Supportophobia (-n).

Last night I went to see Deerhoof. You've heard of Deerhoof, right? That's because you've been reading Pitchfork. They're "the best band in the world," says Pitchfork. Of course they are, dear Pitchfork. Aren't you a little disappointed when a small independent website becomes big enough that they begin to deliberately create hype in order to prove that they have the power to make or break bands? Or just that they have the power? I am. Yet, somehow, I was sucked right in. I even caught the train a day early to see them.

Besides, I suspect this will be the last chance I get to see Deerhoof for under $AUD20. Plus, the bar was called Debaser, and on their cocktail list was an expensive Monkey Gone To Heaven.

But tell me this: why do these Nordic folk have a morbid fear of support bands? Doors opened last night at 10pm, Deerhoof made the stage at midnight, and in between time there was simply a DJ playing mostly predictable choices (Guided By Voices! Blonde Redhead!) to an apathetic crowd. I was the only one so much as swaying for Les Savy Fav's The Sweat Descends, and I was sitting down alone with a camera and a notebook. It is also amazing how far I have come across the oceans, to find a Swedish crowd looks exactly the same, from haircuts to boots, as an Adelaide indie crowd. It even seems that Sonic Youth t-shirts are in summer fashion here. I saw at least seven of them - I counted.

Deerhoof is not the best band in the world. They are prodigiously talented - the guitarist plays complicated stretchy jazz chords at a hundred miles a minute, using a Godin guitar and a Vox AC30 (hello Doug!), and always knows when to pull back and when to sound huge. The drummer was one of the most amazing such skin-hitting person I have ever seen - tight but completely wild. Deerhoof is The Band Pitchfork Made, but it is also a band made for Pitchfork: a cross between Blonde Redhead (complete with tuneless Asian-American girl singer) and Shellac, with jazz inclinations, they are all style and no substance, and a complete parody of the indie cred to which Pitchfork so madly strives. It was still well worth seeing, mind.

At 1am the DJ returned to play The Arcade Fire's No Cars Go, attracting a far drunker crowd to sway in the breeze. Attempting to touch, but never quite reaching far enough. A queue formed outside, making this place Stockholm's equivalent to Perth's Amplifier Bar, which only starts to fill with indie dancers after all the bands have finished. Me - I went home, back to the hostel which took me two hours in the rain to find (not knowing whether there would be a room booked for me in the end), to my top bunk bed, getting ready to face another Nordic day.

Things About Hostels, Part Deux.

Last night I went looking for live music. I had a guidebook, written by Americans, dividing each Osloeian venue into mainstream, semi-alternative and alternative. I figured semi-alternative was the way to go, and walked up to Grunerlokken to try two venues. One was, so the sign on the front said, closed for the summer, reopening in August. The other was empty and had no front signage. Walking back into town, the only other venue I found was full of black-clad schoolkids drinking beer. By 11pm, I figured it was better to return to my room to finish reading Haruki Murakami's Norweigan Wood.

By 12.30am, my only roommate had been picked up by a friend so as to go back to his home village, and I was left to sleep alone. This delighted me so very, very much. Except at 3am, when I heard a swift, subtle shuffle through the door, and some hurried words of Norweigan. I asked my new visitor to translate. 'Would you mind if I opened the window?', he asked. Yes, I thought. The street noise is unbearable. Not wanting to put up a fight, I muttered 'go ahead', and went straight back to sleep.

This lasted another two hours, before a cacophonic crash cramped my slumber. In came a tall, handsome blonde guy, propped up by the surrounding walls, shouting in Norweigan. 'I only speak English,' I replied.

'Which bed is bed four?' he asked.

'That one,' I pointed.

'I think I'll take this one,' he announced, taking bed one. Then he asked politely, 'did I wake you up?'

'It's five in the morning, so yes you did,' I responded casually.

'Oh. I was in the park fucking a girl, and now I need a shower.'

With that, he washed his face, climbed to the bunk above me, and went to sleep. Even his mobile's discrete message tone (a beep, followed by an American accented 'motherfucker') wouldn't wake him. I arose at 7am, showered, breakfasted and packed up my things, without so much as a shuffle from either of my associates. Next to my wallet I saw the motherfucker's ID card, identifying him as an employee of the Ministry of Defence.

I caught a train to Stockholm, where have just arrived, and I must now go and find my hostel.

Money.

So I have this job.  It's only a job sometimes, but the most exciting job I've ever had.  I get called up and told that there's plenty of work on, and get told that there will be a six week plan made, and that will possibly involve three days a week's work for six weeks.  Then, after working there for a week and a half and finishing the project, I ask what is happening the week after and beyond.  I get told that there will be a meeting about it, but it will probably be one or maybe two days work a week.  Then the scheduled meeting gets cancelled, because it's "not ready to be talked about yet", and moved to the next week.  The meeting will happen next week, and hopefully a definite plan will be made.  And hopefully for three days work a week.

This job really is the best job I've ever had.  If the work is not substantial enough, however, I will have to tell them I can't work for them at all, and go back to full time temp work.

I currently have a bank balance of $17.45, an overdue car registration bill, as well as an obligation to send a cheque of $340 to pay for a minor car accident I had recently in which I knocked someone's side mirror off while trying to find my way to Craigieburn.

So I think I will have to say no to building puppets for the time being, and go back to answering phones and opening mail to try and save some money.

Yes, this is completely a rant, but today I feel slightly shit about things.  I had to turn down a dinner invitation with friends tonight because I can't afford to eat out, and my sister hasn't answered her phone in two days, nor returned my phone calls.

Plus I spent today in Sticky, a zine store in Melbourne, making badges for the media organisation I volunteer for, wishing I were able to be creative and do things like make zines without having to worry about all this money stuff.

I really think I'm going to have to go back to answering phones.  It pays better than building giant puppets, and I can spend most of my day doing nothing other than picking up the phone occasionally and then browsing the internet for hours.

Asking You For Advice.

So now I sit in the Deichsmanke Bibliotek, which has just won the Ben award for the Loudest Library Ever In The World, Ever. For the last three days it has been populated by schoolchildren on summer holiday trips singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at top volume, accompanied by nothing other than a trumpet. They then walk up the stairs, screaming at each other and pulling each other's hair. It is truly quite amazing.

At about 7pm last night, for the first time since arriving in Oslo, my dorm became occupied by people other than me. Because of this, I have now solved the mystery of why there are so many Norweigan military personnel walking the corridors of the Hotel Perminalen. Norway has compulsory military service, which is paid poorly but comes with perks, like incredibly cheap train travel and cheap nights at the Hotel Perminalen. Whenever the kids get off-duty time, they can spend the night at the hotel for a fraction of the cost, and the state pays the rest.

Two such military servicemen shared my dorm last night. One of them, a tall, thin bespectacled fellow, barely spoke a word. Counter-intuitively, it was the short, well-built sportsman who talked. Firstly, it was about the sights of Norway, and the fact that one small Norwegian town is so full of European history that Hitler wanted to make it the capital of the Third Reich, as the historical home of the Aryan race. He then exclaimed, 'He was messed up. Thank God, thank God he was stopped!'

We talked about Australia, and he asked me why Australia was engaged in such dangerous relations with China, as though I were personally responsible. At the time, he wasn't even aware that I am a politics teacher. Our hour-long conversation touched on the limitations of social democracy and solutions to the middle-east crisis. Then his taxi came, and he left for the day. So, if you're ever reading this Bjorn, you were a fascinating part of my Norwegian stay, and I hope you do make it as an independent member of the Norwegian Parliament.

It is to that very Parliament, the Stortinget, that I intend to go today for a free tour.

In any case, I'm actually writing this to ask for advice. I am thinking of quite comprehensively changing the itinerary of my European adventure. I was going to spend four months here pissing about, but that was based on the naive idea that I could absorb myself into a foreign city and become one with its amazing foreignness. Instead, I have found that no matter how awesome Europe (and Oslo) is, there's only so long you can stay somewhere where you don't speak the language, don't know anyone, and don't have enough money to get really, really drunk. I walked around Oslo last night to find many venues closed, a quite awful cover band with a cover charge, and this rather amusing public toilet.




So rather than spend two weeks in Sweden, I'm thinking of spending four days.

And I'm thinking of cutting my whole trip back a month.

This will offer me three things:

1. The ability to not get bored and agitated while staying in places where I don't know anybody and don't have enough money to get really, really drunk.

2. The ability to go see Low in Malmo, and the Smashing Pumpkins in France (jealous?)

3. The ability to come back early, not to a cramped postgraduate office in Adelaide, but to an old farmhouse in suburban Melbourne.

Your thoughts?

Prostitutes.

Last night, for the first time in my life, I was propositioned by a prostitute.

Despite spending many a night on the sordid strip of Hindley Street, not to mention multiple wee-hour excursions through St Kilda, I had never before been directly propositioned on a street corner. But on a wet Wednesday night in Oslo, every street corner between the Rockefeller Music Hall and the Hotel Perminalen is owned by at least one such contributor to the Norwegian economy, compelling passers by to let her earn her keep. It is actually quite confronting to see such open, willing exploitation in the middle of town.

Having said that, I am quite smitten with this city. It is small (540 000 people), but never quaint - it is commercial without being ridiculous, and everything seems to be a short walk from my hostel. Last night I walked ten minutes to find the Rockefeller, to see American band Danielson, which is a little like seeing The Flaming Lips and the Decemberists filtered through a sieve of Belle and Sebastian. They're twee but they rock, with only slightly irritating Coyne-esque falsetto squealing. And they came on stage in perfect uniform, with name tags and matching tracksuit pants. And one girl is in the band just to play the marumba. I must say, they were completely excellent.



What was more excellent was that, for the first time in a long time, I was at a gig where I did not recognise a single face in the crowd. I could walk right up to the front when they started, and dance my little dance fearlessly. There was another girl, alone, dancing away to my right. I considered walking up to her and asking, 'So, you're here alone too, then?' In another life, I might have. And where it might have led, I will never know.



Instead, once the band finished playing, she wandered out of the building to march fervently through the tunnel, and I walked out to find a phone booth to call my amazing Erica.


(Note: Though I found a payphone, it seems Erica's mobile can't be called by either my mobile or by the phone card. I suspect there is some lack of communication between Telenor, the big Norwegian phone booth company, and Three. Globalisation, my arse.)

First Impressions: Oslo

This blog was not intended to be a study of comparative awesomeness, but on such a scale as I have just created thus, I can assure you that Olso has a far greater standard deviation of awesomeness than København. Here's proof:

1. The City

Alright, so Copenhagen's modern-period architecture shits all over Oslo's mini-New York aspirations. However, I quite like this - it feels more real, more urban. I like the look of a huge glass tower shopping mall. It's not as quaint. I think Copenhagen is a place I could live in, whereas Oslo is an awesome place to visit.

2. The Shops

So far I have found a cigarette bar called KigaretteSlutt, a CD store called FreeRecordShop (don't be fooled, folks) and a large shop in the main street called Kondomeriet. It's not as cute as Copenhagen's poor-taste English, but then I haven't been very far yet.



3. The Music

Last night there were speakers in the main Rundle Mall-esque paved shopping area playing Johnny Cash. And right by my hostel is a rock and metal club, blasting Slayer out into the open night for the benefit of the black-clad patrons sitting with beer at tables within.

4. Accommodation

Alright, so I'm paying twice as much for my accommodation as I was in Denmark. The thing is that Scandinavia is so expensive that it is impossible to attract backpackers, and therefore it has no real backpacker accommodation. My hostel in Denmark was the Hotel Jørgensen, which was actually just a cheap budget family hotel (like a large bed and breakfast) with dormitory rooms downstairs. Even this cost $AUD37, and I was in a twelve-bed dorm where the toilets where up two flights of stairs, and the showers were in little cupboards such that it was impossible to even bring a change of clothes into the room. There were no lockers in the room, and the room had to be completely emptied (including the rented linen) between 11am and 3pm for cleaning. The breakfast was awesome, and the place was relatively clean, but for the price, it was quite strange.

I'm now paying $67 per night, which is far more than I wanted to pay for a backpacker trip. However, last night I slept in a four-bed dorm by myself. So few travellers to Norway are cheap enough to require dormitory accommodation that this place is practically empty. The rooms are incredibly clean, the quilts are big and warm, and the ensuite bathrooms are excellent, with free-flowing hot water. The lifts are automatic, but have doors that you actually need to manually open when you get to your floor. And the breakfast... I got the choice between hard-boiled and soft-boiled eggs, not to mention a machine which knows the exact capacity of a cup of coffee and delivers it straight to your cup. There were fifteen types of bread, and for those non-vegetarians, an amazing selection of meats. And spreads I had never before seen. It looks like my plan of eating enough breakfast to last until dinner will work out even better here.

So I have discovered that the more you pay for accommodation, the better you feel, and the less you pay for everything else.

I got home at 11pm last night and found that I had a hotel room, in a foreign country, completely to myself. I figured this was an incredible privilege, and I needed to do something truly special. So I did what any self-respecting man would do.

I sat and watched BBC World while clipping my toenails.

I Sent A Letter

I write now from yet another Sidewalk Express, this time from the gentler surrounds of Oslo Sentralstatjon. I'm finally here, and finally writing a blog. It has been an interesting few hours.

I started the day at the Sidewalk Express terminal at København H station, an hour before catching the train from platform 9 to Goteburg. I alighted from the train at 12.23, and caught my connecting train on platform 4 to Oslo. These two train rides have easily been the most fascinating and beautiful experience of my stay in Europe. The amazingly green pastures, the ocean views, the incredible forests - including the pine forest which seems to stretch from just outside Goteburg all the way to Oslo - are absolutely amazing. Cows seem to make sense when they're eating real green grass, unlike the starved bovine death spotted occasionally while driving around rural Australia.



It was an eight hour train ride, and I passed the time by writing Erica a letter. Once I had finished, I realised that it would take at least a week for it to get from a Norweigan post office to a letterbox in suburban Melbourne. This just wouldn't do. So once I got to my hostel, I sat and took photos of all of its handwritten pages, and set about finding a better Internet Café - one with accessible USB ports - from which to send it.

In my hostel I found a series of Oslo guides in every conceivable language, except English. Fortunately my French was up to the challenge of the words Cafés Internet. There were two listed. I went back to the Sidewalk Express, where I had credit, and searched for the first on Google Maps. The address wasJernbanetorget 1, but Google pointed me to this very train station. I got up and looked around, everywhere, on both levels, but could not find the Arctic Internet Café. I even found a map of all of the train station stalls, which made no mention of any such thing. I walked down to Tourist Information, took a number, and waited fifteen minutes, to be told that Jernbanetorget 1 was indeed the exact train station from which I had come. Exasperated, I went back to the Sidewalk Express, googled for other Internet Cafés in Oslo, and found one about a fifteen minute walk away, on the other side of the hostel. Figuring it was a good way to see the city, I began to walk.

I found the café. Although the sign on the front clearly stated it was open between 11.00 and 21.30, and despite my phone telling me it was only 8.50pm, the door was closed. I walked closer to investigate, and found only the loud whirring of the burglar alarm within. I quietly walked away.

So I went back to the train station, to write a blog post about the missing Arctic Internet Café. But then, with a sense of adventure, I decided to give it one last shot. I walked to where the food stalls where, but found only another Sidewalk Express. I walked up the escalators, and found only that the post office had closed. I looked up to the ceiling in desperation. But then, it hit me - there was a third level! And advertised on this third level: the Arctic Internet Café!



Thrilled, I walked up to the man at the desk, asked for a computer, and sent my letter in full. This café is even more expensive than the Danish one, so I will try and find a library from which to post my other photos. I decided to write this blog from downstairs where I am using my remaining Sidewalk credit. And now, I will return to my hostel dormitory at the Hotel Perminalen, which cost me twice as much as Denmark's Hotel Jørgensen. That's not a bad deal, considering this one is only a four-bed dorm, and it has an ensuite bathroom. Better still, when I was last there at 8pm, it seemed I was its only occupant for the night.

So I think I can expect a much better sleep than the night before.