Swift versus Swine: two epidemics (Jennifer)

 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, mostly due to assessments.  Frankly, nothing thrilling has occurred, sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll notwithstanding, and so here I present to you a quick summary of the good and the not-so-good.

 

 

The good…

 

1.      Boys in shorts and tennies.  See, I had never been to Madame Brussel’s before, but on Saturday night I did, and it was pretty swell.  If Alannah Hill and Lewis Carroll procreated, and their lovechild was a bar, Madame Brussel’s would be it.  Even the (exorbitantly priced) drinks are pretty.  The boys who serve them are similarly pretty.  They wear white tennies, polo shirts and shorts—not the kind of thing that usually excites my spanking reflexes, I’ll admit, but context is everything.  Beware, though: the white wicker furniture goes fast.  If you need to rest those aching metatarsals, arrive early. 

 

2.      The weather.  I went to the beach this morning.  Not to bathe or frolic in a bikini; that would have been moronic.  I took my dog for a run.  He went for a swim, but he is a Labrador, and not particularly intelligent.  I digress, anyhow; we went to the beach and it was sunny!  Crazy.  Wild.    Truly.

 

3.      Essendon beating Hawthorn on Friday night.  Superlative. 

 

I also got some exquisite shoes.   (Hence the aching metatarsals.) 

 

 

…and the ungood:

 

1.      Taylor Swift.  I believed I could escape the glam guitar-totin’ gal by avoiding commercial radio.  This was evidently erroneous.  La Taylor is everywhere, from television, where her commercials persist, to shops that apparently applaud her bootscootin’ style. 

A friend argued that my aversion to her was ‘irrational’, but my dislike for Miss Swift continues to grow exponentially every time I hear Love Story.  It’s apparently ‘based on Romeo and Juliet’.  I would disagree; it is ‘a gross bastardisation of Romeo and Juliet’.  

 

I quote: ‘Marry me, Juliet/ You’ll never have to be alone/ I love you and that’s all I really know/I talked to your dad/ Go pick out a white dress/ It’s a love story’. 

 

Lyrical genius; rivals only the greatest Boney Maroneys and My Humps.  No, wait.  I lie.  The blonde popster has missed out on the tragic part of Shakespeare’s renowned tragedy, i.e. that the star-crossed lovers both kick the bucket in the final scene.  Psst.  There is no wedding.  Wowsers. 

 

I mean, good on her, she’s only nineteen.  But if only I’d known how easy it was to be successful in the music industry, or anywhere for that matter, I would have capitalised on Swift’s method long ago, and written a musical version of Angela’s Ashes or The Latham Diaries or King Lear. 

 

But seriously, she’s inescapable.  Mass media, department stores, even a taxi I was in the other night.  Cafés are the worst.  Oh yeah, baby, Taylor Swift makes me want to order another coffee—I mean, vomit over the laminex tabletop. 

Whatever.  The Swift juggernaut has apparently exploded—just like swine ‘flu, except more people are immune to Love Story. 

 

2.      Studying.  Like Ol’ Man River, the assessment period just keeps rolling.  Fortunately two of my larger assignments are out of the way.  Between now and the looming exams, I just have a few sporadic Japanese tests and a journal de lecture to complete.  

 

3.      The Nightrider bus.  Great service; tremendously handy.  It’d be even better, though, if I didn’t have to step over the tossers lying in the aisle on the floor of the bus in order to disembark.  “Don’t worry,” one cretin assured my friend Xena as she tried not to disembowel him with her stiletto.  “We’re not gunna look up yer skirts.”  Mmm.  Not that he wasn’t convincing, but I shuffled anyway, thighs clamped together. 
What public transport needs is greater security: someone who looks big and scary, but is really working for the greater good of society, on every bus and train.  I’m advocating Ice-T, but Duane Chapman (alias Dog) would be a good candidate, too. 

 

 Getting your granddad into an aged-care facility is not so much fun, either, but it doesn’t make for a good rant, y’know?   

  

As the breathtakingly eloquent Taylor Swift says, “Oh, oh, oh, oh.”  What? 

Tschüss.