Sarah Blasko

I had Sarah Blasko stuff on my YouTube Playlist. I can't remember what the songs were though.

I'm going to go check now.

Okay.

I have Cinders, and her singing an Elton John Song. At least, I think that's an Elton John song....

Oh wait. There's more.

Planet New Year

I often had my playlist music playing in the background. I didn't always pay it much attention; who sang what and all that.

Some stuff did stick out to me.  Missy Higgins, Cold Chisel, The Panics, Nick Cave, Ben Lee.....

And then other stuff I kind of just ignored.

I guess I've ignored Blasko. But now I shall be giving her a lot of attention.

It's time to meet up with Lord Wiki.

She's young! I pictured her older for some reason; like in her forties. But she's actually younger than me.

She was born on 23 September 1976.

Birthday Website Time!

She's a Libra and a 1 in numerology. 1 is the independent leader person. I think of the Libra as a romantic.

My younger sister is a Libra. I definitely see her as a romantic.

Ah, this is interesting. I never realized this before. This astrology website says that Libra's symbol (the scales) is the only sign that's inanimate. All the other signs represent living things.

The website says that Librans too are among the most civilized of the twelve zodiacal characters and are often good looking. They have elegance, charm and good taste, are naturally kind, very gentle, and lovers of beauty, harmony (both in music and social living) and the pleasures that these bring.

This sounds like my sister. She's pretty. Blasko is too.

But they do not tolerate argument from anyone who challenges their opinions, for once they have reached a conclusion, its truth seems to them self-evident. Ah! This really reminds me of my sister. I wonder if she'd agree.

Librans are sensitive to the needs of others and have the gift sometimes to an almost psychic extent, of understanding the emotional needs of their companions and meeting them with their own innate optimism. This is totally my sister! If I'm upset about something, it's pretty much impossible for me to hide it from her. I don't care how happy I pretend to be.  She KNOWS that something is wrong.

What would our world be like if we

 knew for sure there 

was life after death, and 

we could easily talk to our 

dearly-departed on the Internet?

The Dead are Online a novel by Dina Roberts  

Blasko was born in Sydney. Her family had just gotten back from Reunion France where they had been missionaries. Ah, religious people. This might get interesting. Oh no wait. Reunion is not a city in France. It's a French Island near Madagascar. These days I can't think of Madagascar without thinking of Sasha Baron Cohen and David Schwimmer.

Blasko's career began in the early 1990's. She did work with a band called Acquiesce. They toured France together. Ah, the French thing again. When I think of France, I think of Paris and the final episode of Sex and the City. I still haven't seen the movie! I need to.

In 2002, Blasko went solo. It seems she was disillusioned with people she tried to work with. I guess she didn't abandon everyone though. She did get financial assistance from her manager.

Her music got picked up by community radio and Triple J.

I'm finding this boring, kind of.

I don't find myself much interested in the business aspect of music.

Oh well.

I'll try to survive this.

After Blasko had some independent success, she got signed onto a label with Dew Process. They're located in Brisbane. Other artists that are with them (that I've heard of) include: Ben Lee, Bernard Fanning, and the Panics.

Blasko's debut album was called The Overture and the Underscore.

The musical director of Triple J rated it as number nine on his list of favorite albums of 2004.

It got to #35 on the ARIA music charts. According to Lord Wiki, this is based on music sold in Australia; and the folks on the chart aren't necessarily Australian.

The number one single right now is Jai Ho (You are My Destiny). It's from the movie Slumdog Millionaires. I've never heard of it. I'm telling you. I am so out of it when it comes to music.

The number one album right now is Ronan Keating's Songs for My Mother. Well, that fits for Mother's Day. I never heard of Keating either. He's Irish. He used to be with Boyzone. That sounds vaguely familiar.

Back to Blasko's album. She co-wrote the songs with Robert F. Cranny. The album was nominated for album of the year.

A song from the album (Always Worth It) was featured in the last episode of Rachel Griffith's TV Show Six Feet Under.

Lord Wiki says Blasko did a lot of cover songs. I love cover songs. I like listening to them on YouTube. I love FabtheGap's one for a Joshua Radin song. And I love Midnightfirefly14's Across the Universe.

Blasko did the song Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House. She performed the song at the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

She also did the Cold Chisel song Flame Trees. The song was featured in the movie Little Fish, an Australian movie about Heroin.

I think I like the Cold Chisel version better. But I think I'm always going to choose Jimmy Barnes. I love his voice.

In 2006, Blasko had another album...What the Sea wants, the Sea Will Have. That reminds me of the Prince of Tides thing. Man wonders but God decides when to kill the prince of tides. I don't know why the album made me think of that.   I guess it's just the ocean association.

The album premiered at #7 on the ARIA charts. That's pretty good.

All right. I'm done with Lord Wiki.

Where should we go next? How about the official site? Ah, it's a blog. I got confused for a second because it looks more like an average regular blog than a celebrity thing.

Her favorite animal is the horse.

My favorite animal used to be humans, but lately they've been annoying me. I think now I'm going to pick lizards and sharks as my favorites.

Ah! Blasko is on Twitter. We'll get back to that later. But while we're on the subject..... I'm becoming self-conscious about the whole Twitter thing. I feel like I keep replying to people and they don't respond back. Now I know people don't respond to every little message. I don't. So it makes sense that we're all ignored SOME of the time. But I feel I'm ignored A LOT. I see these people responding to other people's messages. But they never respond to mine. I'm starting to get a complex here.

Here's an interview with Blasko....on the blog. It seems she's a big fan of Nick Cave. I love some of his songs--like The Ship Song. But my Pandora station plays stuff of his I don't like. I'm afraid to give it the thumbs down because I've heard if you do this for two songs of one artist, they ban that artist from your radio station. I can't ban Nick Cave! That's like a sin or something. I think it could get me banned from Australia.

I think it's cute that Blasko has her own blog. She seems like a sweet blogger.

She's on MySpace as well. She's an Internet girl....like me!

She last logged in on May 5. That was yesterday for me. May 5. It seems like an important date for some reason. I'm thinking maybe one of my grandmas died that day.

On the 24th of May, Blasko going to be performing at the Writer's Festival in Sydney. This looks like a fun event. Germaine Greer is going to be there. A woman named Monica Ali is pictured on their website. She looks like one of my sister's friends!

Richard Flanagan will be there.

This seems like a big event, people! You should go!

Morris Gleitzman is going to be there!!!!

Sarah Blasko is going to be at a discussion regarding who gets to call themselves a writer. My personal definition of a writer is anyone who writes. I consider myself to be a writer. Anyone who has a blog is a writer. If someone writes me emails, I consider them to be a writer. Now if they make money from writing I'd consider them to be a PROFESSIONAL writer.

Okay. Now I'm on Twitter. It's a bit disappointing. She hasn't done much here. She has only five updates and only 260 followers.

Maybe I'll read more of her blog instead.

Her favorite movie is Annie Hall. Is that the one that has the annoying guy at the movie theater? I'm going to go check. Yep! It is! Classic scene.

Blasko was in Sweden for awhile. There's that Swedish-Australian connection again....

When she was there, she cooked for a friend. She made one of her signature dishes which is Asian stir fry over mashed potatoes. That's pretty different. I'd like to try it one day.

I'm going to look at other bloggers now--see if anyone says something exciting about Blasko.

Eleven Magazine says Blasko did music for a production of Hamlet. She received a Green Room Award nomination. The Green Room is rather local. I think it's just for Melbourne theater. But still. That's pretty cool.

Ah, I just saw someone mention the parent missionary thing. It reminded me that I haven't found much about her childhood. Maybe she has an Andrew Denton interview? Those always are good at going into the childhood stuff.

No! Crap. I don't see anything. That's kind of crazy.

Okay, but this website has some stuff.

She started writing terrible songs when she was eighteen or nineteen.

I started out writing terrible short stories.

Terrible is probably a common way to begin things.

As a child she wanted to be a veterinarian, but her math and science grades discouraged her.

At her university Blasko studied English Literature and film. I did one semester of film graduate school. I absolutely hated it. But before that I took a film course at Vanderbilt University during the summer. I loved that. We watched a lot of movies and had great discussions. It was here that I saw Meet Me in St. Louis for the first time. I had to leave the room I think because I started crying. My family moved around a lot so I could really relate to the story. I think the lines that really got to me were from "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

Faithful friends who are dear to us will be near to us once more. Someday soon we all will be together If the fates allow..... until then we'll have to muddle through somehow.

Oh and I love that scene at the dance when Garland is dancing with her Grandpa and....Oh, I won't give anything away in case some of you haven't seen the movie.

Maybe I just need to do a Meet Me in St. Louis Post.

We also watched The Exorcist. The professor talked about how a movie monster's fearfulness will often be diminished if it's shown too much. In the beginning of The Exorcist, you hardly see the demon. The bits and pieces here and there are terrifying. But towards the end, the viewer is likely to become habituated to it. If seen enough, it becomes somewhat comical.

As a six-year-old, I never saw the end though. I made it to where the demon voice says, The Sow is Mine. Then I sat on the hard kitchen floor covering my eyes and my ears...begging someone to turn off the movie. As luck had it, I returned to the room during the head spinning scene.

All that traumatized me for quite a long time. But by the time I was in college, I was mature and brave enough to happily watch the whole movie.

The funny thing is I don't think it was the movie itself that messed with me. I think it was the fact that I couldn't get rid of something scary. It was that lack of control. For years after that, I'd have bad dreams where there's a scary thing on TV and I can't turn the TV off.

It has definitely had an effect on how I parent Jack. I pretty much let him watch anything....except like Porno and extreme violence. But I don't really personally watch that stuff myself. If he's okay with it, I'll let him see it. If something scares him though, I'll turn it off. The funny thing is....the stuff that scares him is usually stuff that has been made for children.

I think sometimes people believe I baby Jack with his fears. I often quickly rescue him from whatever scares him. I rush him away from it. But I think that comes from my own childhood experiences. I don't want him to feel the same way. Yeah, I might be overcompensating. Who knows. And Jack might overcompensate back. He might PUSH his kids into all that they fear. You're afraid of clowns? Yeah? Well, we're going to the circus and then we'll shake hands with Ronald McDonald. Ah, my poor future grandchildren.

Oh lord. I've really gone off on a tangent here.

Back to Sarah Blasko.

Well, actually that article doesn't have much else about the beginning of her life. Did she not have a beginning of life? Maybe she's an alien that landed in Australia from Venus or something.

Wait. Maybe her fansite has something.

She sang in church.

Her dad liked Paul McCartney, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan.

Her mom liked Olivia Newton John.

I guess that's her childhood music.

The music my parents inflicted on me included John Denver, The Sound of Music, Air Supply, Hall and Oates, Alabama, Kenny Rogers, James Taylor, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and the Beatles. To this day, I still love most of that stuff. It's like family memories, you know. So, what music did you guys get indoctrinated with?

When she was in year 8, as a punishment Blasko was forced to do a music lesson for the class. Guess what the teacher said..... Young Lady. You do not have a musical bone in your body. That's funny--but more sad than funny. Sometimes when I hear these stories, I think well maybe it's good that people say these stupid cruel things. I think often it gives people the drive to go out and prove them wrong. One of Tim's teachers (or guidance counselor?) told him he shouldn't go to college. Tim ended up with a college degree.

But I don't know. Do people become successful because someone insulted them during their childhood, or do they become successful DESPITE of the insults. And for every Tim who ends up proving their teacher/counselor wrong, how many proved them right? How many kids take these insults to heart and give up?

This article has some information about Blasko's Christian upbringing. Her parents were very religious. Blasko grew up with Church, but she didn't end up being religious. She's actually turned off by the whole thing. She says, So often I heard the Anglican church pay out the Pentecostal church and the Pentecostals pay out the Anglicans. There's no love within the denominations and to me that's just proof that something's really wrong.

I think we're fooling ourselves as parents if we believe our children are going to grow up still believing what we pushed down their throats. I try NOT to push my beliefs on Jack, but for now he's adopted what I believe. Like me, he doesn't believe in God but he does believe in spiritual stuff. He has little interest in Judaism.

A few weeks ago, we were singing Abba songs together. We got to the song "I have a Dream". He said we should sing the Darwin version and then belted out I believe in evolution......(instead of I believe in angels) Then about a week ago, he made a comic in which a waffle fights God. So my child is a little heathen.

My niece has parents that have strongly embraced Judaism. They send their daughters to a Jewish school. The kids know Hebrew. They love the whole Jewish thing.

But you know what's likely to happen? As adults, Jack will probably end up as a rabbi singing Zum Gali Gali with camp children. His cousin will probably give up the Judaism for Wicca.

You just never know.

I once saw this atheist woman's blog, and she said parents who teach their children about fictional gods are awful....blah, blah, blah. She also said homeschooling is child abuse. Yeah, I'm not a fan of this lady, nor am I a fan of our local rabbi who said almost the same thing.

Anyway, I bet this woman will push Atheism on her kids. And I bet her kids are going to end up as snake handlers in a Pentecostal church.

Well, on that note....I shall end this now.

See ya later.