Livin' It Up in LA LA Land: Day 2

It is 11:00 PM. My feet are sore, I have whip lash from over-exercising my credit card and I am now the proud owner of the most fabulous, leopard-print Steve Madden high heels which cost me all of $20.

That's right people. Day 2 of Livin' It Up in LA was spent shopping. Lots and lots of shopping.

Which was fine by me, as I had a hangover from the night before which I'm sure could have claimed my life had I not been hell-bent on burning up some serious cash-ola. I was lucky enough to attend the V Australia Official Launch party where I drank pomegranate martinis, saw Human Nature perform live and caught Vince Colossimo quite obviously staring at my breasts (but I mean... who could blame him?) But the real icing on this doozy of a Crispy Cream is that I saw Kellen Lutz. That's right kiddy-winks. Emmett from Twilight and I were partying at the same LA hot spot. And yes, he is all the more outlandishly gorgeous in real life. Thankfully, I didn't drool all over his feet.

But I did drink quite a few of the pomegranate martinis and therefore, felt like roadkill this morning. However, the wonderful thing about shopping is that it requires little energy apart from signing on the dotted credit line which I did...repeatedly. My highlight was Santa Monica where I discovered the all-time greatest vintage store - 'Wasteland'. My tip for future travellers, make this a pit stop! Awesome clothes, awesome bargains and you may just spy yourself a celebrity. The Olsen twins have been known to buy their ridiculously over-sized ponchos from this very place.

Well kids, I'm off to kiss my new leopard-print heels goodnight and crawl into bed. Stay tuned for tomorrow where I venture into the heart of Beverly Hills to see what I can find.

Ciao for now. xo

Livin' It Up in LA LA Land: Day 1

Hello my renegade readers! I greet you from the SLS Hotel on the Beverly Hills strip, a city made famous by the one and only, cigarette-smoking, leather toting prostitute-come-Park-Avenue-princess Vivienne of Pretty Woman fame. That's right. I'm in LA!

Here strictly for work purposes, I will be spending the next 10 days experiencing Los Angeles, the OC and Palm Springs and taking in as much sight-seeing, shopping and celebrities as possible. Flying over on the inaugural V Australia flight from Melbourne to LA, I've already seen my fair share of Aussie A-listers - Pippa Black, Vince Colossimo and Michael Klim. But with the itinerary I've got lined up over the next few weeks, I have a feeling the celebrity sight-seeing is about to get a whole lot more interesting.

Will try and touch base each day to fill you in on my adventures, but internet is pricey and I'm seriously time-poor - who has time for blogging when you've living it up in Beverly Hills?

Ciao for now! xo

PRESS RELEASE: Cleaning Up the College Conduct

We are all biased in one way or another. Some towards their children, some towards their studies and in light of the recent scandal at the University of Sydney's St Paul's College, I admit I am biased towards college.

While under no circumstances do I condone the actions of these young gentleman who set up a 'pro-rape' Facebook group earlier this week, I don't appreciate the minority of collegians who do the wrong thing and spoil the reputation of colleges around the country.

I lived at college for three years at the University of Queensland. In that time, I heard and saw my fair share of inexcusable behaviour. At times, I was shocked and disgusted. But those times were never outweighed by the times I revelled in the joy of being at college. Only after you have been a member of a college co-hort can you come to understand how beneficial the experience is. How it can become an opportunity for social, cultural, sporting and academic achievement and leadership.

To the outside, I can see how college-life would look different to this: a residential hall of hormone-driven, sexed-up students, who care little about their studies and are only concerned by the price of beer jugs at the local pub. I can see how those events of the past involving explicit drunken behaviour and sexual allegations would be cause for questioning these institutions. I can see how one bad egg can rot the entire barrel.

I can also see how colleges provide the perfect scapegoat for immoral incidents. No matter where you live, whether at college, in the army, in a suburban community, even in some homes, inappropriate and even shocking events are occuring. Bullying, emotional and sexual abuse, murder - one glance at the daily newspaper is proof that there is no perfect society. There will always be injustice.

This does not mean we sit back and passively accept these things as unchangable. Rape and sexual abuse will never be acceptable and it is a change which we of the moral society must continue to fight for.

But colleges are not sest-pools of immoral, inappropriate and depraved behaviour. They do not souly fuel the child molestors, date rapers and rule breakers of society. Yes - there are a select few of students who do the wrong thing. Their actions are inexcusable and they must take responsibility for the damage they cause to themselves, their victim and their college. But to every one of those students who shame the name of their residency, there are others who are representing it for the right reasons. They are leading and achieving and living by the rules which not only govern their college, but which goven modern society.

College is a world within the world, which is why the events which occur there are magnified to such an extent. Just in any society, there are people who fail in spite of the opportunities they are given to succeed. They take actions which are unsupported and cause events which find their way to the front pages of the newspaper. But until we can change what happens outside the college walls, what happens inside will always be a similiar reflection. The way women are represented as only sexual conquests, the way men are pressured into thinking masculinity is power, the way arrogance is portrayed as confidence and therefore rewarded. These are social defects which are apparent no matter where you live or work.

I actively encourage this cleaning up the college conduct because I would hate to think prospective students percieve college an experience they would prefer to pass on. But I think it is necessary to point out to those so quick to point their own finger, whether based on experience or an experience 30 years previous, that college will always reflect the world it exists in. Just as there is a minority that do the majority no favours, there is still a majority who continue to do the right thing and make waves for their college for the right reasons.

Where is their headline in the newspaper?

PRESS RELEASE: Syncing their teeth into Brits

I'll be the first to admit, she's not everybody's cup of English Breakfast Tea. She's the epitome of celebrity-gone-wrong. She got married in velour trackie dacks, shaved her head and is considered the female version of Michael Jackson (for all the right and wrong reasons). But as 'cra-zee' as Britney Spears may be, the thirteen-year-old part of me who still knows all the lyrics to 'Hit Me Baby One More Time' still loves her and was more than willing to fork out the $200 to see her shake her ta ta on the Australian stage.

And I've gotta say, I'm a little dissapointed.

Dissapointed that from the moment young Britney touched down in Australia, she has been greeted with the same media-storm which seems to follow her wherever she goes. No "Hip Hip Hoorah, Britney's here! Let's show her the respect nobody else seems to!" Goodness no. The first thing Australia chose to do was find the one negative thing about Brit's Tour Down Under and splash it across the headlines as their welcome wagon.

As Australians, we pride ourselves on our differences compared to the United States, our relaxed 'true blue little battler' attitude. Yet the first thing we did when Brits arrived was smack her with the same treatment she gets every day in the US of A - paparrazi flashes and tabloid gossip. I thought we Aussies were a little better than that. I thought we were all about fairness and equality and supporting those who are doing it tough. Sure, Britney's life has been a circus in itself and she's not the most reliable role model, but she's still kicking. She's still trying to make do, just like the rest of us.

So why are we so determined to make it more difficult for her?

There's plenty more celebs who've walked Britney's path and met considerably stickier ends. Where's the Aussie spirit in celebrating the fact that she's managed to get herself back in the ring?

(Image Credit: Bryan Bedder-Geddy Images)

KH COMMENTARY: There is a season...

There's a season for everything. A season for leggings, a season for coloured eye shadows, a season for bikinis and berets and black nail polish. A season for sunbaking, a season for summer storms, a season for cold mornings and a season for stifling nights. There's a season for everything.

And just as there is a season for break-ups, there appears to be a season for hook-ups too.

I don't know if there's something in the water or if the springtime air is making people toey, but the world is going couple crazy. Every where I turn people are pairing off like animals on Noah's ark.

Two or three months ago, relationships were exploding one after another like hidden landmines, leaving wounded couples suddenly single. But it appears these fallen victims have dusted themselves off, got back on their feet and back in the game and those of us who have taken up an unsatisfyingly permanent residency in Singleton suddenly find ourselves with even more competition.

And it's hard battle out there. A battle of mind games; the constant balance of confidence and reserve, honesty and mystery, independence and desperation. And it takes one wrong step, one wrong revelation of your character, one too many stupid words and you're out. Dismissed. Sidelined as you watch the other players who've worked out how to play the game.

And the more you fight - for whatever it is we think we're fighting for - and the more you lose out as other people win big, the more you question everything you once liked about yourself and the more you desperately convince your negative thoughts that you're the type of person who can't be put in a box.

Attraction, lust, love - whatever label you want to put on it - isn't it all the result of a chemical reaction? A response we're physically prone to feel as a part of our human condition, only further amplified by songs and movies and romantic heroes. The need for love is inescapable. We rejoice when we've finally found it, but we're reminded each and every day we're forced to keep on looking.

But just like my occassional plunges into self pity, there is a season, turn turn turn....

(Image Credit: The Drifter and The Gypsy)

KH COMMENTARY: Excuses Excuses

Who's a naughty little blogger?

That would be me....

I know I have been MIA slash AWOL slash just plain lazy over the last few weeks (oh my gosh it's been weeks now!) and have not posted any delightful snippets of cynicsm and I wish there was some profound excuse behind my tardiness, but there isn't. I'm just plain lazy and have let my readership down.

But never fear - I'm whipping the poor old blog off the back-burner and putting it back on high priority. Daily posts coming your way once again, pinky promise.

xo

TOP SHELF: On the tweeting fence

I'm all about the Facebook, the blogging and the online content but I've never quite got my head around the Twitter.

Firstly, I don't know anyone, not even my own mother, who would want to know what I'm doing/thinking/eating/scratching every second of every day. Secondly, I don't know anyone, not even my own mother, who I would want to know what they are doing/thinking/eating/scratching every second of every day. So unless your some kind of psychopathic stalker with a fetish for instaneous information, Twitter and the act of 'twittering' seem as useful as boobs on a bull.

And then came this...

(I'm afraid you'll have to click the link as the video refused to embed properly)
http://media.smh.com.au/national/breaking-news/twitterature-or-literature-815266.html&from=strap

Everything about this book screams "WRONG!! WRONG WRONG WRONG!" I mean, taking 80 of history's most famous and revered literary works and reducing them to a summary of twenty 'tweets'? Why don't you just take Monet's Water Lillies painting and do a dirty big crap on it? The concept of this book seems so immoral and so insulting to those literary works which have established what is classic and modern literature, it makes me want to slap these silly boys around the ears with a whipper snipper.

And yet...

The idea of combining pop-culture with the classics is strangely seductive. I can't help but confess that despite the debaucherous essence of this book, I am intrigued. Despite all my better judgement over what is literary, I am curious to see how Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin have gone about re-writing titles including Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland, Charles Dicken's Great Expectations and Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code (still not sure how that made the list of top classic titles, but whatever) into parodied snippets of 20word tweets. These boys are undeniably well-read (which only adds to my illicit attraction towards this book); amazing considering the pair are students at the Univeristy of Chicago and are all but nineteen years old.

Nineteen years old with a published work by Penguin?

And I'm right back to hating them again.

Twitterature - Alexander Aciman and Emmett Rensin
Published by Viking/Penguin
Due to be released UK November 2009 / US December 2009
http://www.twitterature.us/uk/index.htm

KH COMMENTARY: Who's Line Is It Anyway?

Sister Dearest and I were channel flicking a few nights ago (one of my more favourite past times) when we accidently (and I mean, accidently) stopped on Home and Away.

We lingered just long enough to watch a scene play out between a teenage-angst-ridden boy and a teenage-angst-ridden girl. The two were apparently 'friends' who had feelings for each other, as goes the story on most teenage-angst-ridden television soaps. At one point, the teenage-angst-ridden boy turned to the teenage-angst-ridden girl and said,

"But the thing is, I don't just want to be your friend."

To which I let out a rather embarrassing snort and said to Sister Dearest

"How very primary school of him."

To which Sister Dearest replied in all her worldly knowledge,

"Indeed, adults don't say those kinds of things to each other. Instead, we just get drunk and hook up with our 'friends' at parties."

I nodded in approval and didn't really think much more of it until this morning, when I was getting my daily fix of Sex in the City while eating my breakfast (Don't judge me, it's part of my morning routine.) I was watching the episode when Carrie is being pursued by The Politician (Season 3, Episode 1). She's typically playing hard-to-get and in an effort to woo her out on a date, The Politician says,

"For the record...I can't stop thinking about you."

And you can just see Carrie's eyes get a little bigger as her heart starts fluttering and all her internal organs turn to mush. And all from the power of one well-delivered line.

While I know Televisionland is this mythical place where all the things we wished happened in real life do in fact happen, I still maintain that these shows - Sex in the City and Home and Away - are based on real people, real situations and real life (as unreal as they may be). Which means somewhere, some man is delivering a some warm line to some eye-lash batting, heart-melting-into-her-Jimmy-Choo-shoes woman.

So who is this guy because he must be one of a miniscule minority.

Men (and women - don't think you're innocent in all this too, girls) no longer use or feel the impact of a well-delivered line. I'm not talking about some corny pick-up attempt, ie. "Do you have a bandaid because I scraped my knee when I fell for you." I'm talking a declaration, the brutual truth delivered at the precise moment to cause the maximum impact on one's emotions.

We've traded down and instead, rely on drunken inhibitions to get who and what we want. There's no chase or pursuit out of plain sobriety. We hold our cards close to our chest until that moment of maximum inibriation when we let everything er...loose.

Why? Because we feel bullet-proof and when we stumble out of bed the next morning nursing the world's worst hangover, only to remember what we did the night before, we have our drunken stupidity to blame it all on.

It's crazy that we rely on a few stiff drinks to feel in control of our out-of-control behaviour. We need to down a quick vodka and tonic before that blind date or that bottle of champagne before we can say the things we've always thought. It seems like we're taking action because we think we've got nothing to lose, but really, whatever gets lost can be easily reclaimed by simply 'blaiming it on the booze' the following day.

Delivering a line takes more than just a few tequila shots or way too many glasses of cheap champagne. It takes dry, sober guts to put yourself out on the firing line and say exactly what you think and feel without the drunken safety net to catch you if you get shot down.

I remember someone telling me that it's better to drunkenly hook-up and then go out on a date because ending the night with the 'first kiss' isn't nearly as awkard.

Why are we so terrified of this type of emotional confrontation? We do everything we can to avoid the possibility of an akward situation because we don't want to appear embarrased or end up with egg on our face. We hold back from saying "I like you" or "I love you" out of pure fear that the other person won't say it back and then we'll look...what? Out-of-line? Over-the-top? Obsessed?

Why is it so wrong to be attracted to someone?

So we say nothing at all. We leave the one-liners to appear only on the television screen and hide our true feelings away as if they're somehow scandelous to admit to.

And the rest we blame on the a-a-a-a-a-alcohol.

(Image Credit: Melissa Blake - http://melissabxoxo.blogspot.com/)

DISCOVER ME: PostSecret

We all have our little secrets and while some say that secrets should remain secret for a reason, there's nothing quite like getting something off your chest (I would be out of a blogging-job if that wasn't the case.)

It's finding a safe place to reveal one's inner thoughts that proves the real hurdle. Some times, there's just some things you can't bring yourself to say or to hear yourself declare. It's from this principal, or perhaps fear, that Frank Warren developed the salacious yet captivating website, PostSecret - a global online forum for people to air their dirty laundry.

Secreters write their private truths on the back of a postcard and then mail it through to Warren who publishes a select few on his daily blog. The bearers remain completely anonymous, with nothing but their postcard-sized secret to represent them. And we're not talking your average, everyday postcard bought from the cornerstore while on a trip through Rockhampton. Warren receives intricately designed cards which are often as creative as the content is controversial.

Whether or not it's a result of these beautifully constructed cards or the premise of posting and reading your own home truths, the website has taken on a life of its own. PostSecret currently sits at 276,135,144 site views, not to mention 209,799 Twitter followers and 495,438 Facebook friends. Warren's website has become so popular the postcards have been turned into a published work called PostSecret Confessions on Life, Death and God, which has reached #1 on the New York Bestseller List.

I will never cease to be surprised by society, hence why I love the occassional trip to PostSecret. There's nothing like a public declaration to gain a spot of self-remedy - here's a few of my faves:

(Image Credit: http://postsecret.blogspot.com/ and http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=54703&id=21977955239#/pages/PostSecret/21977955239)

GO.SEE: Pocket Bar

As the City of Villages, Sydney's suburbs are a proverbial smorgasboard of places to dine and drink.

Surry Hills district, in particular, is riddled with boutique bars doing big business attracting small crowds to their intimate locations. These venues are usually holes-in-the-wall but with a liquor license and some trendy interior designing to boot. Every few weeks, a new one pops up in the side streets or down some darkened back alley, relying on the locals to sniff it out and give it a reputable review via word-of-mouth.

The latest to pop its head out of the brick work is Darlinghurst's Pocket Bar. Tucked away on the corner of Crown and Burton St, this cafe, bar and restaurant is a jack-of-all-trades with an art-deco design which suits the breakfast crowd as much as it does those wanting a night cap.

While hosting a breakfast and lunch menu which offers all the cafe favourites - from bacon and eggs through to salads and toasted sangers - it's the dinner menu which acts as the bar's initial name sake. Consisting only of crepe dishes, both savoury and sweet, there's a combo on the list to tickle everyone's fancy at prices which even your Grandma would give the nod of approval. The crepes are light but flavoursome, with enough gusto to more than satisfy an expectant appetite.

For those seeking alcoholic refreshments after hours, the bar offers your standard selection of beverages - reds, whites, sparklings, spirits and cocktails. While there are plenty of tables and antique couch sets for sitting or purching, if you're not lucky enough to score a seating area, the bar allows for plenty of standing room. While the area itself is small by restaurant standards, the human traffic adds to the intimate and lively atmosphere. The walls are decked out in floor to ceiling Liechtenstein-inspired artwork, teamed with Victorian furniture and a huge iron gate which opens the whole space up to the daylight or the night time.

Pocket Bar has everything going for it to make it a huge success by Surry Hills standards - it's cute and quirky, but with a niche menu which sets it apart from other bars of its make and model. It's certainly worth a trip, even if it's just to peer in at the joint gendered bathrooms which include a sink and mirror in your very own cubicle. How quaint.

Pocket Bar
T 02 9380 7002
W http://www.pocketsydney.com.au/
Menu must-have: Goat Cheese and Fresh Spinach Crepe - $10

(Image Credit: www.totalvenue.com.au/.../pocketbar.html)