening to The Jesus and Mary Chain's 1984 B-side of Syd Barrett's 'Vegetable Man'-  (Not really, I've known that song for about 23 years, and it was never about 'hipster', ever!)

Yay, we're having a Glasgow night, with Teenage Fanclub and later The Pastels as well, but I've also listened to The Vaccines and the Swedish band The Mary Onettes.  Last night (or the night before) I was going Chilean, with Teleradio Donoso, De Saloon, Camila Moreno....  I love music!!!



http://pitchfork.com/features/5-10-15-20/8490-5-10-15-20-the-pastels-stephen-pastel/

I've bought electronic cigarettes.... Really fed up with smoking and had failed with other methods!

I must admitted they're plugged in right now, and given the night they've had they're going to exceed the '5 hours initial needed charge, 2 hours after....'

I've had a bit of a crazy night... I've got to be up for a full day's work tomorrow in like six hours after a Wednedsay's night of 'weekend fun'.

So all shall be ready for me to explain tomorrow if I haven't burnt the shit out initially, including how I got on....

But I got FED up of smoking!  Have done it for eighteen years, tried the cold turkey methods and the nicotine gum method (patches seemingly not available in Chile).

I've got my LAST cigarette tonight!  (OK, drank too much wine and had some coke for the first time in MONTHS, which was especially stupid given that tonight's not a Friday or Saturday.)  But, I will suffer tomorrow, but also, whilst I'm weak enough to not give up the nicotine, I've got weeks' supply of no tar, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde, whatever is in that shit....

I know it's not the same as cold turkey, but after my failures I've still reached the point that I don't want to smoke anymore, and this has got to be better than nothing!

I may keep continuous updates on here... really want to not smoke anymore, due to good friends (so many good stories shared that I shan't repeat here) and a bit of booze and a bit of unexpected coke this is NOT the best night to do this... but I've got one cigarette left.

Which foolishly I will smoke now, so I can start waking up in 6+ hours tobacco cigarette-free.

-- I am aware how foolish this post sounds; it certainly doesn't like I'm trying to quit smoking with the all-important plan, or support from my friends, but really I've got fed up with being a tobacco smoker, I'm going to see how this all goes.--

Alex Turner is 27 today

Happy Birthday, Alex!



He's 27 today.  That must make him 5 January 1986.

I must say Arctic Monkeys' first album was amazing, second one was good.... I saw them live at Lollapalooza Chile 2012 and don't get the 'US '50s rock look' or why all the songs were quite 'rock' and had less melody on recent albums... only Thursday I was enjoying 'Fluorescent Adolescent' off the second album with a Chilean student of mine.

These hot:



These not:




I don't care if it's 2007 or 2012, what's with the faux Elvis/'50s look?  You are beautiful as you are, Alex!  Liam Gallagher's past it, no one's making those comparisons!

Schoolboy Alex:




Beautiful:




Dear Alex,  I'm not sure -- ppffrrbt maybe I'm wasting my words as you're a grown man so you should do as you please.... -- but...



But I do love Miles' first solo album as well.



(And yeah I know the photo was from The Last Shadow Puppets....)

I suppose in a way that was a really shitty way to say Happy Birthday to someone!  I do love you, Alex!  You're amazing and so talented!  DON'T change the person or your appearance based on what I or anyone else may say... it's just that I'm 36 now and you're just 27... (hahaha) I want to say 'be the best person you can be' without sounding like your mum!

I love you, Alex!

From a distant blog in Chile!

xx

Talagante, Región Metropolitana, Chile

There is no reason ever to go to Talagante, Chile, unless you live there or know someone who does.



I've been racking my brains trying to think of somewhere in the UK to compare it to, and I just can't.  It's got less cultural importance than Milton Keynes or King's Lynn.  Other than the main plaza there were no parks, no museum, no pretty church on a corner (listen to me, I'm complaining about a lack of a church!), no architecture of note, it's flatter than Norwich so there's no place to get a view, and no shopping (not that I'd go there for that anyway, and I suppose it's close enough to Santiago/Maipú that it doesn't need good shopping, so I can forgive it that).

Seriously, of all the places I've been to in the UK, I'd say it's as culturally important as Hamilton or Motherwell, Scotland, but a bit bigger.  Smaller than East Kilbride.  But with less crime and fewer heroin addicts.

......................................................................................................................

Music!!

Last night I had a class with a student who likes similar music to me.  So after talking to him about various cultures (he seems to love German efficiency, wants to send his 11-month-old son to an German-speaking school when he's old enough.  That's fine.  He's the parent.  I just reminded him that in the future his kid will be better off learning English [what's the lingua franca of China, India, eastern Europe, western Europe outside the major language countries right now?] or Mandarin.  Little Clemente's better off speaking Spanish than German!  Portuguese has no importance outside Brazil [which will be a world player] and Portugal, Italian's no good, French owes most of its popularity to Africa [and Quebec], and German's only Germany, Austria, and a bit of Switzerland!  I bit my tongue to stop from saying 'German efficiency?  Hitler trumpeted that.  Best off sending your kid to an English school, go British rather than American if that's what you want.  I love the UK, but with all the 'how do you do?' crap they teach in the British schools, la docencia's going to be a generation behind anyway.

So, anyway, we started listening to music on his laptop.  He couldn't remember what exactly what music was played in the film The Full Monty, and I consider my work done in that I successfully convinced him that The Stereophonics' version of 'I Believe in Miracles' wasn't as good as that of Hot Chocolate (and I LOVE indie, not mid-'70s funk or whatever that was!).  From there we moved on to Arctic Monkeys, of whom I said 'loved the first album, second album good, after that....'  So a bit of Fluorescent Adolescent, then Arcade Fire....  By then class was over, and I felt good!  So in his car, with him giving me a lift to my bus stop, he asked me to choose a song on his ipod.  I chose a song I love, one of the least commercial he had... 'Australia' by The Shins.  I left that car wanting to go out dancing!!

Every memory counts as I try to rebuild my music collection, just downloaded some Tilly and the Wall earalier today! 

Sad... not even an hour after the last message I posted...

I just read the worst status update from Faby (Fabiola). I lived with her in the house where I got robbed in September. This is so bad:

She wished me happy holidays, then said both her parents are in an Intensive Care Unit in Talagante, where they might die. Because she spent both Christmas and New Year at their bedside she lost her job. She's an only child, and when we'd lived together she told me she had no real friends because she worked so much (I don't understand that, she's a lovely girl), so she had no one to turn to than the ex-boyfriend who beat her up so badly in November that she had to plaster on the make-up for fear of taking one day off work, and he's come back from Argentina and found her a place to stay in Isla de Maipo and is supporting her. She asked me to visit her.

I think I have to visit her tomorrow. I think Isla de Maipo is the other side of Cajón del Maipo, I'm not sure where it is, but it's in the Región Metropolitana and not as far as Valparaíso or Rancagua. I won't comment on Luis re-emerging. I was also thinking of what kind of present to get her. Flowers or chocolates won't suffice. It's hard to find greeting cards in this country (did you see my post a month ago about how I'd seen ONE postbox in seventeen months?), but I think right now the most suitable gift would be a greeting card (please not 'Happy Birthday' or 'Happy New Year', hope there's a vague selection that's more like 'My Sympathies' and not 'Sorry for Your Loss' as that hasn't happened yet) with 10.000 pesos inside.

This is a truly horrible story, and Faby is such a lovely girl, normally more smile-y than me. I don't have to work tomorrow, I really must go see her.

My thoughts are with you, Faby! I'll find out which bus station to leave from tomorrow!

'God spits
On my soul
There's something dead
Inside my hole'

Haha, I'm not even depressed, just listening to my favourite band of all-time.  Anyone who knows which band that is, and even better, which album and which song... you're my friend for life!

'How can something crawl within
My rubber holy baked bean tin?'

(Yeah, after all these years I haven't worked out what a 'rubber holy baked bean tin' is either.)



LOVE THEM FOREVER!!!

No exaggeration, I was listening to this band when I was 13, 23 years ago.  I would've thought that back then the 'teenyboppers' at that age were avid about New Kids on the Block, but this Justin Bieber (already past it) and this One Direction business gives me despair.

BBC Radio 2's Best Song That Never Got to Number 1

BBC Radio 2 ran a poll amongst its listeners to find out what was the favourite song that got to #2 in the charts, but never #1.  Here were the results:

1. Ultravox - Vienna, 1981 (Shaddup You Face - Joe Dolce)
2. The Pogues feat. Kirsty MacColl - Fairytale Of New York, 1987 (Always On My Mind - Pet Shop Boys)
3. Don McLean - American Pie, 1972 (Son Of My Father - Chicory Tip, Without You - Nilsson)
4. James - Sit Down, 1991 (The One And Only - Chesney Hawkes)
5. The Stranglers - Golden Brown, 1982 (Town Called Malice - The Jam)
6. The Kinks - Waterloo Sunset, 1967 (Silence Is Golden, The Tremeloes)
7. The Beatles - Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever, 1967 (Release Me, Engelbert Humperdinck)
8. Queen - We Are The Champions, 1977 (The Name Of The Game - Abba, Mull Of Kintyre/Girls' School - Wings)
9. The Beach Boys - God Only Knows, 1966 (Yellow Submarine/Eleanor Rigby - The Beatles)
10. A-ha - Take On Me, 1985 (The Power Of Love, Jennifer Rush)

http://www.nme.com/news/ultravox/67950

There are some good songs on that list, particularly 'Sit Down' by James, 'Waterloo Sunset' by The Kinks and even The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl.  I also find it interesting how a lot of the #1s weren't as good as the #2s (in my opinion... Chesney Hawkes?  Jennifer Rush?  Who are Chicory Tip?  And the Joe Dolce thing goes without saying).  

However, I listened to Ultravox's 'Vienna' for what I believe to be the first time ever.  That song is shite, how in the world did it make it to the top of that list??  Really?!  I'm utterly perplexed by that, I guess that's Radio 2 listeners for you, though!

¡Feliz Año Nuevo! Happy New Year!

So I am actually at home tonight!  On my own!  Not so bad, I have the flat to myself (something that I treasure) and have been drinking since about 4.30pm.  I had legendary nights out Friday and Saturday, already can hardly remember what day it is today or what I did yesterday, so I'm probably not doing myself any harm by not going out and overspending way too much cash.  It's already gone midnight in the UK right now anyway.



But Happy New Year anyway!


Haha, Jack Whitehall is hot.  (On Jimmy Carr's right.)



lhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2255507/Channel-4-sick-comedy-Comedians-Jack-Whitehall-James-Corden-guzzle-wine-egg-trade-obscene-jokes-Queen-Philip-Susan-Boyle.html