Finny Finn Finn

So my bf, being a New Zealander as well as a Good Doctor, has introduced me to some pretty awesome/classic Kiwi tunes.  If you're going to have a conversation about music that includes New Zealand, you can't really avoid the Finn Brothers.  In fact, I think that might be the whole conversation.

Neil and Tim (Finn) have played together, fought, broken up, and reappeared in many musical incarnations as New Zealand's chart-toppers (all this before the introduction of my true favorite Kiwi musicians, Bret and Jemaine).  So I guess I kind of knew that one song by Crowded House, but I didn't that realize Neil (younger bro) had started the band after the disbanding of Split Enz (Get it? nz? Like New Zealand? Thanks, Wikipedia), Tim's much less commercially successful endeavor*.  Just check this out.

So Neil was all, "Thanks for letting me be in your college band when I turned 18, bro, but now I'm on to better things!"  They sort of re-collaborated in the early 90s, again under the name the Finn Brothers, but then Neil kind of took the songs they had written together and gave them to Crowded House and then had to let Tim in the band because he worked on the songs and it would be awkward (slash copyright violation) otherwise.  But then Tim peaced out when they were on tour in Europe.  Brotherly rivalry much?  I'd be pissed, too, if my younger brother was a better song-writer and knew how to play an instrument.  

I think that's what I love most about that Split Enz video, though.  Tim is knee-bending and two-stepping his way around that weird makeshift set (I wonder if that was their university theatre department?) and his elbows seem to be anchored to his ribcage as he "dances" with his arms; then, right at the end, Neil bops up behind him on a guitar and they harmonize and you're like, "Who's that cute, bouncy guy seems way less awkward than the guy singing?"  

I do legitimately like that song, so no diss on Tim.  I also enjoy that New Zealand, or, you know, just its music scene from the 80s and 90s, has some kind of a dramatic history.  Yeah, yeah, there was other dramatic history in how the English tricked the Maori people into signing over all their land and rights (silly mistranslation of documents), but there's no grainy 80s footage of that exchange, and it doesn't make me smile.  I'll stick with the Finns for now and leave the evils of colonialism for another day.

IMPORTANT ADDENDUM: I was totally wrong.  The singer in that video was Neil not Tim; Tim came bopping up at the end.  So I guess Neil was even more openly upstaging big bro than I thought.  Lead singer in Tim's band!  What gumption.  I still like that video, though, and the song.

*I guess they were actually quite successful in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, but who even goes to those places?

So you just stay home and play synthesizers*

Or – When you’re unemployed, there’s no vacation (except when your bf has a week off work).

The Good Doctor stole the internet today (or, you know, he took our little Broadband To Go stick to work), so I am forced to hang out in a café for the free Wifi—not a terrible consequence, as it turns out, and on track with my goal of getting out of the apartment at least three times a day.

Last week was gloriously full of oversleeping and riddled with evidence that the GD and I are both very set in our ways. TP over the front or back of the roll? Lasagna foiled or unfoiled? Front and foiled, obvs, but one must pick one’s battles when one is living with someone with whom one wishes to continue living. I learned this lesson repeatedly by picking as many battles as possible (compulsively and without intent of harm) during the GD’s week off and then feeling like an ass about it immediately after the fact. But, come on, put some foil on the lasagna so it doesn’t dry up. Right? Am I right?

Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one making an ass of myself in week one of the Living Together Adventure (LTA), and we’ve come out of it stronger than (and as stubborn as) ever. Don’t worry, we didn’t spend the entire week arguing about who was going to do the dishes (that’s right, we both wanted to do them in our respective ‘right’ ways). We didn’t go far, but we did manage to get out of the city on several occasions last week. We went out to Howth (pronounced like a frat boy chanting "Hoath!") on the train and walked the peninsula to the point where some actual hiking trails started and a downpour forced, er, allowed us to turn back to town for a pint. We took the bus to Sandymount, a lovely little suburb that’s also right on the water and made me happy to be living by the ocean again.

Howth!

On Saturday, we took a windy and slightly hung-over coach ride out to Glendalough (which is part of Wicklow National Park) and (after an emergency 40-minute sandwich detour), we ‘hiked’ one of the trails through the park. The first part of the ‘nature trail’ sure had a lot of pavement and noisy European teenagers, but one we broke off onto the ‘Ramble,’ things cleared out a bit. That’s right, the trails were ranked Easy, Moderate, Ramble and Hill Walk. How is a Ramble harder than Moderate? (It’s not.) Also, Hill Walk? How much more lamely could you phrase that? Moving Your Feet Forward On A Slight Incline? Anyhow, we totally would have done that one, but it was supposed to take 4+ hours and we didn’t have that kind of time; plus, there was an alarming warming sign by its description on the map depicting a man falling off a cliff, and I found that to be off-putting.

Alas, the weekend ended, the GD went back to work, and I decided to create a less ridiculous sleeping schedule for myself. I have to pretend I have a job by saying things in my head like, “Anne, you are due at the gym by 9:30am. You have a very important meeting with the treadmill,” and, “The servers at Taste of Emilia^† are waiting for you to order your coffee and write for an hour in their café.” So far, dividing my time between things like this and the general pursuit of domesticity (doing dishes and laundry; elaborate meal-planning and baking projects; finicky tidying and rearranging of furniture) seems to be an effective way of killing a day. I’ve also secured myself a spot as an extra in a Dublin Fringe show from Argentina, and I’m trying to become a volunteer with the Fringe Festival, itself. Pretty productive, right?

The only real tragedy I’ve suffered in the last week is the half-death^‡ of my ancient iPod. The thing is still kicking, but the headphone jack has crapped out. I can still listen to it on the GD’s dock in our living room, but alas, no more trips to the grocery store with the world around me completely drowned out by Girltalk. I think the damage may be a result of The Dropsies at one of my important gym meetings, but I drop that thing ATT, and this is the only serious injury it has sustained. I refuse to let it die completely, though, because I cannot afford to replace it with one of those new-fangled ‘color screen’ iPods with a million GB of space that I could never use. MyPod will serve out its final days honorably: as the soundtrack to my confined life of poverty and small domestic tasks^§.



*FOTC: Inner City Pressure

†Amazing little Italian place right around the corner. Apparently Emilia is a place in Italy, and most of the food and drink is from that region, including the little sample platters of parmagianno with balsamic they give you when you’re drinking a delicious glass of red wine! Also, bomb cappuccinos. The only place in Dublin they don’t put chocolate on top.

‡Not the correct use of the term ‘half-death.’ I think it has something to do with cells, or maybe that's half-life. I do not claim to know.

§That one guy from The Stepford Wives would like to watch.