Here’s something good:

A website called MUXTAPE, devoted to people wanting to share their excellent taste in music – whether you like it or not.

I used to make many a mixtape with my pal Hugger-Bear in school, usually on ‘G-tapes’ which were the cheapest to be found – and Mr Creighton’s social skills (never good) have now atrophied to the point where he communicates solely via mix-tapes.

Presumably, visitors to the King Curly website share something in common at a primaeval level so let’s swap music and get to the bottom of it. I like to be turned onto new things though I’m generally hard to impress.

So I’ll start by doing my own selection of some favourites. Discussion and other high-quality contributions welcome – post a link to your Muxtape in the comments.

You can listen to, but not download my Muxtape selection at http://kingcurly.muxtape.com/

And you can do your own mix-tape of course. Perhaps to impress upon someone you are amorously interested in, the depth of your feelings and the complexity of your character – or to simply demonstrate what sterling musical taste you have…

KC

An unexplained electrical fault in the family vehicle stranded us in Canberra this week, so S’haila and I decided to make the most of it and took the children bright and early, to the scheduled Olympic torch relay celebration. We were hoping to see ‘Thorpey’, an aboriginal smoke ceremony and Shannon Noll etc – I wont pretend I wasn’t also motivated by the prospect of the “free community breakfast” mentioned in The Canberra Times. BBQ Sausages no-doubt.

We and about 12 fun-loving Canberrans who also showed up, were surprised to find a crowd of thousands of rosy cheeked Australian-Chinese students, “bused in from Sydney & Melbourne” it said unkindly in the paper (but presumably with their consent). and waving regulation XXL sized Chinese flags. It did have the feel of a revolutionary rally and judging by the queues winding up to the Port-A-Loos’, any sausages on offer would have been devoured long ago.

There were small groups of Tibetans with banners here and there of course (stocky troublesome creatures: like Hobbits), but the students made damn sure they didn’t make a nuisance of themselves. Though exciting, it didn’t really make much for family fun and we had to keep the hungry kids moving along, past minor altercations and posters showing tortured/murdered Tibetans. The rest of the time we spent trying to see past hundreds of cops and important media people, trying to get a glimpse of the blessed torch…, or Thorpey, or Shannon.

I must confess to feeling ridiculous and humbled by what was going on around us. Maybe also embarrassed for the organisers and all Australians having so little comprehension of the size, depth and violence of the issues exposed by this Beijing Olympics. A few traditionally dressed aborigines there looked more like aliens than ever before. The crowd was overwhelming in size and fervour.

I wont forget a group of older Chinese men with anti CCP placards burning a Chinese flag right next to us. They were as alien as the aborigines, with their faces grim and ashen from some unimaginable horror. It seemed telling to me that the otherwise fiercely patriotic soccer crowd of students didn’t lift a finger.There was a strange and compelling dignity to their protest and even the police seemed respectful when they arrived and took them away.

KC

I wanted to make the point that… I don’t know. I wanted to say that we are all special. We are all stars. How stupid. I wanted to comment on the amazing fact that we have arbitrary limits imposed on how many people we can have in our lives (held in our minds eye) at one time. You would assume that a famous person like k.d lang would have so many more people jostling for her attention. But she is just one person like all of us. No matter how many people want to know her and be known by her, it’s just not going to happen. It’s impossible.

You could think of “my fans” but they are unquantifiable, you could just say, a lot, or millions of albums sold, or I have 1.5 milion Myspace friends. They are not individuals though, they are a mass, a necessary grouping of people into a lump so we can conceive of them at all.

If k.d thought of her fans I think she’d consider the lump, but a few resonant individuals would occur to her and stand representative of the group, like that attractive woman who stared , her fulsome tits jiggling in a concert t-shirt in the fourth row back, standing room only, a rare dancy number. Or a besuited and bespectacled gentleman who was chaperoned back stage and k.d couldn’t help noticing the rose he had in his lapel for the occasion, that it was a real flower and that incredibly, perhaps it was her heightened senses from the excitement of the show just passed but she could swear to smelling its scent. Perhaps it was just her imagination, but the image and the man stays with her, standing in for the multitude, making it all worthwhile, making it manageable, holding her from the impossible, maddening task of thinking of all those souls that are thinking of her.

John Hibbard

It occurred to me, hurtling through the dark and mist back to Sydney in my Dad’s fancy Peugoet diesel, Elmo at the wheel, that even super famous people like k.d lang can only cope with about a hundred souls in their consciousness at any one time. A fruitful realization that famous people are just like the rest of us, only richer, more talented and more desirable.This came up because Elmo wondered aloud (almost all wondering is done aloud in a King Curly car trip) how a musician finds himself playing with someone like k.d lang. It looked like a good gig, the band was jovial and well fed. There would be thousands upon thousands of musicians willing to go on the road and create a dreamy bed for her mellifluous voice.

It is a metaphysical impossibility to consider all these keen souls. Once the arbitrary quota of about a hundred has been reached a soul must be discarded for room to be made for another. K.d’s corporate apparatus could consider a good slice of the thousands. But at some stage it must be constrained to the physical limit of the mind of an individual.

We must ask ourselves, are we known to the apparatus? Are we known to her existing band? Are we known by k.d* herself? Have we created a positive resonance in the minds of all concerned? When the phone rings, will we be ready?

So, k.d is only a single star in the night sky, with an infinitude of similar stars wheeling about her. We are all shiny points, surrounded by other shiny points, closer or further away. Despite the inevitability of fame and fortune (all types of people vying for one’s attention) k.d has a limit of comprehension, keeping only the most special in the forefront of her mind.

Steve suggested I write about my darkness. Suffice to say, it’s vaguely existential. I’ve been told by Elmo that this is a rather adolescent philosophical consideration, in which case I’m very much looking forward to growing up.

* She can ONLY be known as that colloquially, this is how she was referred to by her band, how even we referred to her very quickly. An Aussie contraction like “Langers” just doesn’t suit the quiet majesty of the woman.

John Hibbard

In a strange twist King Curly has been invited to open for k.d. lang’s Australian tour at the Hunter Valley this weekend. Strange indeed given this is not the normal thing for large overseas acts to do. One can’t help but imagine that the motivation might be pure given there is little else for kd to gain by this association other than fine music and good company. It’s not impossible – she does seem like a sensible person in interviews. I must get to the bottom of this and will scour the backstage rooms till I have an answer!

KC