Someday I'll Own This Bookstore

“Do you have a pen?” I ask. “Hm?” Jess looks up from her novel and...

Sat, 16 May 2009 04:05:51 -0400

“Do you have a pen?” I ask.

“Hm?” Jess looks up from her novel and coffee.

“Do you have a pen?” She turns to her handbag and starts fossiking around.

“I have a sugar.” She pulls a long, thin sachet of sugar from her bag and places it neatly on the table.

“Why do you have sugar in your handbag?” I ask, pointlessly. She ignores me and keeps searching.

” I have a gingerbread man cutter.” And she removes a metal gingerbread man cutter and puts it on top of the sachet of sugar. This time I don’t bother asking. “I have a space monkey.” Of course she does. She puts a metal badge with black relief and the image of a monkey and cyrillian text next to the gingerbread man cutter and the sachet of sugar. She looks up at me and smiles. She looks proud of her pile of treasures. I smile back at her. She pulls a pen out from her bag and hands it to me, and I write:

‘“Do you have a pen?” I ask.’

"Popularity Keytars reached their height of popularity in the 1980s, and were strongly associated..."

Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:01:30 -0400

“Popularity Keytars reached their height of popularity in the 1980s, and were strongly associated with the New Wave music of the time. In the 1990s and early 2000s, they were extremely unfashionable, however with the Synthpop revival of the late 2000s, they are once again hip,[citation needed]”

- Keytar - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My new life as an angry driver

Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:00:31 -0500

I finally got around to getting my driver’ s license this morning. It was all fairly prosaic (crippling nervousness followed by delighted surprise) except for one part of the test- I was doing a totally legal turn completely perfectly and the car behind me beeped and yelled “learn to drive!” as he drove past.

This angered me for two reasons.

1: I was doing the right thing. Learn to criticize, dickhead!

2: I was in a car with Learner plates on it. An RACV Drive School car with bright yellow L plates! If anyone is ever in one of these cars they are most likely:

a) already learning to drive

b) taking a driving test

c) a driving instructor

Gahhh! Idiots! On the roads! Everywhere!

And I’m one of them now.

"Everyone knows Axl is a bit of a maverick genius and won’t do anything he doesn’t want..."

Tue, 02 Dec 2008 21:06:54 -0500

“Everyone knows Axl is a bit of a maverick genius and won’t do anything he doesn’t want to.”

- A quote from Britain’s The Sun

Really? A maverick genius? That makes him sound like the Professor from Gilligan’s Island rather than a guy who looks like he has wicker furniture coming out of his head.

If you love him say it with chicken

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 09:53:23 -0500

I’m having my yearly session of intense sickness, and it’s not fun. I have a headache. My eyes feel like they’ve been left under heat lamps. I have these weird ulcers in my mouth (stress ulcers, not, like, Feline AIDS ulcers.) Also, I have a bad haircut. It’s not related to the whole illness thing, but I’m still I’m still upset about it. It looks like there’s a quarter of a mountain lion pelt glued to my head. My head that is bald. Under the quarter-mountain lion pelt.

So the band I’m in had our last rehearsal before our first gig next week. We’re a cover band. I might not have mentioned it because we’re so indie (not true) that even I forget the band exists sometimes (not true). Why just last week AC/DC asked- nay, begged! Begged us to let them open for us on Friday the 21st of November at Hardiman’s Hotel, Kensington (Not, not true. Not “Not not true” but the one that isn’t a double negative.) See what I did there? In the music biz, we call that a plug. Not dissimmilar to what my head looks like it has.

Where was I? Stardom, right. Massive super-stardom. We’re so popular that I’ve started setting trends. I go to the shops to buy soap (not entirely true) and there’s teenage girls chasing me for a change! It’s like that episode of the partridge family where the oldest one gets chased down the road by all those girls but escapes to the safety and comfort of his family bus (fiction is wonderful).
Now, all over town, girls are throwing themselves at musicians like it’s not even fair! And I started that! I didn’t start that. That existed before. Every night at the pub pretty girls walk in before the bands start looking confused and scared.

“He hasn’t started yet. He still needs to do a sound check.”

“Oh. How did you-“

“I just know.”

So I finished rehearsal (we totally rocked Blue Suede Shoes). (No, really, we did). And Chris, our singer/harmonica player dropped me off before going home to his daughter, who is also ill. What a nice guy. He deserves a rock star name, like Slash and Axl have. Maybe Snakebite Pinatera! Maybe C-Bomb Supernova! Maybe Norse-God Flaghenbehrger!

I lugged my cumbersome amp inside, held the door open with my foot while bent back and picked up my guitar. When it rains I have to hold the amp above ground and swivel my torso to reach my keys. Incidentally, the doctor said my back pain was due to poor posture and improper lifting techniques. He also said that in a man’s mid-20’s, all the foolish stuff he’s done, the rocks he’s jumped from, the lifting from the waist (it shows off my his svelte legs), the jagerbombs and maybe-trannies (really not really). All of that comes back to visit with dirty laundry and a box of warm white wine.

I got inside and something wasn’t right. It wasn’t a burglary. Most of the time my place looks like I have opponents who work for the Committee to Reelect the President. I turned the lights on and the halogen bulbs hurt my eyes (at this point the light emmitted from a particularly good gnat going to gnat heaven would hurt my eyes).

It was clean. Like, mostly! And the big stock pot was out, and there was a note next to it. Jess had cooked me

chicken soup

Lots and lots of chicken soup!

I’m the luckiest guy alive!

Taking a stand over statuesque feet

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 08:59:00 -0500

In the unusual world of the Melbourne Uni student union, there’s this guy Ramon. Or there was this guy Ramon. I’m not sure if he’s still around. He used to submit a lot of writing to the student literary magazine, Farrago. Jess used to be one of the editors of this prestigious publication, and a fair amount of Ramon’s work got cut. Some got in, too, but a bit was cut. The cut pieces were those that somehow defamed someone.

In an outburst of vitriol he released a ‘zine full of condemnation of the Farrago editorial team. Jess gets mentioned a bunch of times, but the most unusual mention by far was the one where Ramon talks about how he pictures her marmorial feet while recieving anal sex from another dude in order to orgasm. Marmorial means marble-like.

Now maybe I’m old fashioned, but I somehow feel that if anyone is picturing the feet of the woman I love while having bum sex it should be me. Or at the very least nobody else. So here, on a blog, I’m reclaiming her marmorial feet.

They’re mine now, Ramon, all mine.

That’s right, I’m being tough over my blog. He’d better watch out, or I’ll post on him. Pioneer style. The way Wild Bill Hickock used to blog about his rivals. This is Man Blogging.

You can’t see it, but I just clapped my palms against my chest twice and took on an expression of masculinity. Like I was about to chest bump. Or call someone “homes.” I’m being all “what up homes?” Yeah. It’s mannish. Mannish like an East German female weightlifter.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have a foot rub to give. Suck it, Ramon.

Showed him.

Because cut and pasting from the paper is easier than actually writing my own stuff

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 01:57:25 -0500

Also from The Age

“MEET one of Australia’s newest shareholders. There’s not much to distinguish him from the 6million Australians who directly own shares on the ASX. He has a security holder reference number (SRN) and an account statement, issued by Computershare. He’s a native Australian, and his first share purchase is in reputable listed company Downer EDI.

This shareholder even has a welcome letter from Downer EDI company secretary Stephen Mockett. But there is one significant feature - he’s a budgerigar.”

Branch Davidians they ain't

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 19:41:32 -0500

There’s a cult somewhere in Victoria called The Kingdom of Yaweh that is making a stand against the machinations of a dispicable world government- by not registering their cars.

This is from The Age

“The group uses its own vehicle registration plates that are booby trapped, according to a report on radio 3AW. A police officer had been injured trying to remove one of the plates.

Members of the group have sent affidavits to authorities, including the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, stating their intentions to not comply with the law.”

I can just imagine the annual general meeting they must have had at thier fortified compound in the middle of nowhere.

“How are we going to strike fear into the hearts of the unbelievers?”

“Nerve gas?”

“… No, that’s a bit messy, don’t you think?”

And then, all of a sudden, the cult leader storms in. He was running late because he needed to buy a copy of New Idea.

“Damn it!” He says, “I just got pulled over by the cops and fined! My car was unregistered!”

And then two of the others look at each other knowingly.

The king of analogies is me

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 22:48:00 -0500

The following took place at 7AM on Cup Day when I got home from work, having consumed two fresh Cheesymite Scrolls from Brumbies. And a lot of cider.

Me: Honey! Honey! Wake up!
Jess: Mnh?
Me: Hello! You'll never believe what I had for breakfast!
Jess: Mnh.
Me: Cheesymite Scrolls! Fresh ones! They were amazing! So fresh! And THIS big! They were like.... like a flavour meteor! A flavour meteor impacting on my taste dinosaurs!
Jess: Don't use 'impact' as a verb.
Me: (asleep)

Why I should be in charge of TV

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 22:58:40 -0400

I went to a halloween party last night wearing my only costume (a real costume from the movie Return to Snowy River). I couldn’t decide if I was going as an 1840’s landowner or Doctor Who (I had connies on). It was held in a friend’s opulently appointed sharehouse in Jolimont and full of very hip people talking about hip things, like bands I hadn’t heard of. Also, there was wine. It was fun.

At one point, standing on the fringes of a conversation between a guy dressed as Satan and a girl dressed as a maid (she may have been the help, it was a really nice house) I couldn’t help but notice that they were negotiating about something. And then I had the idea for the best gameshow ever!

Deal Or No Deal… With the Devil!

So there’s a bunch of suitcases with numbers on them all held by these models, right? And then you pick one and elimante the rest and the audince get to guess too and all of that. It’s a lot like the current Deal or No Deal. Come to think of it, joke-wise it’s a lot like the Gold Case bit from 30 Rock. But the twist in my idea is that all the suitcases are filled with scorpions! LIVE SCORPIONS!

And then there’s a fiddling contest and whoever wins that gets a golden fiddle.

I’m going to make millions.

I tried to find a clip of the Gold Case bit but instead YouTube gave me this.

"‘Faeces gelato’ scandal a shocking public relations problem for hotel, experts say."

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 21:57:54 -0400

“‘Faeces gelato’ scandal a shocking public relations problem for hotel, experts say.”

- The lede from a story in The Age today

Any way the bank goes

Thu, 16 Oct 2008 22:53:59 -0400

It’s another beautiful spring day. The sun is shining in a pleasant way, not in that nuclear holocaust way that it does in summer. I’m inside drinking instant coffee, listening to the BBC World Service and, clearly, typing.

It must be a slow news day because the last story was how a bunch of bankers in London re-wrote the lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody to reflect the current economic crisis. Such gems as “I don’t wan’t to die/ I sometimes wish I’d never left Lehmans at all” and “Any way the bank goes…”

Imagine the scene at the BBC. A panicked radio producer is dashing down the brightly-lit hall to the office of the Person In Charge Of Deciding What’s On The Radio, clutching a stopwatch.

“Sir!”

“What is it, man? Speak up!”

“We’re running two minutes short!”

The Person In Charge Of Deciding What’s On The Radio looks out the window into the bleak British autumn and sips his tea thoughtfully. His eyes narrow.

“Leave it with me. I have just the thing.” He looks to his filofax and the index card that reads bankers, singing.

And scene.

It’s not the only one out there. This is from Area 51 (the website, not the secret government facility/sub-par Australian ska band/ sub-par Matthew Riely novel)

Naan, just killed a man,
Poppadom against his head Had Lime Pickle Now He’s Dead
Naan, Dinner’s Just Begun
But Now I’m Gonna Crap it All Away
Naan, ohhhh ohhhhhh
Didn’t mean to make you cry
Seen Nothing Yet Just See the Loo Tomorrow
Curry On, Curry On Cause Nothing Really Madras

And now for some reason everything is yellow. Great. Stupid Tumblr.

Here’s another from Amiright.com

I’m a long-haired geek, my name is Johnny D
And I’m tired now - been so long -
Must let go - of this song -
Anyway so here goes -
One more parody of this theme,
From Queen

Chucky…you killed me, man
Found your site where I could post, got addicted, now I’m toast
Chucky…”life had just begun”
Not really, ‘cause I’m almost forty-six

Aha! I got my normal font and colour back! Apparently people on the internet know how to make videos and things so here’s a few Rhapsody parodies from YouTube.

I can understand how He Man and the Chipmunks kind of qualify as parodies, but the one with all the movie clips was just weird. And it had over 22,000 views.

How to write a bad poem about poetry

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 23:08:00 -0400

The poetry night at work is every second Monday. Occasionally there’s some good poeting but most of the time it’s pretty abysmal. Since I’ve been around Jess I’ve been finding out more and more about the different types of poet. There’s your Pearl Brigade, older women with a chardonnay in one hand and a ring binder in the other. There are grand old gents, often in Akubras, reciting odes to life in the bush or the silent majesty of the Blackfella. There are the angry young guys, poorly dressed misanthropes with tattoos of Kerouac somewhere on their body, declaiming (that’s poetic talk for shouting) about the size of thier penis or their inability to meet girls. Or both. Often within the same poem.

I’ve seen a few of these now (Jess and her poet cohorts have informed me that our poetry night is one of the best in Melbourne for seeing the worst poetry) and I’m noticing a pattern. Bad poets write poetry about poetry badly. I’m sure it’s possible to write a good poem about poetry, but they all seem to dispense with that and tick the box marked AWFUL.

In light of this, I’ve prepared a poem of my own.

How To Write A Bad Poem About Poetry

First: buy a black notebook to record your poetic ideas. Make sure it has a ribbon. Ribbons are important.

Next: pick a nemesis. All good poets have nemeses but that doesn’t mean that you can’t.

Third: avoid rhyming dictionaries. Rhyming is below you. Plus, it’s hard.

Fourth: When it comes time to write your poem try using numbered dot points like these. It helps organise your poem and people often mistake it for a poetic convention.

Fifth: Avoid graphs. You can’t do them. But if you do, do one where X is the quality of your poetry and Y is the number of shoes you have on. If the value of Y falls below 2 it’s going to affect your parabola.

Sixth: Find a gramatical term and define it. Colon: a series of dots, one on top of the other- an organ. See? There’s a poem right there!

Seventh: Quote Fight Club. Peope identify with not being pants.

Eigth: If you forgot what you’re saying, just make up some nonsensical words. It’s okay. Everyone does it. Shakespeare once said “made up words are just as good as real ones, forsooth.” Look it up. I dare you.

Eigth: Mention Hunter S. Thompson and the impact he had on your life. At least once. At the very least drop in something about tickets and rides. It’s vital that people know that you’ve read his books, or at least an article about him.

Y.P.R.: Since When Is Rampant Incompetence a Valid Reason for Dismissal?

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 05:29:11 -0400

Y.P.R.: Since When Is Rampant Incompetence a Valid Reason for Dismissal?:

I didn’t even think this peice was all that good, but it still got accepted! Thanks, YPR!

"Dear Mr. Baylis, I don’t have any idea what your thesis was about. I would very much like to..."

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 20:56:53 -0400

“Dear Mr. Baylis,
I don’t have any idea what your thesis was about. I would very much like to know. And it’s awesome that you seriously wrote that down and handed it in. Inspirational, even.”

- A random guy who e-mailed me about my McSweeney’s list.

I’m not sure wether he’s being earnest or if this is some new in-joke.

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parentheticals That Cost Me Marks on My Thesis.

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 23:37:02 -0400

McSweeney's Internet Tendency: Footnotes, Endnotes, and Parentheticals That Cost Me Marks on My Thesis.:

What’s that? The sound of children laughing around the world because they’ve been enmirthened by my awesome list? Why yes, yes it is! And “enmirthened” is totally a word.

The original 10 posts of this blog

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 00:57:42 -0400

The original 10 posts of this blog:

I figured since I linked to this site from the old blog I may as well do it the other way as well.

"This is my first night being homeless. So, are you single?"

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 13:21:40 -0400

“This is my first night being homeless. So, are you single?”

- Tracy, a newly homeless woman who came into the pub a few days ago.

The whole “digger” thing reminded me of this Mike...

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 12:50:26 -0400

The whole “digger” thing reminded me of this Mike Birbiglia bit that I don’t think I ever saw in person. If he ever comes down to Australia though, I am so getting tickets.

Our word.

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 05:25:57 -0400

When I got back to Australia I was informed of a disturbing new trend among young white dudes, and I want it to stop.

I went to a party a month or so back and my friend Matt was there. Matt is the undisputed master of catchphrases and pop-culture references. He’s managed to construct an entire language out of quotes from TV shows or internet phenomena and loud monkey screeches. It takes some getting used to, and if you haven’t been around him for a while (I hadn’t seen him in a year or so) you end up out of the loop of his outbursts. It tends to go something like this:

Me: Hi Matt!

Matt: SALAMI BELT, I’LL SHOW YOU MATLOCK!

Me: …

Everyone else: Ha ha ha!

Matt: Hi Mike.

So when Matt greeted me by saying:

“What up, my digger?”

I was sure to pause a few seconds before asking the question I often ask him: What Was That From?

He explained the whole thing of young white dudes calling other young white dudes “digger”. I’ll say right now that he was using it ironically. The rest of this isn’t aimed at Matt. In the last few weeks I’ve been hearing it a lot, and it has to stop. Because it’s our word. Unless you have been in the army at some point (not the Navy or RAAF) in any capacity there is just no excuse. I know it’s blokey, and I know you want to be able to identify with the hip-hop music that you listen to in your SS utes, but seriously dudes, this needs to stop now.

You could argue that since we don’t use it, it’s kind of a terra nullius sort of affair. But it isn’t. It’s no better when we use it to describe ourselves, but we at least attended an instituion with the words “Home of the Soldier” written in big metal letters at the front gate and got yelled at for a month and a half. The Army Recruit Training Centre is to us what 370-odd years of slavery is to African Americans: our justification of exclusivity.

All of this is reminding me of some of the really naff things I’ve seen army guys do in their time off. Some things are forgivable, like wearing issued boots to cementing jobs or wearing issued green socks arond the house. But other things are just wrong, and luckily are done by people in my sister batallion, 5/6 RVR:

One guy I know has a hand-sized tattoo of our regimental hat badge on his upper arm. This sort of thing tends to be accepted if you’re full time, but as a Reservist it’s a bit much. For people who don’t know what it means, it would probably look pretty cool. Those of us in the know, however, can’t help but cringe.

Once, at Barcode, when people wearing chromed US-style dog tags was terribly fashionable, I saw a guy come in with his issued dog tags on, outside his shirt, chromed. Normally they’re a dull yellow, but he went to the effort of having them made all shiny so people would think he was down with the streets. In the words of my mate Fitto, “that’s the gayest thing I’ve ever seen, and I fucked a bloke.”

I know it can’t be easy to transistion from one term of blokey endearment to another, so I’ve compiled a few generic ones to help in this difficult time:

Surfer

Footy Player

Tradie

Thinly-Veiled Racist

Greco-Roman Wrestler

There, between all those alternatives none of you should be saying “digger” anymore. It’s our word. Get your own.