All My City Is Belong To Party People
The Sunday edition of local Melbourne paper The Age has always been fairly lightweight. I certainly don't read it in anticipation of a hard-hitting journalistic expose. But I've always enjoyed a leisurely weekend flip through the supplements, especially the arts and entertainment section. So I noticed with interest that this part of the paper has (yet again) been given a new format - it's now called the 'M' magazine. 'M', so the caption tells me proudly, stands for 'More about you!' Cool - More about me! More about my town! More about me and my places and my stuff over a Sunday coffee, how lovely!
And there are so many things to simply adore about the last 2 weeks of 'M' magazine. Like the 'Teens on the Turf' cover story:
which is all about 'why spring racing is the new prom' (was there an old prom? I thought proms were American and we called it 'the school formal' or 'the social' but hey, I only work in schools, what do I know) and featured terrific information about adolescents called 'Kyrsten' and 'Amelia' who go to the horseraces in black strappy diamante heels and pearls and how they, like, looove the races because 'it's all about the excitement of dressing up and getting your hair done. There are aren't that many opportunities to get all glamourous and that's what it's all about'.
Then there's the following week's:
about (OMG, SCOOP) finding designer fashion items in chain stores.
But I think my absolute favorite part, which luckily I managed to find sandwiched in between all the pages of advertising, is this regular column:
You may remember Pete Glutbuster has had words to say about her before. I knew Mik's section would be something special when I saw that the first interview was with a young lady
whose description read:
And I wasn't let down.
Oh, see that? This poppet like, totally has a sense of humour about herself. Let's give her a second chance.
Wow. That answer was brimming with sharp wit and specific detail. Next penetrating question, please, Mik!
NEWS FLASH. Long held rumour confirmed when model-turned-aspiring actress confirms public suspicion that she ACTUALLY ONLY HAS A HALF A BRAIN IN HER HEAD. I knew it! How the hell does she function? Is she allowed to drive? Does she need help using the toilet?
Wonderful. Watch out Cate Blanchett etc. Keep grilling, Mik!
Love. Angel. Music. Baby. Urge. To. Vomit. Rising.
But wait. She said, her passions could 'get her into trouble!' Maybe she's going to make a shocking admission regarding her activities in the toilets at Candy Bar or similar.
And I’m so glad she doesn’t have one of those boring, predictable passions, like most people do, you know? Like creating ground-breaking art or making exciting new music or saving the child soldiers in Uganda or protecting the threatened Indo-Chinese tiger species.
Oh, come here. I'll give you a hug. Just take care that the white hot light of revulsion emanating from my heart doesn’t pierce your smoothly spray-tanned epidermis.
And wait, there's more. Here's last week's offering!
‘Hiyeeeee!’
On your marks, Mik, GO!
Really? Skinny jeans, that's actually what she wears while lying about watching Grey's Anatomy or The Amazing Race? Question Two and she already sounds like an incurable try-hard. (also please note, possible cause number 4 as listed here.)
Great choice of words, Mik. It sounds like a book from the 'Issues' section of the school library, 'My Mummy And Daddy Are Special.' You'll find it in between 'My Sister is Deaf' and 'Zack has asthma'.
Anyway.
Ho, fabulous! StephMc! The soap-turned-pop starlet of 'The Staph Steph Show'! The lass whose struggles with the concept of an album’s 'secret track' were so memorably captured over at Sternzine (if you haven't read that, please do)! The girl who, when asked by a UK fan on this Neighbours video post which charitable causes she was passionate about, could only stammer awkwardly that she was 'an ambassador for McDonalds' (yes, she actually did. It's right near the start, but I highly recommend the whole video for anyone in need of a laugh). The same girl who, when showing the 'Staph Show' cameras around the Neighbours set, helpfully informed her viewing audience, ‘And this is the torunda!’* And she’s her BESTIE! Since Year Seven! Tell us more!
NOTE: to the list of pop songs that may give you goosebumps (Good Vibrations, Thriller, Bohemian Rhapsody, Whiter Shade of Pale etc) please add 'You Should Have Lied' by StephMc. Lyric sample: ' If a tree falls inside of a forest and nobody hears it/It wont affect anybody 'cause no one will miss it.' I don't know about you, by my stomach's tingling. (Or lurching. It can be hard to tell.)
Right Mik, let's wind this up with a few final inquiries.
Ah, but in saying so, she's implying that she might, and that's a new and exciting way to name drop - her 5th so far (I've spared you a few). And I love that clarification- 'He's not just gorgeous - he's quirky.' Deep. But can we fit another name drop in?
YES WE CAN!!
Since I don't know her personally (although obviously having read this I feel very close to her), I'm going to give pastel here the benefit of the doubt and say, maybe this last answer is actually a joke. Am I being too generous? Could she seriously think that a man who looks like he'd enjoy nothing more than an evening of sweaty fumbling with some underage ladies and a video camera is someone worth getting it on with?
Oh Mik, you useless boobhag. Your party people and their inane chatter make me feel ill. And congratulations, 'M' editor Michelle Griffin, you've produced something so vapid that it actually makes reading the paper's other supplement, Sunday Life (which last week featured a half-naked girl on the front to illustrate that it was 'The Health Issue') feel like an intellectual challenge.
The Jelly Verdict
Maybe I'm wrong to complain. What the hell do I know about the throbbing beat of this city and it's partyfolk? I'm a slobby, unstylish musical theatre enthusiast with hair that is presently so unfashionably long that Snaz informed me I look like a virgin oboe player on her way to band camp. And why should I judge those who smugly wear one-offs from Parisian flea markets or S&B skinny jeans when I recently took advantage of the city's prematurely warm weather and walked to my parents house in my pyjamas?
It just shits me, I guess, that after multiple reads of the magazine that's supposedly 'More About Me' I can't find myself, or anything that even slightly relates to my life, inside it anywhere. I hope the rest of Melbourne is as excited as I am about what this weekend's edition may feature.
*Here’s a gloriously bitchy in-joke for ‘Neighbours’ fans (or hataz). In this official ‘Neighbours’ website video, StephMc's co-stars Dan and Caitlin conduct a similar tour of the set to the one Steph gave on her reality series ‘The Steph Show’. When they get to the 'rotunda', Caitlin says with a roll of her eyes, 'And here's the "TORUNDA",' and they both snigger. Oh StephMc, when even Dan ‘The Bulbous-Headed Idol-Singing Virgin' O' Connor is sniggering at you, I'd say your credibility is wearing dangerously thin.
27 comments:
Yeay!
That was well worth the wait, beautiful, moving piece full of dark insights and quirky yet penetrative social(ite) commentary.
I love it... have your people call my people and they'll do lunch.
I can't do lunch myself, I'm on the Eat-In-The-Dark diet... you should try it, daaaarling, not that you need it.
So, what were we talking about?
Oh, alright. This week I will actually read the Sunday Age on its trip from the driveway to the recycling pile.
Nice one. I've been half-heartedly thinking about a critique of the new "M" for a few weeks but you said everything I wanted to say -- only better.
If I had a bird cage I know what I'd use to line it.
It's like there's another, parallel universe Melbourne, infinitely more vapid and banal and irritating thanthe onehte rest of us live in, to which only the Sunday Age mag staff writers have access. They're welcome to it.
*ahem* I think there have been some great articles in M
The "M" must stand for MEDIA WHORE
Oh Jelly.
You make me laugh so.
You make my tummy hurt.
I don't know if Melbourne has anything like Sydney Confidential - the trash tabloid within a trash tabloid (The Daily Telegraph... like the Herald Sun but not typeset in Arial).
It would bring you so much joy.
Shit like that for four pages... every weekday.
what is is with this plague of inane 'culcha' writers? We've got a couple of fluffy weekend social columnists like that in the Canberra Times too, but as usual Melbourne scores over any competition...
The Sunday Age shits me. Mostly it shits me that it's cheaper to get it (with my subscription) than to get the paper only 6 days per week.
Most days I have to be disciplined to stop reading the paper and get on with productivity. Sundays present me with no such problem. Why they feel the need to employ air-head private school girls to write crap, when their are so many clever people who can write interesting (but still Sunday-light) copy is beyond me.
One of my cousins found herself on the pastel pages of the Sunday paper one morning - she was a model and aspiring chiropractor at the time. (Now she's a full-time chiropractor) I'm proud to say she had the sense to be embarassed about it.
A mutual friend appeared in Mik Grigg's "Spy" page in the Age having had her photo taken at an MTC opening gala thing.
When the photographer asked her what her name was for the caption, she replied "Margaret Pantaloon".
When the photographer suggested that wasn't her real name, she said "what do you care?"
He realised that he didn't care at all and consequently, she appeared under that very name. Solid Gold.
If you see you way clear, perhaps you could do a similar hatchet job on Sam Brett...?
Is that Sunshine as in Tottenham, western suburbs Sunshine?
Jelly:
Roses are red, Violets are blue.
All my base
Are belong to you.
(Shamelessly stolen from Bash.org)
Sam Brett, let's swap her for Wa-Wa
Hilarious. Thanks for the link to that Steph video. She's so passionate, like David Suzuki or sumfin.
I am going to work the words "pastel" and "boobhag" into a post at the earliest opportunity.
People come up to me and say, "Where did you get that dress?", or whatever, and I love being able to say to them, "Oh, from a flea market in Paris about three years ago."
You wouldn't believe ... barely an hour passes without people flocking by my side and asking, "Where did you get that stubble?", and I love being able to tell them that I picked up my current roguishly unshaven face from a charming stubble-vendor just south of the Rue Morgue a mere four years ago.
but you're the hottest virgin oboe player on her way to band camp we know, and your OUR virgin oboe player on her way to band camp. stop me before i get to the bit about the (hard)cor(e) anglais...
funny as hell, jelly. not a week goes by where i'm not bemoaning hipster ephemera with someone else of my advanced years. the alarming meta-issue is that i never thought of it as a generationalist thing... have i become fully melbournised and completely absorbed the age's penchant for pat generationalisms?
standing ovation.
I can never tell the ChapelSt-esque wannabees featured by Mik apart from one week to the next.
Why they feel the need to employ air-head private school girls to write crap, when their are so many clever people who can write interesting (but still Sunday-light) copy is beyond me.
To which writers are you refering, Kate? I think it's a fair criticism to not enjoy or be interested in the subject matter, but I've seen no evidence of poorly written copy. Almost all the writers there, staff or freelance, are professional arts and entertainment writers, and everything goes through editors and subs before it goes to print.
Mm, yes, fair point Ruth. Mind you, that Freedman woman does write like a total airhead. Not sure if she is one in real life, but she sure as hell comes across as one in her column. However, that's not to say it's because she's an ex-private schooler (or that there's anything wrong with being one of those, she says idly).
And having complained that I could find nothing in M that was even vaguely related to my life, this weeks MAY OR MAY NOT have contained mentions/photos of a) someone I have a massive overwhelming crush on, AND b) someone with whom I once enjoyed a roll in the hay. Ho ho. It's like rain, on your wedding day etc.
I enjoy the music/tv/arts stuff. The fashion stuff has always been there with the same writers, I think, it just used to be part of a different section.
I was getting at the vacuous content Ruth, rather than the sentence structure. I'm also not particularly fussed by the background of the writers, more that the topics of discussion (week after effing week) seem to be pretty much what you'd expect from 16 year olds preparing for the social.
There's a definite place for writing light, easy to read, fun stuff about clothes (and furniture, renovations, holidays etc). I'm not looking for $10 words, or heavy research in the Sunday papers, but I don't think it's unreasonable for the writer to think. There's a difference between 'smart people having a day off', and 'dumb fluff'. I think the Sunday Age generally falls on the wrong side.
Three weeks in a row, fashion/society has been on the front cover. And the Party People interview is a new and truly delightful addition altogether.
'it's all about the excitement of dressing up and getting your hair done. There are aren't that many opportunities to get all glamourous and that's what it's all about'
i know when i think about enslaving horses and working them to exhaustion before a maddening crowd in a spectacle wherein they are expendable players in a corporate game, i think 'how fabulous! i'll break out the pearls!'
Well, then the issue you have is with editorial decisions, not the writers themselves, who are usually commissioned to write specific peices.
Brilliant Jelly, simply divine. You are Depp to me.
As soon as fauxhemians drop "when in Paris" into their insipid responses to insipid questions, I can't help but sigh and wonder whether it's my fault that I can't seem to connect with the world.
Also, I'd like to know who these women are that can afford to parade around in designer clothing day after day. Do they live in alleyway shantytowns, feeding off of the scraps of less well clothed humans?
Further, It girl pieces always bore me to tears. Could these supposed representatives of our generation be any more predictably boring? Perhaps they're animatronic gif files constructed by Microsoft in a demonic contract between Murdoch, Gates and Packer.
Or maybe it's just that WE are the oddities.
Le sigh.
easy laughs from shooting fish in a barrel. still funny though.
Fuck I love your blogs! You never cease to crack me up! This one is by far one of your best entries of late ;)
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