Kylie Minogue: Fever Draft

Posted on April 1, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I did a lot of editing on this one, which from the draft below, is probably obvious. The draft is a mess of things thrown together, so there was a lot of culling and combining I had to do. There was also a fair bit of rearranging to find where there was a clear path and flow. It took a while, and I’m not enamoured with the final result, but I am satisfied with it. It could be so much better, but I’m getting back on the wagon so I’m trying to not be too harsh with myself.

My main goal was to put forward that Kylie Minogue is an artist and her music is art. I’m often put off by how much praise I’ve heard quite a few people throw at some forms of music, whilst derision is so readily aimed at pop music by the same people. Then I hear the stuff that’s being praised and so much of it is people who have grown older but haven’t grown their perspective, and it’s stuff about getting dumped by someone years and years ago, or a real juvenile, uninterested look at subject matter, and unjustifiably angry. It feels so much like vapid posturing, and I feel a bit shit for saying that as I’m sure a lot of that stuff comes from a genuine place, but it doesn’t come across well.

But when it comes to pop, I hear the same people call it commercial, just marketing stuff, manufactured, and it doesn’t make sense to me. It feels like there’s a refusal to spend the time to try and understand it, but there’s such a rich world of it out there and there’s so much creativity. People are too willing to skim the surface and then go back to what they know as familiar, but then won’t be willing to admit that they don’t want to dig further. Pardon the rant.

In editing I tried to keep things a bit less angry and accusatory as I couldn’t justify it. I don’t feel I went far enough in exploring what makes Kylie Minogue an artist and why she should be considered as such, and admittedly I’m arguing against a small group of people. But again, I’m getting back on the wagon. I might revisit the topic again at some point down the track.

The final version of this essay was published today on From Somewhere out the Back. If you’ve been following my stuff here long enough, then you’ll recognise the name as the title for when I write about music releases in my music collection. I’d been intending to dedicate a space for those pieces for a while, and of course rather than hold to that, the space expanded to more than just music. The draft below is just to give an idea of progress. Please check out the final version.

I hope you enjoy.

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Last year I decided to listen to most of the Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds studio discography. Skipped Kicking Against the Pricks. Never been that big a fan of the band, but I like some stuff here and there. Anyway, I was talking about it with Ewen, who is a big fan of Cave-related work, and I can’t remember around which album it was, but I told him that once I was done with Bad Seeds I was going to move onto Kylie Minogue, whose music was also about love and sex, but far less miserably so.

Today I’m working from home due to being sick. Pissy cold. Fun times. Decided to go for a walk in the sun to try and sweat it out a bit and I decided to put on Fever. I’ve never been that big a fan of Kylie Minogue, though there are some songs here and there that I liked. Gave some of her discography a try earlier this year and some of it I enjoyed and some of it I didn’t, but I did like most of Fever (or at least I think I did) and had been meaning to getting back around to it, but laziness.

But anyway, I decided to give it a spin whilst I was walking around and it made me think about things.

Fever wears its heart on its sleeve, and even when it seems to go for the metaphor, it can’t resist being as direct as possible about it. So much of it is light, bouncy pop with plenty of disco and electronica brought in for good measure. Often Kylie Minogue’s voice is sandpapered and lacking the grit it can convey, instead keeping things in a base form of expression. Whilst it is a bit of a shame to have such a voice so held back, it’s also quite befitting of the album, which is a sleek, refined and heavily designed thing.

So Fever came off the back of… Light Years? I think it was Light Years, and in some ways it feels very much like someone in the zone, looking to capitalise on the success of the former whilst also looking to keep growing. So you get these shimmery, direct songs that stick firmly to verse/chorus/verse, very much appealing to being in the club… or the arena. Or somewhere where you’re gonna have a good time. The songs themselves are, for the most part, fairly sleek, shiny, smoothed out bits of music that know enough about what they are and plenty about what they aren’t. Essentially, you’re not gonna be getting much, if anything, that’s deep here, and that’s okay. It would be easy to start digging deep into these songs, and you probably could if you really wanted to, but it’s not the point of the songs because they’re not meant to be deep. They have very specific aims and they achieve them well enough.

The sound isn’t so much the main attraction so much as it is Kylie Minogue’s voice, of which she, naturally, knows how to use well. There’s excitement and passion here, but most of the time Kylie sings… maybe not gently, but it’s a way of putting it, because there’s energy in there, but there are times when it sounds like she’s more exploring directness and considering it, thinking about what she wants to mean rather than just belting everything out at maximum. It’s almost introspective without the introspection, necessarily. But it is there if you want to dig. If you want to dig into desire and the meaning of it, and everything that can come from it, you’ll get there. You can draw meaning from most anything if you want to dig far enough, really.

But there is a softness here when Kylie needs it most; there’s hardness, energy at other times. And through it all, she reaches through the sounds around her. She reaches through the speakers and looks to speak into your ear and tell you something about what she is feeling and what should be expressed, and you hear it. She looks to you, our pop princess and locks her eyes upon your auditory organs and she cuts through it all, speaking, reaching, and then those sounds are branding themselves unto your mind.

Fever exists in an odd space where it’s both variable and uniform, which is great for the songs individually. It comes out swinging with “More More More”, “Love at First Sight” and “Can’t get You out of my Head”. From there, it slows a little with the sugary title track, gets a bit harder with “Give it to me” and slows a bit with “Fragile” and “Come into my World”. “Into Your Eyes” through to “Love Affair” brings energy back to the forefront, with the latter feeling a little like a blend between the mellower and more energised sounds prior. “Your Love” slows things down again, and relaxes a little. Then comes “Burning up”, which is a great way to end the album. The way the instrumentation meets the vocals and lyrics, and this strong passion and push to have fun that comes through is just great.

However, things kind of start to blur and it all gets a bit long in the tooth. Perhaps some songs didn’t need to be included, if only to keep things feeling a bit less monotonous. Don’t get me wrong; the songs are good and enjoyable, but things get a bit inflexible in a way that’s definitely of the era, but the sounds of it all don’t have enough in them to offer much in the way beyond, perhaps, background stuff to a gathering as it’s a slog to do much of anything to otherwise. No, it’s not constantly in your face, but Minogue’s voice, whilst fantastically used throughout, isn’t enough to diminish the gradual tedium.

That said, “Burning Up” is a great way to end the album. It doesn’t rescue it, but it breaks the patience testing.

The thing about Fever is that, whilst it is exploring, it also feels like a really refined, really sanded down Kylie. It’s sleek and smooth; you can slide right off of it, and that’s part of the issue. All the passion is there; all the joy and life-affirmation and fun, but it lacks a little roughness that it could do well with. I don’t want to be critical of the album as, in some ways I respect it. It’s very much an album looking to capitalise on momentum; to keep a streak going. This is someone who was very much ready to hit the studio and take advantage of her skills. She worked with a great team and everyone got right into it, and turned out a solid collection. They just went too far.

You could probably drop either “Fever” or “Give it to Me”, and “Dancefloor”, and the album would feel both tighter and punchier, and it’d help give the whole thing more .

For a while, I suspected that the album art was a reference to Grace Jones’ ISLAND LIFE. In writing this and looking for information, I found out that the cover is inspired by the album cover.

What makes Fever work so well is that Kylie Minogue’s voice lends conviction and earnestness to what she’s singing, but it’s also playful. It’s sanded far too far back, but the way it expresses and the way Kylie uses the lyrics makes what is sung easy to believe. Yeah sure, it’s pop, but that doesn’t make it any less legitimate as art. If people are willing to accept Nick Cave’s misery in music as art, then what makes Kylie less so an artist? Is it because her songs aren’t verbosely miserable enough? Is it because she hasn’t suffered the same way? Nick clearly understood her ability as an artist; if not, she wouldn’t have sung on “Where the Wild Roses Grow”.

Years and years ago a housemate of mine described my expressing my feelings as FEELINGS! : ) (hopefully that gets across the flamboyancy that he used), and one of our housemates as expressing theirs as feelings : (. Sometimes I want to feel like shit, and sometimes I really want to be down in it, among an intense abrasive blast washing over me, fucking me up. But sometimes I just want to feel like shit and dance and have fun, and the older I get, the more I want to enjoy that time. To feel something life-affirming. I don’t know if Kylie Minogue’s Fever is her best album. It probably isn’t, but it’s as moody as it is light. It’s tight, efficient; an upbeat set of songs exploring a few facets of life and experience. But the thing is, ultimately, is that it is no less art than, say, Nick Cave’s No More Shall we Part. But beyond that, it’s also no less art than any form of extreme music that anyone might want to defend.

If a bunch of middle class white dudes screaming about being hurt and psychological damage is justifiable as art, than so is anything that you might want to classify as facile, throwaway pop nonsense, and Fever can be classified as that. There’s pomp and cheese on Fever, and goddamn is it a solid, defined and warranted statement. It says something about the female condition in a way that’s genuinely fun. It also doesn’t sequester itself off into a corner for only a few people to appreciate whilst hissing at anyone who dares to enjoy something lighter.

Kylie Minogue is viewable as an entertainer, but I think that anyone who does is likely to deny that she’s an artist, as she is. Yeah, the lyrics can be viewed quite shallowly, and she says stuff that people were saying before her. It’s easy music to write off because it’s enjoyable. But at the end of the day, what I’m clumsily trying to get at is this: Fever is as warranted as being denominated as art, and Kylie Minogue as an artist. She works with people to make music she can get behind and believe in, and she works to make sure what she’s on works for her. Kylie’s voice is a bridge for her expression, and she does what she does well. Being an entertainer takes creativity and work with a team, and to get out on stage continuously for decades, to put that work in to keep creating, to keep developing her voice and working her sound… it takes time and effort. The music might be more shimmery and sleek; it might not be reaching for deep critical status, but if we are to call so many other people and bands out there artists, then we have to admit that Kylie Minogue is just as much.

I’ve seen too many people go into some form of conniption decrying pop as something to dismiss when most heavier, “extreme” stuff we show more respect and reverence for is significantly more shallow and trite. Spin Fever. Actually spend the time listening to it. Don’t just hear it. No guarantee it’ll change your mind or that you’ll enjoy it, but at least you’ll have experienced it.

Years and years ago I heard “Love at First Sight”, “Can’t Get You Out of my Head” and “Come Into My World”. I was a child and I dug two of those. Didn’t like “Can’t Get you Out of My Head”. I might have heard “In Your Eyes”, too, and actually I’m sure I did, as when I listened to Fever for the first time last year, I recognised it. Probably also has a lot to do with the music I was inuring myself to at the time, too, or something.

I don’t know. At the end of the day, I get older and I still listen to moody stuff, but I’ve always enjoyed lighter music. I don’t need to be constantly heavy; it’s draining. Sometimes I just wanna get down and dance and have fun and not give a fuck about things. Fever might be better as background music, but it’s pretty fun in parts, and Kylie makes me wanna dance.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1593: Still Heavy Stuff

Posted on March 31, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

So I wrote this thing that was really heavy and I didn’t want to put it forward, so it’s gone. It has been removed. A lot of emotional pain and it was only a few sentences in, but it was still too much.

Sometimes I wonder if I’m going to see the other side of things in a happier space, or if I’m going to keep going through misery. If I’m going to keep going through pain and hurting myself. I have to wonder if I’m willingly doing this to myself. I have to wonder if I don;t want to feel good.

So the day goes on. I’m sitting here among other people and feeling away from it all, and I’m also wondering how long I’m going to keep doing this to myself. There was a period where I was happy about things and I was feeling good, and now I’ve sunk again. And I feel I sunk myself. I feel I’ve done this, and it was a decision I’ve made.

Recently I tried to reach out to my ex. I was hoping for some communication, and I wasn’t hoping to rekindle the relationship. I got silence instead, and it hurts. But I should have been aware that this would be a risk. I should have known that this could happen. She doesn’t owe me anything and we caused each other a lot of hurt. I get why she won’t respond. I just wish she’d say as much as “I don’t want to talk to you”, because as much as that would hurt, I could then have some certainty about where I stand. But I don’t know if I’ll get that, and I’m not hoping that I get that.

So this is still heavy stuff, but I have to remember that I am still alive and I still have desires. I still have a drive and I can still keep going. I’m doing okay, all things considered. I know this will pass. I know other doors will open so long as I keep on going and keep doing my best. I know that I won’t get anywhere if I don’t keep trying, so I’ve got to keep trying. I’ve got to keep on looking toward tomorrow and keep walking.

This sadness might be one of the most difficult things I’ve ever had to work with. It takes my whole body and fills it, and it doesn’t empty. It doesn’t leave me. Everything passes through and it just feels like I’m witnessing things rather than experiencing them. It makes me want to give up, but I can’t. I just can’t give up, because doing that doesn’t solve anything. I don’t want to be like this for the rest of my life, so I’m doing my best to just keep going, wade through it all, let it all happen and continue working on myself. I can only do my best, and even if that’s very little, that’s still good enough for me.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:00:99

From yesterday. Been working on an essay I want to get published very soon, so everything else has gone on the backburner.

Not great writing. Less miserable than some other recent stuff though.

Written at work.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 266: A Move Toward Tomorrow

Posted on March 30, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

I had plans for today and they’ve gone right out the window. I should have not opened the window, it seems. Alas.

Another day wasted and another day I feel that my life is slipping away from me. Losing my reach, falling away, falling far far away from me, and I just sit here and watch it. I don’t chase after it for some reason. I think it’s laziness that prevents me from getting off my keister to chase after that which I feel I need, but at the same time, it could be anything. It could be everything. It probably isn’t laziness and, as such, I should stop blaming it, the poor bastard. Probably tired of me pointing the finger at it and forgetting that a few are pointing back at me. That’s the way it goes sometimes, however, and so laziness needs to accept that life and yeah.

There’s a nice breeze outside and the shadows in this room are growing longer. I’m growing longer. I’m growing older. There’s no stopping it at this point. Sure, I could sacrifice souls at the altar of eternal youth. I could also start forking out a lot of money for plastic surgery, as though that would provide a solution. Can’t restore bones that way. Can’t make bones young again. Time to replace all the bones. Sacrifices and bone replacement is where it’s all at. Surprised I didn’t think of this sooner.

I need to try and keep in mind that a temporary lull is not reason to spiral and despair, but sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes it’s difficult, because through spiraling and despairing I’m realising quite a few things, and it all hurts. I need to remember that I still have myself. I’m still alive, so I can still turn things around and get back on track with my life. I can still make things happen.

I think for the first time in a while, I feel like I’m half of something else, and the other half is elsewhere, and it sucks. I think it’s good that I’m realising how I’m feeling and things are crystalising in a way, but it just sucks. After all the pain and damage and hurt caused, I find myself missing my ex, and I can’t do much about it. The most I can do is get on with my life, keep going forward and try to make the best out of a crappy situation.

I wasn’t expecting to feel like this a little more than a year out. I wasn’t expecting to feel low, and it’s draining. I’m glad I am feeling these things, but I need my time. I need to be able to live my life and feel a little bit more happy about things. I don’t. I’m just here, hurting, spinning the wheels.

I miss being held and holding someone, and I miss all the good times. I have trouble seeing them, but I know they were there. I don’t miss the trouble, but I do miss her. I miss having her in my life, and it’s tough. It’s tough because I’m letting mine slip away. I’m feeling it all and wanting to feel nothing, and I need help getting back up, but I feel I have to do it myself. I feel I have to try and push myself out of this without assistance, and that’s not great, but I should do what I must.

But then, when I get back up, assuming that I do, what do I do then? Where do I go from there? Do I chase after my life, try to make up for lost time? Do I give up again? Do I start a new life and go from there? I don’t know.

It’s a nice day outside. Sunny, light breeze. It seems peaceful and idyllic, and I’m so very fortunate that I can say that. I’m lucky to be able to say that I get to experience this slowness, and that I have the space and time to be miserable. To be grieving. To feel as though the other half of what I’m part of is missing. I wish that brought me comfort, because it doesn’t. I ‘m aware of it, but I’m not comforted.

Last year, shortly before going through getting dumped, The partner of someone I knew passed away. That was rough. Just an awful time. Then I got dumped and I was trying to keep space for that person and their grieving, but it was tough. But I tried and I kept trying. We were both struggling though.

They say that time heals all wounds, but you don’t expect wounds to get worse. You don’t expect them to get to a point where you can’t appreciate the idyllic feel of the scenery outside your window anymore. But life goes on and things change, and we grow older. I keep trying to hope for a better tomorrow, because what else can I do?

I often don’t feel I can collapse and fall apart. I often feel I have no choice but to keep going, and maybe that’s why people think I’m resilient. Maybe that’s why people think I’ve been able to stay on top of things as long as I have, but I haven’t stayed on top of much. I still just want my big hug, but it’s not coming. I have to keep going. I have to keep pushing on. I feel I don’t have a choice in the matter. I don’t feel as though I get to have a say in all of this.

What if my ex started talking to me again? What if she said hello? Would anything change? I don’t know. I don’t know if I could honestly say things would be better. It’d be up to her. But that’s the way things go sometimes, and maybe tomorrow I’ll wake up feeling better about it all. Maybe I’ll be okay.

Tomorrow still is another day, and it’s more life.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 17:57:74

This is from yesterday and it’s still raw stuff coming forward, but that’s what was in me.

Written at home.

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Sitting on the Ocean

Posted on March 29, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

The sunrise, also known as the rising of the sun, also known as the commencement of the day. They’re often an easy thing to capture in a simple way and also easy to see a photo of and forget about, but still provide a good deal of amazement, both witnessed and seeing a photo of.

This was taken in January with my phone. I was going for a swim at Maroubra, saw the sunrise, wanted to get a photo to share with people, and so I did. A quick and simple photo that’s somewhat minimal. Has a lot of space which I like. I especially like how the sun appears to be sitting on the ocean.

This is my submission into the three hundred-and-ninety-first Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Phone Photography“.

I would not have shared this photo to a wider audience had it not been for this challenge, and I wouldn’t have realised that this photo is similar to one I took back in 2015. Specifically, the one zoomed out with the same positioning.

I wrote that I didn’t think those photos were amazing and that I wanted to try to get better captures, but at the time I thought that the one that’s similar to this one was the best photo I’d ever taken, and I didn’t know if I’d ever capture a better one. I was wrong about that, and I’m glad I was.

The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:

Tina

Patti

Ann-Christine aka Leya

John Steiner

Sofia Alves

Anne Sandler

Egídio

Ritva

Beth

This one is curated by Tina. The next one is curated by Tina.

I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.

I hope you enjoy.

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Doves in a Frangipani

Posted on March 29, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

There’s a possibility that I’ve written about this before. I can’t remember and it’s what I want to cover right now so as to feel a little less wretched, so you’re getting something that could be a repeat. Could be. We’ll find out if I ever bother to go back through things.

There was a period where I lived in a place, and I think it was the longest I’d lived somewhere since moving out of home. I don’t know. But I lived there a while and it wasn’t a great place. I definitely wrote about living there, but that’s in the past. I guess this bit of writing is about the past, but that doesn’t matter. Or it does. Anyway.

So my partner at the time and me, we lived there a good few years, and at one point had the place wholly to ourselves. Moved to one of the front bedrooms and it was… I don’t know if I’d say it was great, but it was our home, and it was nice for that. But what was really nice was having a frangipani growing outside our window.

The window looked onto the front yard and the street, which had a few trees and was quite pleasant for having them. We’d get cockatoos, and I like to refer to them as seasonal cockatoos as that’s how they seemed to be seasonal, and they’d create a racket and be noisy, and you’d see them eat and play, and it was something I appreciated. Always good to see a bunch of birds. It was clearly an urban place, but sometimes it didn’t feel urban.

The closest I’ve ever gotten to feeling like I was living in the bush was in the first place I moved into when I moved from home, where the toilet was an outhouse built into the house. You’d have to go out the back and walk a few metres from the door and along the wall and you’d be there. Sometimes in the morning I’d be on the toilet with the door open and early morning sun would be shining through the trees, of which there were a few, and it was just lovely. Just pleasant. But I digress.

In the frangipani, occasionally some doves would rest there. They were more likely to if you didn’t notice or pay attention to them as they had as much a view into the bedroom as we had a view into the frangipani. But it was nice to see them there, resting, taking their time away from whatever it was that they were doing.

When it would rain, we could see a few more than usual, as the frangipani provided a good space away from the rain. It wasn’t perfect by any measure, but it was enough, and so we would look at the doves, admiring them and their cuteness, and they would probably look at us, not knowing what we were going to do, if we were indeed going to do anything. And once the rain died down, they would leave and continue doing the things doves do.

When I was going through getting dumped last year and my ex was in the process of moving out, we saw a dove perched on the switchboard box, and for a moment the relationship hadn’t ended. For a moment everything seemed to have been forgotten, and we were back in this joyous period. It was not long, but it was wonderful.

The dove didn’t want to move, and it didn’t seem to fear us either. My ex left, and it was gone in the morning.

Seeing birds rest in a tree, or somewhere more artificial in structure, things like these are small moments, and they’re worth cherishing.

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One Thousand Word Challenge 265: Heavy Sunday

Posted on March 29, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Yesterday evening I started writing this thing about how I had nothing to write about, and I even couldn’t write about nothing, and it made me smile a bit. I think it made me smile as it meant that, even though I was still writing about something, there really was nothing left in me at that point, which still becomes something but… you know what I mean. I ended up scrapping it, however, as I was too tired to keep writing at that point. Too many nights of not enough sleep and all that builds up and yeah.

So I scrapped it. This morning I realised that there was something that I wanted to write about, but I forgot at the time, so the writing was being done based on a self-deception, and that’s all wrong and all that, but that thing is what I’ll write about next, because right now I’m feeling really down and that’s what’s going to come out as that seems to always shove everything out of the way.

Please consider this your warning to stop reading if you don’t want to read about someone being really sad, because this might get really heavy. I’m yet to find out.

There are some things that I’ve realised over the past few days, and a lot of it has to do with a pervading sense of loneliness and isolation. Many years ago I was fine with just heading out and doing things by myself, regardless of if I was single or in a relationship. I’d just go and do whatever, walk around a lot, those kinds of things, and I’d be fine. I’d try to go to gigs with others, but I’d occasionally go by myself. I went and saw Shin Godzilla by myself, though that took a bit of effort on my part. Probably should’ve recognised the loneliness then. But right now, I feel incredibly lonely and isolated.

I don’t mind doing stuff by myself, but I don’t like feeling like I have to do stuff by myself. I need time away from people. I need time to unwind. I need time to sort out my headspace. This isn’t unusual. I also realise that the older I’m getting, the more I find myself yearning for a connection with others that doesn’t rely almost solely on me to initiate.

This does leave me wondering what it is that I’ve done in order to put myself in this position. What am I doing that people won’t tell me? It also makes me wonder why people expect space for their own follies and foibles but won’t allow the same for others. I wish I could say that this is solely about me, but I see it happen so much, and it sucks. It’s tough.

Speaking about me though, too many people in my life seem to think I have it together, as though I’m some resilient person who can get through whatever and keep going. That is somewhat true, but I’ve been doing it tough for a while, and I don’t know how much fight is left in me. I don’t know if I have the endurance to keep persevering on my own. In relationships I’ve felt on my own. I’ve felt I’ve had to almost always be the strong one, and when I can’t, that’s when things have started going wrong, and it hurts so much. It hurts because I’ve felt I’ve had to carry so much emotional and mental weight for two people, and it hurts because there have been issues, but they’re seldom, if ever raised, in a way that isn’t a way that comes off as hurtful or rude or uncaring, but then I’m the one who is told that I’m those things when I’m at a point where I’m not doing well, or I need the other person to work on themselves as I can’t take on more.

The best communication I’ve had is in my current relationship, and I’m about to end it because whilst the communication is working and it’s great, the relationship itself isn’t working and it’s not the right time for either of us. And that sucks as I’m trying to not spiral, but this needs to be done.

I’m wondering how much of my independence has been more of a coping mechanism than it has been me just doing what I do and my being comfortable with it, because I’m finding it increasingly difficult to be alone at times. I used to spend so much of my time contacting others rather than the other way around, and I’ve spent so many days alone, either out or in a room, doing very little, and I don’t know how much more I can take.

I don’t know how much more I can handle giving other people the room to be fallible and struggle with their issues, but not have the same in return. Sometimes I just need to talk to a friend, but I don’t want to continually offload all my shit on the same few people. Sometimes I need to talk to someone else, or I need someone else of those few to just reach out and see how I’m going, ask me to hang out, just that sort of thing, because I’m not coping well. I’m not handling life and I’m not handling the loneliness.

And yeah, sure, everyone’s battle to fight is their own. I get it, I know it, and I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is that I just wish more people would show that they care. I’ve been told things that are wrong with me, but never really told what it is that people find to be an issue, but I can’t remember the last time those people actually checked on me.

I’m grateful for the few who do, but it’s all so tough. Don’t assume someone who is seen as resilient, is. Reach out, because they could be struggling and need someone to listen.

The time it took to write one thousand words: 18:18:11

Slower than I’d hoped, but it’s the way it goes sometimes.

This is not joyful reading. Heavy, sad stuff, and I don’t feel right sharing it. It’s what I feel at the moment though and it’s what’s going to come forward.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1592: The Day Seems to Drift

Posted on March 28, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

This day seems to drift on wisps of time, or that’s how I feel about it anyway. There’s a nice breeze and a nice bit of light, and I’m just enjoying the time that I have. Enjoying the flow of the day.

I haven’t done anywhere near as much as I would have liked, and that’s okay. There’s still a good bit of day left, and I’m going to be awake for a while anyway. A lot of admin stuff and boring bits of life that make us wonder where we went wrong and if we’ve wasted more time than we’d like to admit. Those kinds of things.

It’s difficult to be productive sometimes. Right now it is, anyway. And that’s okay, I think, because I’m still pushing through and doing my best. Am I going to get as many things up today as I did yesterday? Probably not. I might try, but I probably won’t get there. Still, I tend to hope. I tend to do what I can and I tend to try my best, even when I am not at my best, so at least I can take some comfort in that.

Sometimes it is hard to do your best when the day is so pleasant, however. A nice, slow day, drifting along, going on about its day… yeah…

And it is a nice day, and pleasant and all of those things. I’m enjoying it. I’m enjoying the slowness and the low light, and the way it doesn’t seem to be moving at all. It’s late in the afternoon, but it doesn’t feel it. It doesn’t feel like much of a day at all. Just a point in time with a bit of light shone upon it to highlight it, or something. I don’t know.

But it’s nice and pleasant, and I’m kind of fine with a bit of lower productivity today. Sure, I’m going to kick it up a few notches soon and get the admin stuff out of the way, but right now this is nice. This is easy. I like this. I can enjoy this time that I have, and I can just float along a bit. I can float along with the flow of time and I can relax. Take it easy. Enjoy being lazy, a little, even if it does end up stressing me out. Way it goes, sometimes.

I’m sitting at my desk and I’m at ease, and this is a nice way to be. I’m not at east enough, I think, and that’s an issue. It has been an issue for the past few days and it’ll probably be an issue some time down the track. Right now it’s not and I like this. I like that I’m relaxing, unwinding, all of those things. It’s a good way to be. Never lasts long enough. I’ll start fearing lack of productivity, but right now, in this instance, in this moment, I can take in very little and relax for a bit.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 06:09:40

A nice, relaxed bit of writing. A bit of what I needed to do right now.

Written at home.

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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1591: A Mess of Words for Your Saturday

Posted on March 28, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Sometimes you wake up and do nothing. When that happens, what do you do? Well, you get to writing, of course!

I’ve always enjoyed a busy weekend, except when I haven’t, which is most of the time. I don’t mind a planned weekend, but a busy weekend… no. Most of the time. Some of the time. None of all of the time, and always none of the time. It’s how it goes when you get down to brass tacks, and so therefore I need to stride and whinny and moo and some other things that don’t really make sense given the context, of which there is little provided.

Yep. It’s one of those bits of writing where I’m just throwing whatever together and hoping for the worst.

I see that things are pretty bad out there, and I can tell by looking out my window. I’m waiting to use the bathroom, which is currently occupied by someone who doesn’t do enough around the house, and soon it will be free. It will be free, and so will I. Once it is free I will be able to stride out into the wide world outside, and by that I mean to the bathroom. I will stride to the bathroom, and I will carve paths to the future upon the gliding pain and pressure I feel within myself that slowly creeps up and creeps me out. And that’s the way it goes. That’s the way it all speaks to me and that’s the way I will continue with my life, but my life cannot continue unless I continue with it.

This is a bad way of going about writing, but it’s the way I’m doing it today. And maybe tomorrow, too. And the day after. If it gets to Friday, however, then no. Not then. Other days, however…

Feeling like a new person, except I don’t. Going to not do anything, except I will. Through my will I will will a way, and the way forward is not the way backward.

I should be writing about the wind over this. This is not entertain. This is crap. A lot of crap comes from these hands, and I need to stop with that. Only the purest of qualities can be produced through the work of the work that is happening, but… what am I even saying here?

I once had hopes and dreams and now all I think about are dreams and hopes. I’m wondering where I lost my way, and if I can ever find it again. There’s so much to do and so little time, and everything is just pressing on and in. Still, I keep going. I keep churning. Today and tomorrow are going to be busy days. Monday will be a busy day. I’m gonna crap on about nothing until I get to the top of the bottom of the middle of the top, and I’m not going to stop. Maybe my hopes and dreams lie within the crap.

The time it took to write five-hundred words: 05:38:41

I’m a bit sluggish this morning and that sucks. Going to kick into high gear in a few hours, however. Might as well enjoy writing crap before I have to get really into the thing of things.

Written at home.

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Final: Untitled 4 (It Comes to us All)

Posted on March 27, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

Not sure what happened here. Realised I was doing something, tried to stick to it as much as I could. I think it works well enough. Could be better, sure, but well enough for one listen.

Final’s “Untitled” is from It Comes to Us All. All of the album’s tracks are untitled,  and this is the fourth on the album.

As a side note, here’s a review of the album that I wrote a few years ago.

I hope you enjoy.

—

Increasing, growing, wavering, pulsing, layering. Growing, growing, becoming big, becoming massive, overwhelming, filling the space, then receding.

Growing, filling the space, some sound pulls away, sound changes, almost like rotating on an axis, and as it passes the melody moves through its stages.

Shrinking away, shrinking, then coming back. Pulsing warm, pulsing cold. Pulsing comfort. Continuous, drifting away. Drifting back, returning, following rings, following loops, as still as in motion.

Filling space, filling up, buzzing, filling space, dissipating, disappearing, wavering out of existence, shrinking, compressing, disappearing, fading away, and the song ends.

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Record Digging – Draft

Posted on March 27, 2026 by Stupidity Hole

So here’s this thing that I wrote, then decided could be the start of an essay on record digging. The full thing won’t be done by the time Stupidity Hole stops, so I figured it’d be worth sharing this now.

The final version of this essay will be published on From Somewhere out the Back. If you’ve been following my stuff here long enough, then you’ll recognise the name as the title for when I write about music releases in my music collection. I’d been intending to dedicate a space for those pieces for a while, and of course rather than hold to that, the space expanded to more than just music.

The draft below is just to give an idea of progress.

I hope you enjoy.

—

When I was a teenager I spent a lot of time browsing through record stores looking for music. Usually these would be quick, ten, maybe twenty-minute affairs as I’d have an idea of what I wanted to buy, and usually once or twice a month, but over time the visits increased to once every week or two, and occasionally they’d be for an hour, or sometimes hours if I was visiting more than one.

I spent a lot of time hunting down things that were difficult to get, such as Freibentos, and when I finally got a record player, I’d move more into the record sections, digging away, trying to see what came up. Before then, however, I did a dig at Goulds in Newtown, back in its old location. I dug through stacks of records and books, and unearthed Murder, Inc., Prong and An Emotional Fish. Good times.

But I spent a lot of time digging and listening, and I mean really listening to music, just taking it all in, being obsessed, but not so obsessed that I regretted doing my marine science degree.

My friend Ewe once told me that my knowledge of music was encyclopedic. I don’t think my knowledge is that advanced and probably never will be, but I am good at pulling out stuff that people might not know about artists they like, and I’m also good at finding stuff that people may like. Who isn’t, though? It just takes time and paying attention, and hoping you develop a good enough ear and understanding to be good at putting something forward.

I remember once someone trying to tell me the release order of some Godflesh stuff, and knowing that they were wrong. Shame. I also remember wanting to work in a record store. Still would be happy to, but I live in Sydney which makes it a challenge to do so these days. But I digress.

I’d flip through stacks and shelves, look at each record carefully, see what came forward. It’s what helped me get into Miles Davis. Would buy a record, bring it home, spin it when viable. Listen. Take it in, work toward understanding what I was hearing. What was going on.

In a some ways music as a physical format has been superseded, but there’s still something about the time investment a good-sounding record provides. You have to take it out of its sleeve, turn on the record player, get the needle in the right position, lower it, put it on. A record can be unwieldy, but its an intentional time investment. You have to be a participant in putting it on to listen to it, and so usually you’re making time to listen to one. You can put a record on in the background, but the issue there is that you’re going to be drawn back when it ends. You have to flip it, so when you put a record on you’re dedicating time and spending time with it. You’re making an intentional decision about how you want to hear and engage with music that requires some physical action.

I haven’t gone digging for a while. The convenience of being able to jump online and order, or just even put on a digital copy of an album is great. So much less time, but I feel that I’m not listening to stuff the same way. I’m still hungry; I’m still looking for stuff, seeing what comes up and I’m still listening, but there’s less time involved and the convenience takes away from the ritual, I feel. I don’t know if I could claim that this is a bad thing, however; it’s the way it is, but for what is gained something is lost, and that same kind of intimacy just isn’t there.

The last dig I did was at a record fare in Bathurst a couple of years ago. I was visiting Ewe and Anna, there was a fare on, so Ewen and I went down. Most of everything was overpriced, and nothing in particular caught our fancy, and sometimes that’s the way it is. It was still an enjoyable time in a way. The process of flipping through records, seeing what there is, and maybe something catches your eye. It can be like looking for a book, but not necessarily knowing how it’ll appear to you.

Sometimes you dig for stuff and you come across something by someone you’re familiar with, or something catches your eye and you don’t have an idea of how it’ll sound. If it turns out to be something you don’t enjoy, you’re still gaining something from what you’re hearing.

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