Preferably male, to perform in The Bedroom Philospher’s High School Assembly during Melbourne Comedy Festival. There are two dances in the show – a rock eisteddfod tribute and a rap song that will involve some hip-hop moves.

Experience is a plus. It’s a paid gig. It’s essential you can make the rehearsals below.
Rehearsals: (4-7pm)

Feb 21, 22

Mar 15, 21

Show dates are:
Mar 29 – April 8 (not Monday) every night at 7pm, Sundays at 6pm at the Forum Theatre.

Contact Justin: laptopping@bedroomphilosopher.com

Thanks to all who participated in the Hippest 100 2012. Full list below.

Congrats to Giles Field (@GilesField), Mat Ward (@MatWard66) & Andy Hazel who all scored five entries apiece. What a result! The number one spot went to the only band that didn’t actually enter. Ironic? Thanks for all the support and retweets, and especially to those who sent in bands. I’m sorry I couldn’t fit everyone in. Take heart. Based on the results, I don’t have to play outside Safeway…but…we have a year to write and record all of these songs. Surely?

I’ll be launching my first book of tour diaries soon so stay tuned.

BP (aching back hidden dinner) x

1: Men Who Stare At Gotye – Fugg (from Ralph Malph c/o www.messandnoise.com/discussions/4413608)

2: Long Division – Love Recurring (feat. members of Pose Tattoo & Rage Against the Sewing Machine)

3: The Sixties Fixies – Left Second Hand (from @GilesField)

4: Soul Doubt – Sold Out (from @MatWard66)

5: Rage Against the Sewing Machine – There’s Trackwork On My Heart (take the bus in my jeans)

6: Gadget Widget Smidgen – Flummoxed! (latest art-rock combo from Brooklyn, heavily influenced by Talking Heads and early period Kelvinator machine spin cycles. Send their parents to do interviews for them – from Andy Hazel)

7: Known Artist – Fauxhemian rhapsody (Metacritic’s most popular outsiders – refuse to do interviews, play live or record)

8: Morning Wish Pants – A Rummy Chum Chum (The Rum Chum Chum Song) (from Lachlan)

9: The Two Soups – Wednesdays in the Key of Maude (from Jim)

10: Boreds of Kandahar – Herd away from the telegraph lines, there is very little grass there (from Dorothy Wanda Cliff)

11: Sex vs. Winter – You Never Said It Wasn’t An Open Relationship (from @GilesField)

12: The Tafe Modern – Agog (One of Who Weekly’s ‘bands to skip’ 2011)

13: Minimalism – The Amazingly Beautiful Girl You Met Last Night And Who You Had That Awesome Conversation With About Pasta And Reggae Doesn’t Remember You Ever Existed (from @MatWard66)

14: Pose Tattoo – Rocket Flan

15: The Black Animals – Photoshop of Horrors (Keytar orchestra featuring kicked out members of YokoBono and Denim Chair)

16: The Wrinkly Splits – Retire those running shorts, uncle, they is too small (from Ledanksi)

17: The Dollarmites – Commonwealth People (Rupert Murdoch’s house band. #1 in Pirate Bay’s Ripped 50)

18: Vice-Captain Beefheart – Amstrad loading (Quadriplegic who mashes auto-tuned whalesong with 50′s Welsh porn soundtracks)

19: Jodie Foster The People – Sunset Dreamz 4 U Life (from @TimShiel)

20: Texxtas – Rhododendron (Sydney’s answer to Ratcat)

21: Donnie Downcast (jnr) – Nobody to play hand tennis wif (Grade 4 lunchtime blues) (from Ledanksi)

22: Zed Abrahams – Jaguar Jocular jugular (Miami producer, taken from mini-disc boxset The Mangina Monologues)

23: Children Overboard – FTW! (Electroacoustic indietronica 3CR regulars from Dennis station)

24: Boobook Vs Mopoke – Owly to bed (owly to rise)

25: Food Fighters – Cantaloupe (from Frank Louis)

26: Pen Pencil Pistol – Decisive Bollocks (Wynyard’s answer to Bros, following an article in The Advocate asking everyone to vote for them – from Andy Hazel)

27: And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Debt – Carry the one (French horn crew playing Tankerville residency Mondays at 3am)

28: Boy & Bogan – Bush Doof

29: Poozles: We Can Work It Out (crazy little thing called lunch) (Iceland’s #2 desert rock / delta G-funk cartoon band)

30: Tweet That – @FBI I’m Going To Kill The President (@matward66)

31: Hungry Hungry Hipsters – Sorted for Z’s and Biz (Williamsburg no-core accumulation)

32: Bukowski Goggles – Ironic Misogynistic Hermaphroditic Chick Flick (from @davecallantwit)

33: The Andy Warhols – Daytona beginner level (Tokyo’s Dandy Warhols tribute)

34: iBand – Product Placement

35: Freddy And The Nietzsches – When You Gaze Long At Your Shoes, Your Shoes Also Gaze At You (from @MatWard66)

36: Jon Battler Roots Infusion – Aqua Profonda (Heritage listed soul-grunge unknowns)

37: Ernie Budget’s Nouveau Palimpsest – Schroeder’s other cat (First entry from artificial intelligence program developed at RMIT)

38: Greg Fleet Foxes – Media Watch Theme Remix

39: Can’t Play / Can’t Sing – We Never Get On Anyone’s Top 100 (from @MatWard66)

40: Autumn or Tron – Text Message Essay (from @GilesField)

41: Rage Against the Sewing Machine – Too many leechers not enough seeders

42: Lydia Thrift – Dreaming is flossing for your brain (Noir-folk NEIS scheme darling from Thornbury Heights)

43: The Professional Student Union – Didn’t Ask For A Lecture (from @GilesField)

44: ArseWhiskey – Genuine Crumpet (obscure Wisconsin blues rock band, produced by the legendary Gordo – from Andy Hazel)

45: What Would Bowie Do – Ratest hit (LA time-travellers release stems best-of for iBand app-stream)

46: Bangkok Cartoons – Baht Simpson (from Frank Louis)

47: Coast Busters – Start the Boats (I’m on one) (Dub & bass freaks from Warringah)

48: Olympia Du Cougar – Nazi synthesiser (Released on white cassette, available at The Vinyl Solution, Sydney)

49: Boreds of Kandahar – Tell that homing pigeon to hurry up (from Dorothy Wanda Cliff)

50: Shakira – Hips don’t lie (from Zoey Coombs Marr)

51: Bear, Bat, Wolf & Lion Cub – Take the l out of llama and it’s lama (from Piotr Fufi Malbaru)

52: Len Pancake – I can’t stop falling (down the stairs of your lies) (Hobart’s metalgaze troubadour)

53: Everybody Still Hates You Pauline Hanson – My Land Is Not Your Land (from Frank Louis)

54: Ansett – God Gave Chillwave To You (ninth single from Greece Megamix)

55: Personal Effects – Dot matrix (Switzerland’s answer to Poozles)

56: Band, James Band – Did you mean? blues (Glam accapella concept ensemble from the East-West coast of Scotland)

57: (LED) Quadraphonic Explosion – Girls & Skateboards (from Hugh M)

58: Dhalsim – Ain’t no Voldemort (just Dumbledore when he’s drunk)

59: *** feat. !!! – No disc

60: Mass & Nose – Starved for retention (Prog-blog acid-posters from Bed-Sty)

61: Pose Tattoo – Country Women w/ Attitude (Hip-pop Fitroyalty)

62: Fill-in Teacher – You Know They Won’t Mark It (from @GilesField)

63: Wonk – Roger My Federeh

64: Maximum Chips – You’ve got to X for your Y to Z (15 year old French trip-hop sensations from Townsville)

65: The Gustav Mahler Project – More Cowbell (from @PrestonTowers)

66: Modcast – Vince (First 11 on Bitchfork)

67: Phillip Morris Miner – Mysterious cities of coal (Perth’s first lady of crunk)

68: Bludgeon Pigeon – Where’s My Weiner Dog, Steve? (American frat boy band recently killed in a submarine toilet malfunction – from Andy Hazel)

69: Mr Tea – Rosehip (to be square) (London twee-tween consortium)

70: The Furphy Water Carts – Glockenspielarama (from @PrestonTowers)

71: Grug and the European Debt Crisis – Yahoo Can’t Be Serious

72: Virginia Ham and the Pork Barrellers – Meat me halfway (Tropical death-core from Ashfield – from Breeny)

73: Pity Sex – Cusp (Winner of Israel’s Grindcore Idol)

74: Alice riice – I’m sad (I made a salad)

75: Cosby, Stiller, Desh & Yon – Dog hates figs (Comedy-jazz supergroup, currently recording a triple album on King Island)

76: Johnny Deppression – Hock, loan & sucker (Canadian nu-wave Hall of Famer’s debut single, released in three parts)

77: Other – Other (from Andy Hazel)

78: Sissy & the Exoskeletons – Twine perks

79: Sheath – Bum rush (Eurotrance sportsbar collective from Newcastle)

80: Free Lance – Dark fringe photo blues (Wellington 0-piece)

81: Rage Against the Sewing machine – Chicago Bulls On Parade (Melbourne post-Indie)

82: Anonymous Bananas of Freedom – Downtown Baghdad (It’s the only song I can think of that has a mime solo – from Klarex/Brendan @klarex1)

83: Helvatican – Font pipe (Texan surf-glitch)

84: I Can’t Believe It’s Not Better – Flame retarded (Krautrock jug band from Penrith)

85: N.E.R.F. – In your face (Nan) (Acoustic K-pop duo from Adelaide)

86: Admiral Ackbar’s Dishonourable Discharge – Hip-o-cracy (from Toffer)

87: Texxtas – Fad Square

88: Gaydar – Arantxa Sánchez (Hong Kongian rockabilly psychobilly family band)

89: Winona’s Rider – Velocicopter (Fresh from their breakout appearance at South by South West Tasmania)

90: Harvey Normal – Who’s yr dada? (From the collection of itunes previews 12 Hour Arty People)

91: The Canteen Robbery – Sandwiches, Foiled! (Pop-punk fresh from Dairybin Battle of the Bands – from Hannah Paige)

92: The Bathroom Philanthropist – Prog novelty is where I hide

93: Dogs of Frasier – L.I.B.C (Lactose Intolerant Baby Cow) (from Lachlan)

94: Sticker Kill – Glue gun (Milwaukeean thrash jazz 36-piece)

95: Grythwallyn Abvat – Emptis Byrrwsolasdfike! (Welsh electronic pop duo, 90 second blast of sped up polkas and rural farm machinery samples – from Andy Hazel)

96: The Lonesome Googlers – Digital Happiness (from Joyce Missy Conrad)

97: Schwarzeniggaz – Avon calling (Barksdale) (Caribbean math rock from Devonport)

98: Cheese Louise – Unfinished symphony (in me) (Celtic Operacore recluse from Las Vegas)

99: Belching Cupcakes – Bloated Beats (from Joyce Missy Conrad)

100: Text Perkins – BMX-Ray (Space Folk 1-piece from Canberra)

On Australia Day, I’ll be counting down the Hippest 100 songs on Twitter. Bands so cool you haven’t heard of them. No-one has.

Do you know a buzz band so fresh they only formed this morning? Get in on the action.

Email your band and hit song title to:
laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com
(Enter as many as you like.)

Or tweet to: @beddyphil #Hippest100
Or leave as a comment below.
Include your name and location. Please state if you wish to remain anonymous, or provide your rock star name. (Your Nan or Pop’s name, your second pet’s name and second street name.
ie Leonard Snowy Totterdell.)

Deadline: 12pm, January 25.

On Australia Day, follow @beddyphil #hippest100 to see if your act is hip enough for the list. They’ll be competing with my bands, so they’ll have to be sharp. I’m looking for the witty, the weird and the well-realised.

Examples:

WITTY: The Laneways – Sit On My Crate.
WEIRD: Sossy Inbred – Attitude & Longitude.
WELL-REALISED: Ten Colour Yen – Golden Frost.
Or it could be a twist on an existing band: Infrastructure in Bindi Bindi, Rodeohead.
Singer/songwriters welcome: Skip Breakfast, Lily & The Digits.

For inspiration,  you could visit this anagram generator:
http://wordsmith.org/anagram/

If your band breaks into the Top 10, they’ll win a Bedroom Philosopher prize including CD’s and new ‘Ultimate Worrier’ Tshirts.
If more than half the list is made up of your entries, I’ll do a free gig outside Safeway.

Go forth and amplify.

Check out new single Northcote (YouTube Comments).

New T-Shirts available at the BP STORE.

December, 2011.

**12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS VIDEO NOW STREAMING. CLICK ON SANTA TO WATCH**
**A VERY BEDDY CHRISTMAS EP OUT NOW**

LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Miley Cyrus 19 today!
Happy Birthday Merv Hughes 50 today!

WHO’S POPULAR? (likes)

EMINEM – 49,129,237
RIHANNA – 47,255,788
LADY GAGA – 45,236,643
MICHAEL JACKSON – 42,478,544
JUSTIN BIEBER – 37,724,673
BARACK OBAMA – 24,128,921
THE BEATLES – 23,202,086
PINK FLOYD – 16,015,265
JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE – 12,520,377
JESUS – 10,405,148
THE ROLLING STONES – 8,009,686
RADIOHEAD – 7,492,823
MADONNA – 6,590,259
GORILLAZ – 4,731,414
OASIS – 4,504,874
FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS – 1,462,756
KYLIE – 1,055,163
BECK – 946,421
BLUR – 839,170
WEIRD AL YANKOVIC – 632,673
ANGUS AND JULIA STONE – 531,364
BOARDS OF CANADA – 226,697
TIM MINCHIN – 226,460
WEEN – 162,498
JULIA GILLARD – 115,306
GRUG – 112,844
KIMBRA – 53,599
WASHINGTON – 52,160
BOB BROWN – 39,001
TONY ABBOTT – 20,309
THE BEARDS – 12,819
AUGIE MARCH – 10,444
TRIPOD – 6,814
THE BEDROOM PHILOSOPHER – 3,613
O.M.C (How Bizarre) – 2,602
PLUCKA DUCK – 120

LYRIC POLICE

From Giles Field, Melbourne.

Art vs. Science – Magic Fountain

We were never told /
that the fountain was a trophy for the kingdoms of old /
A treasure, a plaything /
A Trojan in disguise.

A Trojan in disguise? Surely not an allusion to the famous Wooden Horse of Troy? If my research is correct it was the Greeks in Virgil’s ‘The Aeneid’  who hid 30 men inside a wooden horse allowing them to storm the city of Troy. I’m sure on occasion the Trojans used to dress up in disguises and drink wine like it was going out of fashion, but I think it was the Greeks who more famously disguised themselves during that particular war.

Response from Simon Hall, Melbourne:

Yeah but Trojan has come to be a noun for something which sneaks into something by disguise, eg. Some computer viruses are known as Trojans.

DO YOU KNOW A BAD LYRIC THAT NEEDS POLICING? SEND IT TO:
laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

MADE UP WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS

From Daylan James, Melbourne.

FORANGE:
To forage for an orange in a foreign country

DO YOU HAVE A MADE UP WORD AND MEANING?

SEND IT TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!

Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“is nuttelex bad for dogs?”
“lenny kravitz is a douche”
“cross with cassette tape wrapped around it”
“bedroom folosifer song”
“male high cut open leg gym shorts”
“socks sex (4th most popular in September – side effect of last tour name)”
“why do i love so much more when im hungover”
“retailer in australia matey bubble bath adventurers”
“can you get a bed from the op shop?”
“bill oddie mental illness 2011”
“is xoxo more intimate than xxx”
“my name is wow”

TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

Babakiueria – a criminally underappreciated 1986 short-film by the creator of Mother & Son. It should be up there with The Castle.

NEWS

• My new Christmas EP is out now! You can download it through iTunes or you can order the CD with salacious artwork from bedroomphilosopher.com.

• A new video for 12 Days Of Christmas is up on YouTube. It features a number of cameos including Dave Callan, The Suitcase Royale, Damien Lawlor (Lime Champions), Asher Treleaven, Simone Page Jones, Will Hindmarsh (Go-Go Sapien) & Nature Boy Hazel (The Awkwardstra.)

• I’m supporting the Dresden Dolls on a national tour in January. Dates below.

• I’m not the only one doing 12 Days. It was also good enough for Bonds with Jack Ladder.

• I recently gave tell-all interviews to ABC National and Speaker TV.

• If current commercial fishing practices continue, the numbers of predators such as sharks and tuna will collapse as soon as 2050.

• I wrote a column about sexuality in Indie music for Mess & Noise.

A GIGGLE OF GIGS

A VERY BEDDY CHRISTMAS RESIDENCY
w/ The Awkwardstra.

Featuring a different support choir each week and the world premiere of Jazz Santa.
Tuesdays in December at Northcote Social Club.

Dec 6 w/ RMIT Occasional Chorale
Dec 13 w/ Choir Straits
Dec 20 w/ Monash University Chorale

$20 (door) / $15 (pre-sale). Doors 7:30. Choir: 8. BP: 9
Bookings.

SUPPORTING THE DRESDEN DOLLS

Jan 5: Brisbane: The Tivoli
Jan 7: Sydney: The Enmore
Jan 8: Melbourne: The Forum (w/ The Awkwardstra)
Jan 11: Adelaide: The Gov
Jan 12: Perth: The Astor

STORYTIME

In October I spent three weeks in New York for the second year in a row. Here’s what I found.

OCCUPY WALL ST

A well organised shanty town, complete with media office, library and kitchen, ran to a jobs roster ensuring that cooking, cleaning and media duties were maintained. A fierce drum circle kept time with whatever they had available – drumkit, bongos and the steel rim of rubbish bins. There were plenty of placards, my favourite being: “Dear Republicans, Obama is not a brown-skinned anti-war socialist who gives away free healthcare. You’re thinking of Jesus.” I was taken with the number of art instillations. Rough and ready sculptures of found objects with signs encouraging you to “add your own art.” A poster of two handprints asked strangers to place their hands and “remove when no longer strangers.” It was like being let inside the house of a friendly cult leader. Therein lies the true brilliance of the Occupy movement. It is simultaneously a political organisation and a freewheeling, open-air house party of ideas. It’s about positivity, caring for your fellow man, and reprimanding the greedy in lieu of no one else. When I saw a naked man in a barrel holding a Macbook, I realised how incredible this really was. It wasn’t trying to push politics onto me, or bug me for cash, it was just a bunch of humans coming together to workshop a playful revolution. John Lennon would have gone bananas.

Some have said New York isn’t the same place post 9-11. You can sense the depression in the air – the grim tension of an increasingly enveloped police state (I’ve felt it in Melbourne.) Occupy was the shot of good-will and adrenalin the city needed – that the world needs. The capitalist strongmen watched the circus from the side, their cartoon eyes disembodied in the void. Hot dog vans surrounded the perimeter while bling-swingin’ movie-villains strutted past, sucking on cigars. Jay-Z landed in hot water for marketing “Occupy the world” t-shirts. What a fabulously inappropriate mutation of the original sentiment. You can’t trademark ideas. Jay-Z is worth 350 million. The nucleus of greed burns intense. Bitter like a coffee bean. Clouding rainbows.

A law had been passed banning the use of megaphones. The Occupy gang found an ingenious solution. They broadcast their messages using People Power. The leader would speak the message to a large group, one line at a time. They would repeat the message as one:
Please join us
PLEASE JOIN US!
Down at the picket line
DOWN AT THE PICKET LINE!
We have buses waiting
WE HAVE BUSES WAITING!

It should have been creepy, but it was exciting. Like school fire drill day crossed with Hair.
To have a revolution all you need to do is do it.

* * *

BAD YOGA

Someone once asked me “is a good poo better than bad sex?” I now ask “is bad yoga worse than a bad poo?” I’ve been doing yoga for two years. It’s a main source of vitamins for my soul. Think high school P.E. stretching made intelligent, with a bit of spirituality thrown in. I went to several classes in NY and found that many of the teachers talked too much and most didn’t hold the poses for long enough. The worst culprit was an over-energised sports jock chick who wandered around the room without demonstrating any of the moves and, most repugnantly, put on background music. The central theme of yoga is concentrating and being in synch with yourself. Music of any kind rips me out of the moment like a fish from the sea. It wasn’t even hippie instrumental but contemporary Indie-folk like Iron & Wine. Lyrics! I was downward dogging when Joanna Newsom came on. Her pregnant cat serenade and medieval romps leave me anxious at the best of times. While I stretched my thighs and calves, I could not stretch my imagination to include a world where music during yoga is anything but a monumental faux-pas of the most personal kind. Someone had tried to hang their coat on a notch in my spine. At the end of the class, during the lie down, on comes ‘Hurt’ by Johnny Cash. Only the saddest song of all time. As I lay there, internally recovering, allowing my sediments to settle, trying to find some real-estate in harmony, I became acutely aware of how dutifully I was failing to ignore the sonic pungency of this out of context tune. It was written by a person in great lament, reflecting on how much pain he had caused those around him, and sung by a heavy-hearted balladeer only months from his death.

It’d be like your counsellor playing ‘Party in the USA.’

* * *

I’M GOING DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN TO JEWTOWN

In New York there is a large Jewish community. Many of them are Hasidic Jews. They are very orthodox and stand out in their traditional dress. The men wear black coats and hats and sport biblical beards with thick ringlets in their hair. I was staying near a Jewish neighbourhood in Park Slope, Brooklyn. On a number of occasions I witnessed huge groups of identically dressed men gather to celebrate an event. I found them fascinating. They were cool and intimidating, like rock stars, yet also slightly menacing like principals or Heisenberg in Breaking Bad.

My girl and I were in a deli looking for peanut butter when a Hasidic Jewish elder pulled us up.
“You don’t look like you’re from around here!” He was friendly but firm, his face an explosion of hair and decades. He peered at us with deep, blunt eyes.
“Ah, we believe in heaven and eternal life, but what do we know? Hollywood knows best. Marriage is between a man and a woman. We’ve been around for thousands of years, but what do we know? We know nothing. The Germans tried to wipe us out, now here we are, celebrating. But I’m crazy, right. I’m the crazy one.” He ranted at us for a few minutes in a cryptically self-aware, playfully bitter, self-flagellating yet ominously preachy display. A teenager came up the aisle, pushing a trolley. He expected the old man to move.
“You should go up and round the other aisle. If your mother had raised you right you wouldn’t try and squeeze past.”
The teenager withered.
“I’ve been on since this morning.”

The borough of Williamsburg is a tragically hilarious culture clash of ultra-conservative Jews and hedonistic hipsters. The Jews nail signs to trees in Hebrew that translate: “Precious Jewish Daughter: Please move to the side when a man approaches!” They recently had a bike lane removed as they were sick of young girls riding their bikes in skirts through Jewish neighbourhoods. They painted over the lanes themselves. Mayor Bloomberg is relatively powerless to step in as he needs the votes. Under Jewish tradition, they are not allowed to operate electrical devices on Fridays (Shabbat.) It is not uncommon to be asked to push their elevator button for them. A friend retold a story where she was approached by a young man asking if she could come to his house and do “a few jobs.”

There are strong customs for Hasidic women as well. Once married, they must shave off their hair and wear a wig. From then on their sole purpose is to bear and raise children. On the street I passed world-weary girls with long, plain skirts and toddlers in tow. On my flight over, a Hasidic couple had eight children with them. During my three weeks, I was approached four times by young men in black hats and asked, in the same tone you ask someone for the time:
“Excuse me, are you Jewish?”
Each time I wanted to hold my hand out flat and tip it back and forth.
“I’m Jew-ish.”

* * *

GOD BLESS AMERICA (AND OTHERS IF HE HAS TIME)

After a week, I started getting cross at New York. It was triggered by an advertisement with a bearded hipster saying “We have the best arts scene in the universe.”
“Get over yourselves.” I thought. A tension was growing within me, like a young child jealous of their older, tougher, artier, vastly more popular sibling. I passed down another garbage bag lined street, observing that every bus, every subway car, every third shopfront or household bore the American flag. A deli sign boasted “best burgers in new York (therefore the world).” The hype machine was clashing badly with my tall-poppy syndrome. Here I was in the centre of the world’s most puffed up poppy, preening its red, white and blue petals in my face. My American Apparel bag had the names of thirty cities from around the world, excluding Australia. The Village Voice had a food issue suggesting you could “Taste the world via NY.” Inside, they listed the best restaurants from each country, including New Zealand. Australia did not feature. My fuse ignited when our housemate remarked that she thought Cate Blanchett was English.

Australia knows too much about America, but it doesn’t know anything about us. (Paul Hogan and Croc Hunter if you’re lucky.) Meanwhile, the Valley twang filters into our accents, Yankee chains inject our kids with fat, while shows like The Office are remade for US audiences. (Many Americans didn’t like David Brent because he was too mean.)

Foreign creativity being airbrushed to suit American aesthetics is cultural manslaughter. My cardboard sign frustrations are trampled in a subway foot-storm; ego-bruises soaking in a cold-sauce of disempowerment. An inflated, blimpish beast, furiously devouring its own lab-farmed content, deaf to ideas that aren’t bellowed in its over-stated dialect.

Henry Wagons recently spoke about his obsession with America. “It’s the best and the worst the world has to offer, living side by side.” He spoke of anomalies such as bacon infused whiskey and their “so bad it’s good” redeemability. It’s this high-brow / low-brow clash, powered by the undiluted extroversion of a self-celebrating society that makes the place a petri dish of entertainment. I first heard New York described as “a movie scene on every corner.” I’d cruise past a chicken shop to see an old African-American step out, bellowing with a sing-song of disagreeance, waving his arms like the world had no mirrors.

I remembered how at school the cool kids are always the most insecure. It’s lonely at the top, but also busy. You’ve got to constantly pump yourself up, while watching out for haters. New York has to keep up appearances. It needs to run campaigns saying it’s the best in the universe like Dirk Diggler needs to psych himself in the mirror before a shoot. It’s the precise mathematical opposite of Australia; the houseproud loner trying to find more to talk about than mining and sport. American comedian Colin Quinn summed us up by saying “Whenever there’s a war, Australia’s right behind us. We’re like ‘Australia, yeah, I was going to call you – (do I even have their number?)’” If I were employed to write an overseas ad campaign it would be something like ‘Australia – Google it.” Or, “Australia – so bad it’s good.” Or, “The other Austria.” Or, “Australia, it’s next to New Zealand, (where Flight Of The Conchords are from.)” I think it would work. Assuming everyone got the irony.

Towards the end of the three weeks my rage subsided. I visited the Jim Henson exhibition in Queens. As I lay my eyes into the rich chocolate felt of Ralph, my heart melted in gratitude for those that created my colourful introduction to art. Bert and Ernie delivered my first punchlines. Kermit’s Rainbow Connection was my first sad song. Cookie Monster had the seeds of madness oscillating in his eyes. I watched Jim Henson’s experimental short filmTimepiece and was reminded of his intellect and originality of vision, and also of his wild, wonderful heart.

* * *

RAT MAN

On the subway we encountered a plucky looking dealer-type. He had a trolley with two white postal tubs with holes cut in them. A red-eyed albino mouse poked its nose through. Sensing the stares, the guy went on the offensive, explaining that he bred rats for the FDA (Food and drug administration.) A mouse wriggled its head and shoulders through a hole and scrambled out. I clutched my seat. The woman sitting opposite wasn’t phased. She picked up the mouse and slipped it back into its box. I secretly hoped one of the boxes would upend. The carnage that would ensue.

Sensing judgement from the pallid onlookers, the guy starting dishing out the claims.
“I make more money that you make in one week.”
“How much you got in your pocket? I’ll triple that s$%t.”
His partner was none too happy with the expression on one woman’s face and screamed “HUSSY!”
“Ssssh,” said the guy.
“I’m sorry, I had to say that.”
His parting words were:
“I live in a Condo. That’s how much money me and my rats make.”

(HERE IS A VIDEO OF RAT MAN.)

* * *

WHY WOULD YOU NEED TO TAKE THE LID FROM MY WATER (?x100)

I saw Weird Al Yankovic at the Beacon Theatre. It was good seeing Smells Like Nirvana live. It was so accurately represented that I blurred my eyes and pretended I was watching Kurt Cobain. There were confetti cannons and thirteen costume changes, including the fat suit from Fat. Amish Paradise was a highlight.
In the foyer I bought a bottle of Dasani water “enhanced with minerals for added flavor.” The girl handed it to me sans lid.
“Can I have the lid?”
She placed a plastic cup over the bottle.
“That’s the best I can do.”
I left the cup and walked away.
“Why?” I thought. “Why? Why? Why?”
WHY WHY WHY
WHY does the Beacon Theatre need to keep the lid to a water bottle? I understand why venues do it to alcohol – it stops people carrying the alcohol out. The liquor licence doesn’t allow it. But why the restrictions on water? WHY? oh WHY? I’ll never understand. I’ve thought about it long and hard. I’m more likely to spill the water on your precious carpet now. WHY not just give me the lid? I paid $4 for that bottle. WHY would you treat me like that? I’m an adult. WHY do you need to keep the lid?? My lid!! WHY? Oh WHY would that ever be a policy?

I tell you what – I’ll boil it all down to a pass / fail grading system. Stupendously pedantic power tripping venue protocols such as this will count for 50% of the exam. Oh boy my friend, how you will FAIL! Yes you will FAIL so hard your big failure head will make you fall down and you’ll smack your FAIL brain on the grimy FAIL floor! I will tear your page out of the lonely planet guide in my mind and mail it to my personal demons to incinerate on their wickedly cylindrical cigars, the flames splitting into sixties on hexagonal mirrorballs. Ashes like black snow. The torn stockings of your depleted fairies. You lid keeping FAILTOWN or a FAILSVILLE FAILBLOG EPIC FAILING DR FAIL AND THE ALL FAIL ALLBLAHS you.

* * *

BLACK KNIGHT

An African-American kid was chilling by the subway gates in Atlantic Avenue. My girl slid her card along the slot. It said DENIED. Out of credit.
“Just jump,” said the kid.
“But the guy’s in the booth. I don’t want to get in trouble.”
“You’re not a black man. You’ll be okay.”
I gave her my ticket and went off to get my own. All the while the kid enthusiastically offered “just jump, you’re white, you’ll get away with it,” as if letting me in on a big secret.
I passed through the gates self consciously.
My girl had gone up ahead, but I couldn’t see her.
“She’s over there man,” said the kid, still at his post.
“No, over that way.”
I saw the newsagent she was in.
“Thanks man,” I said, nervous to face him. He was so calm and chipper. I was so bumbly. The black knight of Atlantic Avenue. The streetwise sage, offering up advice on his own dime. Connecting the nerds and the squares and the bohemes. Picking up the pale, squeaky pups and placing them back on their grids.

I liked that kid.

THE END

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LapTopping – The Bit Long, Official E-zine of The Bedroom Philosopher

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**Head Sex & Bed Socks National Solo Tour AUG/SEP**

ISSUE 84

Tuesday July 19, 2011

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Shaun Micallef 49 yesterday!
Happy Birthday Andrew Stockdale (Wolfmother) 35 tomorrow!
Happy Birthday Marcia Hines 58 tomorrow!

———————————————————————–

MERCHKATEERS WANTED

If you’d like to help out selling merch in Geelong, Canberra, Brisbane, Hobart, Adelaide or Perth, why not contact:
anthea at nibblesmusic dot com

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LYRIC POLICE

From Anthea Cohen, Melbourne.

The Fauves – Dogs Are The Best People

I’ve never been able to get past “there’s a church, there’s a steeple / dogs are the best people.”
Just because it rhymes doesn’t make it ok.

DO YOU KNOW A BAD LYRIC THAT NEEDS POLICING? SEND IT TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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MADE UP WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS

From Peter Taylor, Marrickville.

FEDERTERRANEAN
Federation houses that have been given a Grecian make-over.

DO YOU HAVE A MADE UP WORD AND MEANING? SEND IT TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!

Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“Short shorts for men” (moved nine places up to #22)
“bogan hipsters”
“bedroom colours grey plum jade”
“do i have to buy my baby a tram ticket?”
“alf kite”
“my drunk husbands testicle story”
“me as jessica rabbit !!!!”
“is god a psychological disorder”
“tennille in Wollongong”
“megamix of sexuall bedroom songs”
“im suspicious your a lesbian. it makes me wonder why pumpkins are made of vegimite.”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

A quality blog by Melbourne writer Geoff Lemon, representing the rarely heard LEFT take on the Carbon debate.

A video of some wonderfully irreverent protesting in London.

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NEWS

• I’m touring nationally, solo, in August and September. The Head Sex & Bed Socks Tour will be an intimate rumpus of soul-folk and effeminate man shenanigans. I recommend getting there early to check out Melbourne songsmith Catboy. TOUR SUSPENSIONS: Byron Bay has been handed a one tour suspension for crowds lurking up the back of the room and talking too much. Launceston has been penalised three tours for guys in a van trying to abduct my band mate. Darwin is suspended indefinitely for the owner of Bogarts calling me racist in the NT News. Apologies to my hardcore fans in Ballarat and Bunbury – we’re planning an exclusive bi-city residency for the album launch.

• The July JMag features a FREEZA compilation CD which includes ‘Leaving My Hairdresser.’

• I’ve been presenting some hard hitting segments on Collectors. The first one on Op Shops is HERE while the second one about online shopping airs this coming Friday.

• The Croxton High School Assembly was an A with three ticks. Click HERE to witness the fitness with special guest J-Saf from Raspberry Cordial.

• The second Treble Treble column about my love of Radiohead is up on Mess & Noise HERE.

• I found my first Facebook hate group. ‘The Bedroom Philosopher. What A Dick’ has twenty members, although I notice the admins have skulked away.

• A Canberra filmmaker has produced a stop-motion short film called Tegan the Vegan. It features the voices of Paul McDermott and Noni Hazlehurst.

• According to recent statistics, one in four Tasmanians have a disability.

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

THE HEAD SEX AND BED SOCKS NATIONAL TOUR

With Special Guest: Catboy

CLICK ON GIG FOR FACEBOOK INVITE AND MORE DETAILS.

TELL YOUR FRENEMIES!

18th August: Beavs Bar, Geelong, VIC
19th August: The Promethean, Adelaide, SA
20th August: The Toff in Town, Melbourne, VIC
25th August: Powerhouse, Brisbane, QLD
26th August: The Spotted Cow, Toowoomba, QLD
27th August: The Vanguard, Newtown, NSW
28th August: Transit Bar, Canberra, ACT
9th September: Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS
18th September: Mojo’s, Fremantle, WA

Poster by Leigh Rigozzi

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STORYTIME

WELCOME TO DEPRESSION

Welcome To Depression:
population one
The weathers always crap
and the nightlife ain’t much fun
The birds are all well trained
at pooing on your head
There’s a black dog that follows you
and tries to hump your leg
There’s only one shop and it’s shut most of the day
it’s got a range of tracksuits in twenty shades of grey
They’ve got carob and canned stew
some kind of beef tea
A fishing magazine
from 2003
There’s wine at least
and coffee
sometimes cigarettes
But when you party by yourself
you just end up more depressed
There’s only one theatre
but not the best range on
Another bleak Australian film
movie marathon
There’s a bar that smells like farts
couches full of crabs
A jukebox that only plays
Hurt by Johnny Cash
A night spent in depression’s
when it really starts to suck
The wind blows through your pants
and the moon can’t get it up
There’s smog and mist and sleet
hailstones as well
The only star you’ll find is the one
rating your hotel
The toilet’s always clogged
and there’s gas leaks in the halls
If that isn’t the smell
it’s dead possums in the walls
The mattress is all lumpy
the pillow smells like cheese
You just heard the sound
of something under your bed sneeze
Somehow there’s mosquitos
even though it’s freezing
You want to touch yourself
but you’re scared you’ll let the fleas in
All the words you never say
are running round your head
Your brain’s a lonely playground
the kids are full of dread
You dream in fitful nightmares
ghosts on the attack
And wake up at five am
being spooned by a cat
Of course there’s no hot water
you brush your teeth with soap
And checkout of your hotel
with a sorry little note
There’s no mobile reception
phonecards not topped up
The internet is dial up
and full of porn popups
Depressions pretty small
but it’s easy to get stuck
The bridge has fallen in
and the river’s full of muck
By now your hungry, fleabitten
siting on wet bum
On the verge of tears with
your leg still getting humped
You try to draw a map
but it just looks like a squiggle
A bird poos on your hand
and it’s then you start to giggle
You look in your back pack
To find a pad and pen
And spend an hour writing out
all that’s in your head
You run back to the shop
to get some exercise
The fresh wind in your face
seems to brighten up the skies
Your backpack feels too heavy so you
tip out all the booze
And pick up the black dog
to stop him weeing on your shoes
You give the mutt a cuddle
as your heart begins to ache
There’s a sparkle in your eye
as the clouds begin to break
He leads you to a storeroom
where they keep all the good food
Feeling sick on chocolate
has never felt so good
By now the sun is beaming
the birds begin to chime
You walk back where you started
and it’s there you see the sign
Welcome To Depression:
Population two
There’s someone in this shitty town
feeling just like you.

THE END

———————————————————————–

LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!

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NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

THIS EFLAIL IS NINTENDOED FOR THE YOUSE OF THE ADDRESSISSIPPI and may contain grinformation that is confident. If you are snot the nintendoed recipientee, you are here ye notificated that any youse, insemination, pistribution or tweeproduction of this eflail or the conjoined grinformation is strictly ballroom.
IF YOUSE HAVE DECEIVED THIS EFLAIL IN TERROR, prease yotify the senderer by return eflail and destroy all tall poppies of the originish messages.
Commercial Electronical Massage Compliant with the Sperm Act 2013.

****************************************************************************

ISSUE 83
Thursday May 26, 2011
**The Bedroom Philosopher’s High School Assembly.
Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne. June 24**

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Helene Bonham Carter 45 today!
Happy Birthday Lenny Kravitz 47 today!
Happy Birthday Stevie Nicks 63 today!

———————————————————————–

STAGE MANAGERS WANTED

Are you in Melbourne June 24? Do you have stage manager experience and be happy to help out at BP’s High School Assembly show? Email a brief CV to anthea at nibblesmusic dot com

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TINY LEGENDS
Moments that fell down the back of the couch

From Justin Heazlewood.

“About two years ago I was at a Post Office in Carlton. Vince Colosimo was in there too. He was writing out a letter next to me, then wandered off. My pen stopped working, so I took the one he’d been using. A few moments later I felt a looming presence next to me. I turned to see Vince Colosimo, glaring at me.
“Did you steal my pen?” He boomed.
His face whipped into a smile, to show that he was messing with me. But it was too late. His ‘joking angry’ was so convincing that I was in shivers and my heart was palpitating. That night, I expected to find a broken pen in my bed.”

DO YOU HAVE A TINY LEGEND? SEND IT TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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NEW! MADE UP WORDS AND THEIR MEANINGS

From Freya Thomas, Melbourne.
FUGG.
A warm personal space. E.g. “I’m in a happy fugg.”

From Andrew Lacey, Melbourne
DESIGNOSAUR.
For designers who fail to keep up with the times.

DO YOU HAVE A MADE UP WORD AND MEANING? SEND IT TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“i m deliberately typing this into google to get into laptopping”
“jusin bieber curtains for bedroom”
“what to put on cruskits for kids”
“the debdroom philosopher”
“toy poodle bereavement Australia”
“I was standing in my mum s kitchen watching the milk swirl into my tea thinking i m way too stoned to be making tea in my mum s kitchen”
“new south wales sangria”
“what popular song from the 2000s turned out to really be about golf when u listen to the lyrics”
“bedroom pilosifer”
“trevor filewood”
“secret meet nan pop catholic”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

Tram Inspector video. Directed by Craig Melville

New single ‘Leaving My Hairdresser’ – now on iTunes

———————————————————————–

A GIGGLE OF GIGS

MELBOURNE

THE BEDROOM PHILOSOPHER’S HIGH SCHOOL ASSEMBLY
Thornbury Theatre, Melbourne. June 24.

A high school assembly for Croxton High School. There’ll be speeches, dances, music recitals and everyone’s favourite –certificates! Plus an extravaganza of special guests including:
TRIPOD
The DC3
JOSH EARL
DAMIEN LAWLOR (Lime Champions)
ANNA KRIEN (Frankie, Big Issue, The Monthly)
EMILIE ZOEY BAKER (International Slam Winner 2010)
Starring BEN POBJIE – As the Principal.
& SEX ON TOAST – As the school band.

Plus a set by BP & The Awkwardstra
Wear your uniform and bring money for the canteen.

———————————————————————–

STORYTIME

WIT-BIX PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS

It’s a casual, slightly dead-shit Wednesday in Melbourne. I’m onstage, doing my bit about ‘Australia the high school,’ segueing into how awkward we are around Aboriginal people.
“Let’s not forget about Alice Springs, eh? The Aboriginal kid. Good at football. Thank God, so we’ve got something to talk about. He’s a new generation indigenous Australian regaling us with stories of capitalist dreamtime.”
I begin my impersonation of an indigenous storyteller:
“One day echidna went into the forest, and had a realisation of supply and demand.”

80% of the time 60% of the audience laugh, and I love them for it. This is my favourite bit of the show and anyone who appreciates it for the allegory on society it is, is my friend for life.
“He then offered to trade some leafy foliage with his neighbour Crow, in exchange for some gumnuts.”
I can smell the fear in the front row. Mostly from young people. Under 25’s are conservative when it comes to race and humour. Their world cleaved into the black and white of political correctness. I can see hamster wheels turn, moral compasses spin and etiquette rulebooks fan. Wait, is it ok to laugh at certain elements of indigenous culture? Are we laughing at or with them? Others are laughing, so is it okay? I am lightly confused, a feeling I don’t like, and the performer isn’t conventionally attractive enough to forgive for this.

My game of chicken with racism continues.

“He then invested the property back into his business, until he’d built his own bush mall. Where all the animals would come. To buy things they didn’t need.”

This is the punch line, and 80% of the time 80% or more people laugh at it. It’s a pressure valve – reassurance that I’m making fun of white people. The hamster wheels simmers. Lights turn green. Wind pipes fill. Stomachs shake out.

“And gorge themselves on imported eucalyptus leaves.”

I love mimicking accents. I love mimicking accents I haven’t trained for and have no idea where they’ve come from. I delight in the fact my teeth and tongue have instinct – know where to position themselves, which vowels to draw out and consonants to squeeze. I’ve only heard one other person attempt the indigenous accent – a friend in Canberra. He did it once, in a playfully derogatory manner ‘ay bruv have you got a smoke?’ But I appreciated it because it was authentic and Australian and in the larrikin phrasebook it eluded to acceptance and acknowledgement. Silence isn’t always so polite.

***

Down in front of me a young man is hunched over and crinkling a wrapper. He’s been fiddling about for most of the show while his drunken girlfriend claps out of time and cheers of her own accord. It’s a Wednesday night and these two are sitting front and centre in the 200 seat venue – totalled. Moments before, I’d done my anti-stand up bit where I target someone in the front row.
“So, do you come from a town or place?” The bit works best when the audience don’t know what to say and I harvest the awkwardness. Tonight, after ten seconds the girl blurts out “FISH CREEK!” even though I haven’t asked her.

God I love the wisdom and bravado that wine brings.
I know! I could help this show along by yelling things out. It will both keep me awake, and let the performer know that I’m enjoying whatever it is they’re doing.

Anyway, the guy has been crinkling his plastic for a while, so I’m pretty cranky.
“What are you doing down there?”
The dude looks up sheepishly.
He has a goon.
“Give it here,” I say, teacher style.
I hold the crinkly bladder aloft. The crowd sprawls into ‘um ah’ delight. Comedy bronze.
At this point in my life I have several options:

A) I could throw the goon away and carry on.
B) I could offer some quip about the couple coming from a low-economic area (Fish Creek).
C) I could suggest the couple are Herald Sun reviewers.
D) I could make the couple drink the rest of the goon.
E) I could drink the rest of the goon.
F) I could interview them for a bit, identifying what inspired them to sit in the front row to carry out their shady operation.
G) I could kick them out in a blunt, humourless manner.

Just call me Mr G.

I’ve had a few patrons removed over the years. My house policy is two strikes and you’re gone. I’m protective of my show like a mother bear, and if I sense danger from unhinged audience members then I’ll do everything I can to make them not be there. If anyone’s going to hijack my show it’ll be me.

It is not easy having a drunk couple kicked out of a Comedy Festival show.
A) They are drunk.
B) They think you are joking.
C) The security is your sound tech.
D) They think you are joking.

So what do you do?

Thus:

“Get out” I say, pointing at the girl. “You have to go, seriously, get out of my show.”
Blank.
“Go on, off you pop. You’re out.”
Confused.
The guy realises.
“You’re kidding?” she says.
“No. No joke. Get our of my show.”
“You can’t make me” She says.
“Yes I can, c’mon, you’re holding up the show. I’m already in trouble for going overtime. I’m serious.”
”Is he joking?” She whispers to the dude.
“No.” he laughs, standing
“C’mon, just get out”

I’m flipping out in my own special way, but I don’t want to lose my audience, so I don’t swear or shout. I simply communicate my wishes with the efficiency of a fire marshal. After thirty more seconds Andy the tech comes over to give an air of legitimacy to the operation and the pair waddle off. To my surprise, there are murmurs of protest from those around me. I’m being too hard perhaps.

Perhaps.

But I’d already had a song and dance with the girl at the start of the show, after she was yelling and clapping inappropriately. That was strike one. As a friend texted me later: “nice boundaries.”
They are escorted from the building.
There is a hole in the front row like a child’s front teeth.
To quote Dave Eggers: ‘’I am at once pitiful and monstrous, I know.”

* * *

Doing Wit-Bix for the 22nd time in Melbourne, to a quiet audience who I wanted to smash in the face with a frying pan, I was challenged as a performer. The golden rule of entertainment is:
“No matter how exhausted, no matter what kind of mood you’re in, you have to go out there and give those people the best nights entertainment they’ve ever seen.” (Richie Benaud to Nikki Webster.)
I always think of Tom Jones, the mercurial showman. What would Tom do? If he’d done 22 shows in a row and was feeling oversensitive and spiritually mutated, his scattered self-esteem projecting itself onto the murky faces of the back row, reading between the lines of silence to internally bellow “you’re a knob and we hate you for classified reasons” would he reach into some deep treasure box in his loins, spin some credit from a consortium of ego genies to buy himself a shot of adrenalin to sail his showmanship over the line one last time?

I’d been living in my own bubble and my shields were drained. It’s easier for Tom Jones. He’s got stadium sized hype. A cast of showgirls. Big hits he can belt out on auto-cue. I am faced with sixty people on a Sunday, naked in my stand-up. Outwardly cool. Internally boiling. Not playing Northcote.

Rules of showbiz.
A) The audience are always right.
B) If audience are wrong, refer to rule A.

Rules of showspaz.

A) I’m a genius.
B) Shut up and laugh.

Damn the rules. Damn the audience. Obey the moment, trust yourself and hope for the breast. My band, who were forced to huddle in the ghettos of the wings night after night, stated that the most fascinating part of the process was listening to the wildly varying levels of laughter each night. I heard a quote by Sydney writer Nick Coyle: “There’s no sound for awe.” If only there was. A low growl. It would help musicians, actors and poets out. The human body is a versatile instrument. Surely there’s more strings to the appreciation bow than clapping like a chimp.

Comedy is a perilous pursuit. You’re only as good as your last gig and some nights, your last joke. You’re a laughter junkie, always searching for your next hit. This is what sets comedy apart from other arts. The performer / audience relationship is boiled down to a pass/fail grade system. The audience are either with you or they are against you. This is why most comedians shout and talk fast, to psyche out the silences. With experience comes knowledge and sophistication – your thought machine is more adept at calculating audience responses. It takes into account the natural ebbs and flows of energy, the fleeting attention spans, the lateness of the hour. It tabulates reassuring evidence that the crowd have already ticked a big box by coming to see you and might just be enjoying you quietly – their smiles painting a thousand glowing LOL’s in the dark. It takes a strong machine to process this signal cross-fire and remain cool amidst the ego flares and quiver-shakes.

CLAPTER
(Klap-ter – noun)
When the audience start clapping at the end of a big laugh. Usually reserved for ‘high concept’ stand-up – ie when a comedian machine guns a lot of words at once.

There’s no sound for awe, (cats can hear it) but there is a sound for a slurry of lames. A sub-audible anti-atmosphere – the sonic equivalent of a black hole. Something you hear with your pores. I can see my words being sucked down into the cross-armed back-slumped slit-eyed grizzle gobs, all haemorrhaged energy and narky expectations. Sixty minutes is a long time to do a show when you’re over it after thirty seconds. Pride cried and patience blown – awash in a toxic meltdown of back-dated disappointment and self-loathing martyrdom. Arrogant and empty, I punished the audience by finishing a bit, listening to the spurts of laughter dissolve, grabbing my water bottle and consuming the liquid like a snake.

Ballerina on an empty stomach, spinning.
Car with no oil, going uphill.
Moody douche, trying to be funny.

* * *

One of my favourite moments was offering people in the front row a different form of snack each night. The action is, after a song, when the audience are vacant and clapping, you snatch the snacks (ten times fast please), step into a long lunge so you are bowing before the person with your arms outstretched, and yell the snack as a question:
“FORRERO ROCHER?”
“GRAIN WAVE?”
After experimenting, I found I achieved best results with:
“CRISP?” with a bag of Red Rock Deli at the ready. For optimum effect, you should open the bag in the same action as making the lunge – a sign that the treats are fresh and tamper free.
This was funniest when the person refused. Like the bloke in Adelaide who instantly put his hand up and said “oh no”, as if a Forrero Rocher wouldn’t possibly go with his beer. I was amused by the small amount of time it took a person to calculate they didn’t want one. I think it says a lot – your snack decision reflex time.

The key to spontaneous snack offering is to be a ninja. The whole exchange should take place in about eight seconds. Then you straighten up and launch into a bit of stand-up as if nothing’s happened. A few times this derailed when the girl next to the person accepting Grain Waves simply lost her mind, which then made me giggle. One of the few things an audience wants from you is to see you enjoying yourself. Tom Jones can fake it, with his collagen grin, but I can’t. It’s a rare gem when I laugh out loud on stage. A passing of the happiness torch.

The final snack moment goes to the middle aged bespectacled gent who is the same target as my “so do you come from a town or place?” He hasn’t taken to this tomfoolery, and stares up at me as if to say “Well what? Is that all you’ve got?” I feel bad about this and target him with the nights snacks, a huge Glad bag of SOY CRISPS? As I poise there, mid-lunge and vulnerable, the bulbous sack balanced precariously in my hand, a warm smile spreads across his face as he leans forward.
“Ah yes, I will,” he says, as if his son were offering him one at home, such is the ease with which he scoops out a generous fistful of twists. I stand up and carry on with the show. I’m mid-sentence when I hear the man loudly crunching away on his snacks. This is too much. This surly man, sitting there happy as Larry, chomping away as if he were watching Top Gear.

These are the moments I put up with life for.

* * *

In everything I do I like there to be some unknown variables. Some parts where I have no idea what the outcome will be. ‘Leaving My hairdresser’ was such a part. While busting out the closing choruses, I’d kick, leap and spin myself off balance while molesting the mic-stand and lobbing the mic in an attempt to create as much carnage as possible. It’s like the iphone game Angry Birds. Each night I’d ‘throw my bird’ but sometimes I’d do no more than rattle the mic-stand back and forth a bit. Other nights, I’d be lying in a pile of guitars, drum cymbals and kick stands, tied up by leads and blindfolded by my hairdressers cape. These were good nights.

Life can’t prepare me for the night when, mid Angry Bird, on my knees scrabbling about, my guitar stand is uprooted, bringing my own axe down hard on my head, the nut cracking me right on the top of the scone. As I stand before the crowd belting out the final refrain, a warm stickiness seeps down my face. I put my hand to my forehead and look at my fingers. They are red.
“I’m bleeding from the head” I tell the audience.
I finish the song, going on a little rant about “gee I wonder if this is one of the bedroom philosopher’s bits and he had a blood capsule hidden under his wig and he does this every night, or I wonder if he actually is out of control and may have concussion..”
It hurts, but I love every minute of it. This is pure, heat of the moment, one-off chaotic brilliance.

After the show Nature Boy informs me that his friends had asked whether it was a set up and I actually had a blood capsule.

Depressing.

* * *

One night I had a dream that I was flying along in a Volkswagon with my Mum. Down below, dudes were throwing eggs up at me. I was standing on the roof trying to catch the eggs so I could throw them back. We eventually reached some houses, and I now had the ability to fly. I was hopping from roof to roof, holding a handful of eggs, looking for someone to throw them at, but there was no-one around.

Read: My discomfort with being a tall-poppy.

* * *

Having observed Gen-Y’s disconnection with Aboriginal culture, I thought I could offer the community service of writing some stand up about it. After hearing my friend say “No, you can’t do stuff about Aboriginals, the whole audience will close down” it seemed like a good challenge as a writer and performer. As a humourist I would argue that no matter what the subject, there are always accessible jokes to be found. Like a horticulturalist can stare at an overgrown path and spy a bush flower or native moss, I would look at the muddled thicket of our post-sorry relations and find some witty twists of irony.

As part of my training, I MC’d a comedy night in St Kilda. It was here that I debuted my indigenous bit. It was an extremely high degree of difficulty. MC’s are supposed to keep the night buzzing along and the crowd were relatively conservative. My heart was an anxious stallion and my mind was sweating breadcrumbs. I was prepared to fail, but at the same time, I flatly refused to let the occasion beat me. It was two days before Australia Day, so I knew that link would buy me some time.

“Sometimes I wake up and think ‘I’ve never had a proper conversation with an Aboriginal person. And the older you get the more awkward it is. I think I’ve said about ten words, and they’ve consisted of ‘no’ and ‘sorry.’ (groans). I know, well at least I said sorry before Kevin Rudd did, that’s a feather in my cap. Sure it was ‘sorry, I don’t have any money.’ (tsk) I know, and I did have money, I was just really late for a hair appointment, you know how it is? (!?) And one time I gave an Aboriginal woman a two dollar coin and she just looked at it and said ‘oh great. A depiction of a deceased indigenous person which is a taboo in my culture.’ And threw it back in my face. And I thought, ‘man, this issue’s complicated!’”

The laughs are down, but I’m rewarded with a priceless feeling of solidarity as my adrenalin, instincts and skill link arms to offer me resolve through this trial by fire. The key to this routine is having back up prepared for when the audience shuts down. I’ve written a code that as soon as the laughter drops to 20% and stays there for 20 seconds I activate evasive manoeuvres.

“Look at you all clamming up, my little clams.” (air is released like underground fissures)
“You’re like ‘aargh, why are you doing this, it feels offensive to laugh about this, I came out to have a good night why are you doing this please make it stop!’”
“It’s okay. Somebody’s gotta talk about this stuff. It’s like comedy muesli. It’s good for you, but at first you’re not sure about the taste. I assure you tomorrow you’ll wake up and go ‘nah, I’m glad I had that. I feel really good in the guts.’ C’mon, let’s get a bit Ben Lee – ‘we’re all in this together.’”

The audience are 40% more onside, which is enough to work with. As a performer I’ve acknowledged their plight. I’ve said ‘I know this bit is hard work, and the last thing I want to do is punish you, but I do want to challenge you, so let’s meet each other halfway.’ The audience say ‘okay lesbian man – we haven’t seen you on enough panel shows to trust you fully, but we accept this token of respect you have shown us and will permit you a couple more minutes of this faux-subversive hipster politics before erasing it from our memory and replacing it with the latest hilarious song from YouTube sensation Jon Lajoie.

On two nights during Wit-Bix the audience were so good that they didn’t need the disclaimer (declammer.) The first time it happened I said it anyway out of habit, evoking unexpected hostility.
‘Hey, don’t patronise us Mr Indie Showbiz, our great grandmothers were Buddhist lesbian atheists and we’re delighting in your fresh approach. No need to give us the Saturday night dumb-down you pretentious twerp.’

The second time it happened I was ready. On the final Friday the audience shot their laughter into the air, warming me with a firework of enthusiasm. I wanted to eye-kiss them all and decorate their chests with medals for intelligence and open-mindedness. I’d shed a few rays of sun on the thick ice of indigenous guilt. I’d been successful in affecting the players in my personal world.

Andy Warhol said: “Art is what you can get away with.”
Keep going till someone issues a cease and desist.

THE END

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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!

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NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

LapTopping is published by the Frumer company on behalf of its subsidiaries and conglomerates. No part may be reproduced except all of it under International circumstances. Please read our information hotline for more company policy. I’ve been awake for a while now / you’ve got me feelin like a child now / cause every time I see your bubbly face / I get the tinglies in a silly place / It starts in my toes / and I crinkle my nose / where ever it goes I always know / that you make me smile / please stay for a while now / just take your time / where ever you go / The rain is fallin / on my window pane / but we are hidin in a safer place / under covers stayin dry *(safe) and warm / you give me feelings that I adore / It starts in my toes / make me crinkle my nose / where ever it goes / i always know / that you make me smile / please stay for a while now / just take your time / where ever you go / What am I gonna say / when you make me feel this way / I just……..mmmmmm / It starts in my toes / make me crinkle my nose / where ever it goes / i always know / that you make me smile / please stay for a while now / just take your time / where ever you go / I’ve been asleep for a while now / You tucked me in just like a child now / Cause every time you hold me in your arms / I’m comfortable enough to feel your warmth / It starts in my soul / And I lose all control / When you kiss my nose / The feelin shows / Cause you make me smile / Baby just take your time now / Holdin me tight / Where ever, where ever, where ever you go / Where ever, where ever, where ever you go / Where ever you go, I’ll always know / Cause you make me smile here, just for a while
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ISSUE 82
Sunday March 27, 2011

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Quentin Tarantino 48 today!
Happy Birthday Fergie 36 today!

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TINY LEGENDS
Moments that fell down the back of the couch

From Virginia Dooley.

Roughly seven years ago when I was a slimmer, younger version of what I am today, I was walking to work along the boardwalk at Docklands. A middle aged man with white hair ran past me. As he passed he swivelled his head back to check me out. The incident caused him to have a most spectacular fall. I stopped in my tracks, stunned. I was about to ask if he was OK, but before I could do or say anything, he jumped to his feet, sprang around to face me, spread his arms out and in a crazy tone of voice said, “I’M OKAY!” He then resumed his run.

It was John Lithgow from 3rd Rock from the Sun.
Apparently he was doing stand up or some such at Crown Casino.

DO YOU HAVE A TINY LEGEND? SEND IT TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“do cruskits make you fat”
“doing a wee -baby -toddler – toilet training”
“how do you spell hello in Canadian”
“canberra muesli”
“if you could have a room full of any one thing what would it be?”
“gold gay tune”
“are there any pin cushion clubs”
“bedroom fulosifer”
“last night i found a note you wrote left inside my room 1 21 am i picked apart the words you didn t choose 1 21 am i wrote out every one and then i hid them round your room 1 21 am this love is bound with heart and guts and glue”
“i heard a really mellow song on triple j what could it be”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwzBuN7jfjw&feature=player_embedded#at=90

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

MELBOURNE

WIT-BIX @ The Melbourne Interstate Comedy Festival.
Venue: Trades Hall, 54 Victoria St, Carlton
Dates: 31st March – 26th April (not Mondays), Previews: 31st March, 1st and 2nd of April
Tickets: $23.50 full price, $19.50 concession, $19.50 for groups of 8 or more, $19.50 for preview shows, $18.50 for Tightarse Tuesday Tickets.
Times: Tuesday – Saturday: 9.30pm Sundays: 8.30pm
Bookings: www.comedyfestival.com.au

I recommend shows by Josh Earl, Zoe Coombs Marr, and Ben Pobjie.

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STORYTIME

BEDDY PHIL MONASH CARNAGE

I recently performed a lunchtime gig at Monash University, Clayton Campus in Victoria. It was my one day off during a two week Adelaide Fringe run. I had to get up at four AM to catch the flight over. I was in a ‘fruity’ mood.

I arrived to find a DJ playing that ‘Barbara Streisand’ song at full volume. How audacious are DJ’s to think their violent beats are welcome at 10:30am on a Wednesday? I don’t care if you have been booked and are being paid. Either play some Neil Young or forfeit your set out of goodwill. Dance music has its territory – nightclubs, raves and parties, must it encroach on the traditional timeslot of the acoustic musician as well?

Happiness is scoffing a nutrient water ten minutes before you go onstage for a gig you know for a scientific fact isn’t going to be remotely inspiring. Additional happiness is having used the exact same kind of bottle to wee into backstage at your Fringe venue the night before because the toilet is down two flights of stairs and life’s too short to perform with any kind of wee-wee in you. Nutrient water bottles are handy as they have a wide mouth. Ladies.

My solo gig started out routinely. I left my sunglasses on, as an International sign of ‘I do not care. Do not mess with me. I will crush you with my professionalism’ as oft-modelled by E from the Eels at his rockier shows. There ain’t much banter, it’s a four to the floor setlist burner.

I can’t believe how much universities have sold out. Not only are they condensing their art faculties and burning off specialty subjects, but they are gaily renting out prime clubs and societies real estate to any evil multi-national who’ll plonk five figures in their off-shore account. Today I was lucky enough to have the Lipton Ice Tea cult, dressed in offensive lime green and passionately defending their patch of Astroturf across from me. Their capitalist compound was a cross between a miniature golf course and child’s playhouse. The lynchpin was a green tunnel you could crawl through. After enquiring of the fun-factor I was matter-of-factly informed that the tunnel “doesn’t go anywhere.”

I was amused by the human screen saver of sporadic traffic walking back and forth on the concourse infront of me. I found entertainment by commentating mid-song on the crazily dressed youths, some wearing inflatable balloon hats resembling cabaret gypsy fruit, cowprint onesies, oranges superhero capes and an Argentinean flag. After spying a procession of students pushing food trolleys I declared: “you know all these people are stealing stuff – there’s no barbecue, it’s just that easy to wheel stuff out of here. Look, there goes a bloke with a television, stolen straight out of a classroom. Stealing’s never been easier, just pick up and armful of whatever you want, and carry it out like you know what you’re doing.”

Things turned mock-ugly during Northcote. A meek Korean photographer in an orange vest crouched down into position when I exploded like a gas barbecue.
“Nah man you can’t take my photo, that was in my contract, seriously, put that away!” I snarled in hipster accent. He peered at his camera for a moment and put it back up to his eye.
“What are you doing seriously dude you take that photo and you could be fined for breach of contract. I’m very specific about this.” A beefier Asian dude pulled up and got out his iphone. I gave him the same tirade, receiving the finger as he walked off. I threatened to throw a cart of glasses at him, being pushed by a lunch lady, cruising past my zen people stream.
“He’ll have to get it off me first” she told no-one in particular, stoically defiant of her cart, regardless of the authenticity of the showbiz pantomime she had perforated. I simmered down and returned to the song. A verse later sneaky orange vest was sitting back with his crew drawing the camera up to his face. I threw down my pick in disgust.
“Look man just because you’re in the distance doesn’t mean I can’t see you. I’m not blind. What do you think I’m like eighty years old with cataracts?”
Part of doing the lame-douche character is coming up with that kind of lame-douche taunt.

The thing about performing at these uni o-week things is that in the same breath that you’re introduced by the MC, he’s also telling people to get on over to the Uni Bar for the breakdancing competition in ten minutes. It’s a great leveller, and at no other time are you reminded of the fact that all you are is an entertainment service provider, providing a service like everyone else, from the union staff serving sausages to the rowing club president drinking shots off an oar. During a quieter song I was annoyed by the “popcorn people” next door. They were promoting something – goodness knows – maybe an iphone Chlamydia swab, with free popcorn in a cone. I knew I couldn’t compete with that. It doesn’t take a mathematician or a sociologist to calculate the aggregate net social worth of a free cone of popped corn versus a word-heavy novelty b-side no-one asked for. Even if I played Northcote on loop and put out a bowl of Clinkers I’d still be breaking even. When they started playing ‘Barbara Streisand’ over their tinny speakers I ripped out my guitar lead and marched over for a considered yet friendly neighbourhood chat.
“Can you guys turn that off? I’m trying to entertain” said the pale yet muscular sad/angry busker clown with clip on sunglasses.

The Lipton Ice Tea brigade watched it all through 19 year old irony-free eyes and plotted a counter attack. As soon as I’d finished my set, three girls got up to do a ‘Sparkle Motion’ esque dance routine. I wanted to set fire to myself, but instead took a free Shick razor from the stand of 400 and put it in the bin on the way to the toilet.

Later in the day I played a second set with my band, The Awkwardstra. We approached the stage to soundcheck but were blocked off by the All-Female All-Japanese self-defence society putting the demon in demonstration. Happiness is being trapped side of stage looking out over a crowd 800% bigger than the one you had watching two girls scream like tennis players as they roundhouse kick each other in the scorching noonday sun. I considered hijacking the event, stripping down to my boxers and karate chopping my guitar in half. “It’s good for my self esteem” I’d scream before burying my face in a popcorn cone and hiding in the Lipton tunnel until the Vice Chancellor dragged me out by the fringe.

Still scorned by the Lipton girls’ morally degrading display I turned to bassist Nature Boy Hazel and whispered “tell them The Bedroom Philosopher is going to do a presentation for Birds Eye Chips.” I hurried down onto the concourse and after receiving Nature Boy’s introduction, pulled up my tshirt and waddled from side to side in a sexually childlike way while reciting a sordid poem. “ooh birds eye in my grill / ooh I want more I know I will” The doe eyed students seemed far more understanding of my marketing parody than any material I’d presented thus far. The mentioning of a consumable was an audio pacifier for the gen-I media-mites, happy to save time by not questioning the things that made them and the world surface-happy.

I tried to think of an event that would force this lot of screenagers to protest 60’s style. Maybe the University banning Facebook, even then, it would be an online protest, held in a chat room. NO NEED FOR CAPITAL LETTERS, WHAT KIND OF ANIMALS ARE YOU? sorry master.

Song song. Band Band. Underrated genius. Underrated genius. I tried an acoustic version of ‘Barbara Streisand’ in a desperate attempt to connect with the possibly good looking clump of girls wearing promotional aprons and viking hats in the gazeboed horizon, but felt the cool blade of drummer Mad-Dog Rabinovici holding a free Shick razor to my throat. Gordo doused him with lipton ice tea and we regained our composure.

During New Media the Rowing Society made their third noisy entrance to the concourse for the day, carefully carrying a row of shots on one of their oars and proudly announcing that they were going to knock them all back. I instantly despised this and told them as much.
“Nah man” they protested. “We’re doing this for you.” I could see the weary underlings had brought the exotic liquors and paddling stick as a sacrifice to me, and was somewhat satiated. I could not however, douse the pilot of rage at the flamboyant display of idolisation for these damaging drugs, in a day that had already been suffocated by corporate greed and intellectual apathy.
“Oh yeah” I screamed, putting the guitar down. “Let’s celebrate the miracle drug of alcohol that’s been linked to over 50, 000 deaths in this country each year and kills more people than cigarettes and drug use combined. It’s all fun and games now but where are you in twenty years when you’ve lost your wife and kids sitting bloated and pock-marked in the corner of your one bedroom flat crying into your warm can of Tooheys Red at ten in the morning?”
A smattering of applause (my band mates trying to get the attention of the mental health officer) fuelled me on and I took refuge on the drumkit, playing a Queen ‘we will rock you’ type beat on kick and snare while ranting about the fact my Uncle Nigel died from alcoholism in his mid-forties.

AHORA QUE ES ENTRETENIMIENTO!

On a positive note, a very lovely girl from the Linguistics Society sidled up to me earlier in the day to request ‘A.C.R.O.N.Y.M.P.H.O.M.A.N.I.A.C.’ I asked what went on at her linguistics meetings. “Games of Scrabble mostly.” Her request, and the knowledge of her club filled my spirits with love and respect for mankind.

We finished our set and the supercheese MC shimmied on stage. The 40 strong crowd clapped with the intensity of 50. “How about an encore from the Bedroom Philosopher!” Enthused the MC. I checked my watch and with dark glasses still on strolled over to the mic.
“We are not contractually obliged to perform any more entertainments.”

Nature Boy later told me he’d heard a couple of students walk past, watch me for a bit, say ‘Hey I really like this guy’ and keep walking.

After selling no merch, I found a Mentos lolly on the ground and padded over to the Lipton compound and crawled into the tunnel entrance. I could see what they meant. The tunnel didn’t go all the way, it was sealed off after half a meter. It was just the idea of a tunnel. I clambered out and sat next to a big rock on the corner of the lawn. The surface looked scuffed and shiny. It was made of plastic. I gazed at the edges of astro turf and pulled out my iphone, running my fingers over its course rubber cover. It was a replication of a cassette tape. It was like holding a seashell, pretty in its own way but devoid of life. Over the speakers came the smooth compressed thump of ‘Barbara Streisand.’ The bulk of this song is a Boney-M sample from the 70’s; the beat would be too slow and thin to dance to today. On the ground next to me was a smattering of trodden popcorn, the ultimate puff food, no real sustenance. Next to it, a puddle of Iced tea, the idea of tea made more consumable with the extraction of heat. A girl walked passed and handed me a Shick razor, a device intended to gentrify the human form, airbrush it from its course, savage features.

THE END
———————————————————————–

LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
****************************************************************************
NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

This message and its attachments may contain legally privileged or confidential information. Can I have the grill pack with a side order of chips, two calamari rings and a potato cake. It is intended solely for the named addressee. Coleslaw’s fine. If you are not the addressee indicated in this message or responsible for delivery of the message to the addressee, you may not copy or deliver this message or its attachments to anyone. Grilled. What fish is it, do you have rainbow trout? Rather, you should permanently delete this message and its attachments and kindly notify the sender by reply e-mail. That’s okay. Actually I’ll grab a drink. Any content of this message and its attachments which does not relate to the official business of the sending company
must be taken not to have been sent or endorsed by that company or any of its related entities. How much is it? Just take it out of the change. No warranty is made that the e-mail or attachments are free from computer virus or other defect. Sorry, can I also get a prawn cutlet?

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**VOTE FOR NORTHCOTE IN HOTTEST 100 BEFORE SUNDAY**
**NEW SHOW WIT-BIX IN ADELAIDE FRINGE / MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVALS**

ISSUE 81
Friday January 14, 2011

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Jason Bateman 42 today!
Happy Birthday LL Cool J 43 today!

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VOTE FOR NORTHCOTE IN THE HOTTEST 100

Click HERE.

Tip: Not voting for anyone else is like voting twice.

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ADELAIDE STREET TEAM

Would you like to hand out some flyers in exchange for tickets? Email anthea at nibblesmusic dot com with your details.

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LYRIC POLICE

Bringing song writing laziness to justice.

From Eadie Nielson,

Silverchair – Take the World Upon Your Shoulders.

“Violent. Big and violent. Like a thing that’s big, big and violent.”

THANKYOU EADIE. GET SLEUTHING AND REPORT YOUR LYRICAL EVIDENCE NOW!

laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“double denim in latin America”
“i m so alternative the bedroom philosopher”
“triple jjj sitar double bass jazz drums”
“bernard fanning smokes joints”
“madori wading sex”
“girls remove shirts for song writing comedians”
“jatz biscuit cake”
“mick jagger wig”
“restraining order Tasmania”
“bedroom philosopher riding around on the aces”
“canberra rub josh”
“pathetic vegan sausage”
“song lyrics – couldn t reach my wallet so they cat the pants off me”
“guitar chords with comedical effects”
“can galah eat capsicum nsw”
“did anyone else laugh when maude flanders died?”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

The best website.

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NEWS

•     I’ll be performing a new show ‘Wit-Bix’ in Adelaide Whinge and Melbourne Irrational Comedy Festivals respectively. Big rooms. No more sweating. Tickets are on sale here ADELAIDE / MELBOURNE.

•     Amanda Palmer is a fan of ‘Northcote,’ and has invited me to rap over her ‘Map of Tasmania’ track at an Adelaide Fringe show March 2.

•     ‘Northcote’ has finished #42 in Rage’s Top 50 Videos of the year, and #7 on Mess and Noise’s top tracks of 2010. They said: “Misconstrued as a “joke song” upon its release, The Bedroom Philosopher’s ‘Northcote (So Hungover)’ will one day be regarded as a landmark release in rock’s evolution, just like ‘Interstellar Overdrive’ by Pink Floyd or The Velvets’ ‘Sister Ray’. Until then, it’s OK to laugh at the hipster jokes safe in the knowledge they have nothing to do with you or your collection of Coogi jumpers and Casio Data Banks.” The video has taken out Best Music Video at the ’15 Minutes Of Fame’ independent film festival in Florida.

•     Hitz Rodriguez, the world’s best looking Kiwi percussionist has left the Awkwardstra. He has set sail for greener pastures in a Byron Bay love nest. We wish him all the best, unless it doesn’t work out in which case he can pop back to Melbourne. I have lost a friend, a percussionist and a yoga instructor. Look out for new bloke Skins McGillicutty.

•     For Christmas Mum got me a ‘Classic Paintings’ calendar and two little pig erasers, one fluro pink, one fluro green. When I mentioned them on the phone she said “Pooglet!”

•     The Northcote Social Club residencies were a hoot. We got the best review ever in Inpress: “If you’d only heard the song Northcote (So Hungover), it’d be easy to dismiss The Bedroom Philosopher as a gimmick but his live show proves he’s much more substantial and clever than that. He is, simply, a comedy machine. His ability to embody characters is out of control they actually seem to be emerging from within him. Seeing him do Irish Girl and imitate his Nan for In My Day is something else. He is so quick that you often don’t get it until later when you replay it in your head. It’s like there’s a whole history of comedy here on stage embodied in the one man. And he never falters, at one point calling out to the crowd for his next song. Someone yells out Golden Gaytime and less than a second later he is straight into his anti-ode to this bullying-inducing ice-cream. The man is insane…” Kate Kingsmill

•     If you’re in Adelaide do check out the wonderful puppet show ‘Fin’ in Adelaide Fringe. It’s like Tom Waits meets Sesame Street. Click HERE for details.

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

SYDNEY Feb 10 – Headlining ‘Mic In Hand’ – Friend In Hand Hotel.

MELBOURNE Feb 12 – Playing Flood Relief benefit gig at the Hi-Fi Bar, Melbourne. Details TBA.

ADELAIDE Feb 18 – Mar 1
Wit-Bix. Adelaide Fringe Festival. Tuxedo Cat – Electra House 131 King William St
9:00pm. (No Wednesdays)
Bookings HERE.

BRISBANE Mar 6 – Headlining ‘Livewired’ @ Brisbane Powerhouse. 6pm. $0.

MELBOURNE Mar 31 – April 26
Wit-Bix. Melbourne Comedy Festival. Trades Hall – Cnr Lygon / Victoria St.
Times: 09:30pm, (8:30pm Sundays. No Mondays)
Bookings HERE.

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STORYTIME

SUMMER FESTIVALS 2010/11 TOUR DIARY

It’s New Years Day at 8am and I’m on a charter jet sitting across from Washington.
“I would murder for an apple” she says. I remember that I have an orange in my backpack. My girlfriend put it in there and now I’m going to give it to Washington. It feels like spiritual cheating but I’m gonna roll with it.
“Here’s an orange” I say, reaching across from my seat. I like this as a first impression. Offering a fruit that is also a colour. It’s succinct and stylish, like something the camera would linger on in a Wes Anderson film.
“Oh thanks,” she says. “We must meet now.”
We shake hands and I say “Justin” hoping she’ll recognise who I am somehow.
“I’m friends with Ben n….” I trail off as she takes over.
“Oh yeah, you’re friends with Ben Law, Anna Krien and the Brisbane mafia.”
She offers me a segment of the orange. Nice.

Someone once told me she’d acknowledged ‘Northcote’ in an Age interview. I wasn’t sure if she’d put two and two together. There was also three and three. A couple of months ago after seeing her film clip I discovered her alias Facebook profile and wrote a message saying I liked the camera angles. Actually I mainly liked her legs. I’m sure it came off as calculated and creepy anyway. She never wrote back.
“I’m that guy with a gimmick song who wrote that message you can’t remember,” I say, with my eyes.
That’s the end of the conversation. I could have pushed it, but I wasn’t in a good mood. I was surrounded by medium to high profile musicians, many of whom I couldn’t recognise, on a charter plane that was delayed by two hours.

The captain appears, looking exactly as a captain should, with white moustache and bushy hair poking out from a blue authority hat. He’s striding up and down the cabin with an uptight yet professional Malaysian hostess in tow. The problem is, there’s too much music equipment on the plane, making the tail weigh too much. Their computers are telling them they can’t take off. They are now bringing luggage onboard the plane, filling vacant seats with guitar cases.
“Can I ask you all to move from the back of the plane to the front please?”
We’ve been sitting in our seats for about an hour nibbling on pretzels that Washington and her people squeezed out of the hostess, with nothing to read but an in-flight magazine. I’d smashed ‘The curious incident of the dog in the night-time.’
“There’s a great boat on page 24” is the tip-off going around. It’s the world’s most expensive liner, its design based on a whale bone.

We move to the front of the plane and take new seats. The captain looks at us, concerned, and then makes us move again. We say we can’t because the other seats are filled with guitars. He says he’ll move the guitars and then reassign us and then trudges off, leaving his cabin crew to pick up the pieces. The hostess shoots us a worried smile.
“Thankyou for your patience” she says through a broken accent. It’s entertaining watching someone remain official when it’s clear they’re itching for a good scream.
Dudes behind me are loving it. “And as the plane takes off if you could all jump up in the air.” Ha ha ha.
“And if you could all lean to one side as it banks left.”

I don’t love being surrounded by funny people, nor do I love being surrounded by famous people. It makes my brain work too hard, like a nervous autism, and I become so self-conscious I almost forget how to walk. Band people at festivals all have the same look. The dark blue jeans, the band shirt, the hoodie, the moustache, the healthy cover of stubble, the right cap, the casual stance, the right laughter in the right pack with the right people. The girls have deer legs and an aggressive haircut and speak in hushed tones with cool sunglassed guys and text quietly and sip coffees and seem to know what they’re doing. I stand by myself wearing shorts staring hard at my phone until I accidentally start talking to one of the sound guys.
The auto-perceived ‘hierarchy of cool’ of a music festival bill automatically triggers high school status anxiety. Feelings of inferiority that I thought had been incinerated by years of success and self-development reveal that they are only covered over, and can be stirred up like sediment, muddying my mood. This is multiplied by the fact I want to be a straight musician, and am forced to collide with the all-slouching all high-fiving hypotheticals of the direction my life could have taken.

This is my work. It is work.

We touch down and herd ourselves onto a waiting bus. It’s hot outside. So far the mood has been jocular and patient (for musicians at 8am on New Years Day). But after fifteen minutes of sitting on a full bus on the Perth tarmac it’s too much for some.
“C’mon, let’s get a f#%kin move on.”
“What’s the f$#@#n hold up.”

And this is just Angus & Julia Stone, sipping Ouzo from a Décor flask.

I am sitting up the front, so I can avoid people, with my clip on sunnies and patchy two week stubble. I’m half anxious at the fact I am alone and no-one is in charge, and half comforted that I am flanked by a ragtag artistic team. Washington slinks onto the bus. She had a motherly air, and has been flitting around speaking to various sorts. If this unruly, unwashed mob has a leader, it is her.
“Half the gear has gone into a trailer already. I should rescue our keyboards.” She tells someone. I say nothing. She looks at me, reaches out her hand slowly and cups it against the side of my face. The next moment, she is gone.

***

I’m at Woodford and it’s been raining for three days straight. Inside my tent, everything smells like damp durps. The ground outside is pure mudslush. Fortunately, Woodford has a rock solid sense of positivity about it. A dinosaur could be walking around biting people’s heads off and there’d be a small coterie of Norfolk folk dancers happily urging it along with their leg bells. The dinosaur would then tell everyone to buy its dub album ‘Reggaesaurus’ from the merch tent.

My girl and I fill in the mornings by playing travel scrabble in the green room. This is a collective artists area where they have iphone charging docks and a water cooler we can fill our bottles from. (The folk rider). There’s nothing more delightful than sitting down to scrabble in dry trackies, a cup of chamomile tea and a pair of mandolin and fiddle players jamming a jaunty tune only metres way. There’s nothing worse than them still playing an hour later. We ask one of them whether ‘RAZED’ is a word. As in, ‘razing a city.’ He says he isn’t sure. We consider asking five people and tabulating the survey results. I decide not to run with it. Damn, it is a word. I would have got heaps.

I’m billed under the spoken word section, but the tent I’m playing is pretty big. I ask for a fan on stage as my first gig has me sweltering, even in shorts. Everyone is surprised when the stage manager presents me with a shy but cute bespectacled girl wearing a Boosh tshirt. I hand her a cardboard sign and order her to start waving. My sets are often dictated by my moods. If I’m fired up, you’ll get an energetic ‘comedy’ set. If I’m feeling a bit reflective, you’ll get more a subtle ‘thinking man’s’ batch. Today is the latter, with ‘High On Life’ seguing well into ‘Middle Aged Mum.’ (I’m high on life and Mum’s the dealer….and now, let’s hear from the Mother’s perspective). ‘Sudanese,’ ‘Irish Girl’, ‘The Happiest Boy,’ ‘New Media’ and ‘Northcote.’ The thing about folk festival gigs is you end up performing to nationalities you wouldn’t normally play to, including that exotic race of slow, special midget people called children. During ‘New Media’ a kid with a Frog backpack was going nuts and jumping about. During a pause I knelt down and tried to give him a high five. He obliged, grabbing onto my hand. I pulled away and he sprinted off to his Mum. I started squealing into my hands.

During the banter, the bored looking kids and Dad down the front made a ruckus. The girl popped a balloon she’d been fiddling with, (not literally. Bubble band anyone?), so I snapped at her.
“What’s happening down there?” I made a comment challenging that playing with balloons was more interesting than my blistering poetica. The Dad said “play khe sahn” for the second time and I glowered.
“You Woodford audiences, you’re so smug. Oh look at us, we can see anything we want, there’s 15 stages…” Apparently the girl looked mortified as I derisively whipped into ‘Northcote.’
At the end of the song, the girl and her Mum got up and presented me with a half-deflated yellow balloon animal. It was a giraffe rapidly downgrading to a deformed dog.
“Thanks” I said, “You’ve restored my faith in humanity”. Sometimes, performing is like meeting yourself for the first time and not being that keen.

***

“I’m sorry but I don’t know who you are.” It’s the security guy on the V.I.P. tent at Falls and he doesn’t know who I am. I’m at Marion Bay and I’ve left my artist pass at home. This guy isn’t having a bar of me. I consider trying a few lines including “Google my face, bitch!” But he doesn’t have a laptop. I don’t feel qualified to try “do you know who I am?” but consider “do you know who I think I am?” A safer bet is probably “do you know who I am, because I don’t anymore.” I have a feeling this still isn’t going to get me into the gourmet bay marie’s where I can collect the crap out of my meal ticket. All is not lost, my lady has her pass and goes inside to order outrageously tasty salmon and paella in biodegradable tubs. While I wait outside patiently sulking, a girl from my past comes up and leads with “Hi Phonze! Do you remember me?” Honestly, what happened to “Hey, haven’t seen you in ages, how are you?” And if the person has forgotten who you are, just rolling with it. I’ve had conversations with people who’s not only names I’ve forgotten but faces as well. I love having no idea who I’m talking to or what about. I pull out all sorts of open questions like “What projects are you working on?” and “Facebook. Discuss.” It’s conversation extreme sports.
“Mandy” I say, getting it wrong. She is crestfallen and we can’t recover. Another dude appears, sunnies on head, eating chips casually.
“Ay love that tram song man” he says. I’m in a filthy mood, but I try not to take it out on anyone.
“Thanks man.”
“I’m from Launnie and we went over to Melbourne and were in Jb-HiFi walking around going ‘fffflick through indie.’”
“Yeah right, there’s heaps of hipster dudes in there.”
“Want a chip?”
”Yeah.”
I take a saucy chip, as the sun sets over the scenic beach backdrop. A crinkly cut and a decent young bloke, my wonderful womanette about to bring out some food, douche security guard in sunnies who’s doing his job. Life’s okay.

****

Life’s not okay. I’m at Perth airport and my iphone is broken after Woodford and my ride has just driven off without me. This couldn’t be more disorganised and I have no idea where I am and no idea where I’m supposed to be and no manager and NO LOLLIES! WAAAAAAAAAAA. It’s hot, and I just bought a coffee and a sushi which is probably a silly combination. Milk and seafood, together at last – all over my backseat you dreg. The red haired dude I’m chatting to (Jack, remember that!) is from the band Middle East so I follow him back to his entourage.
“Where’s your ride?” Asks the long haired dude in sunnies. Wait, that’s all of them.
“I don’t know, I have no idea where I’m supposed to be,” I say. Half not caring, half enjoying the dramatics of it, half embarrassed and all bad at maths.
“You can get a ride with us I reckon.”
And there you have it. For the next 24 hours I hang out with the fine chaps from The Middle East. An actual adventure! I’m on fire, offering gum, eating Subway, borrowing phones, staying in Bunbury. They have a shop called “Thingz.” When I performed there recently I made fun of “Thingz” and the locals didn’t laugh, which is unforgivable. Most problems in life can be attributed to low self-esteem and losing your sense of humour. People wonder why comedians often lose theirs. Goodness knows, how often do musicians misplace their equipment? There’s been many a sense of humour left in the back of a taxi or under a bed.

Not getting picked up is a blessing in disguise. I check in with Josh Earl, who is already at the festival site. He says camping is “hell” and he was woken up at six in the morning by “drum circle”. This W.A. festival is treating us like second class citizens. Tom Gleeson has already pulled out because on the website they wrote ‘Love him or hate him you would have laughed at least once’. He was headlining the comedy stage! People have funny ideas about comedians. Do they think we hang out in the artist section keeping the rest of the bands in hysterics? Do they think we’re contently sitting in the sun jotting ideas in a notebook? Oh no. We are either hiding in the corner waiting to perform or walking around grizzling. There’s a lot to grizzle about too. No rider, no hotels, and in Sam Simmons’ case no tents. They didn’t have a tent organised for a presenter on a major radio station who sponsors the festival. If you wonder why I’ve been selling myself as a musician when it suits me, this is why. The side effects of a boutique comedy scene in Australia are many. At Glastonbury comedians have their own stage. Here, we aren’t even on the poster. I’ve had more JJJ play than half the acts on the bill.

***

“Can I ask you a question?”
I’m standing next to the Strongbow Boat, (an acutal boat, painted in Strongbow colours. A savvy marketing ploy to encourage Gen Y kids to keep buying it. Did you know it’s the fastest selling drink in the CUB roster? Apparently Gen Y kids are too young to associate Strongbow with being the drink of middle aged women at Slapz nightclub.
“Sure.” I say, not wanting to be asked a question.
“I just want to clear this up, my friends and I have been arguing about it and I thought it’d be best to hear it straight from you.’
Oh boy.
“Are you making fun of hipsters in an ironic way by being a musician who writes songs about them or are you actually more concerned with writing from your own perspective as you’re more of a hipster yourself?”
Ash Grunwald isn’t getting asked things like this. The toughest questions he faced backstage was “when are you touring next?” and “Can I touch your dreads?” (from me).
After ten minutes of defending myself in an articulate monotone, I could see that this guy was trying to be a fan, in the most complicated, backhanded Australian indie snob way possible. “Do you think I annoy people because I don’t put myself in one category and they can’t quite tell what I’m doing?” I ask, seriously. “Yeah I do.” He says.
”Good” I reply. Sipping my cold bottle of fizzy moselle blended with dingo’s lipstick with an after kick of boob sweat.
My eyes automatically land on ’19 year old girl in impossibly tiny shorts #843’ and I slam my hormones into reverse, taking several other emotions with them. The distant sounds of Paul Kelly blend with the over simplified three chord rock across from me creating the equivalent of trying to read Lolita while listening to an audio book of Zoo magazine. God I hate festivals.

***

I’m at the Virgin Blue gate with Public Enemy. Flava Flav has his clock on. The band are huddled around Boost trying to decide which drink they want.
“I want something with Mango” says Chuck D in the most serious voice you can imagine. Our entirely separate life paths, emanating from the cultural poles of New York and Burnie, cross briefly as I walk up the aisle to take my seat. Chuck D is coming the other way. The only explanation for this is he hasn’t heeded the ‘rows 13 and beyond it’s time to split’ sign. Chuck D doesn’t take orders from anyone. The guy’ll get on the plane by crawling up the escape slide if he feels like it. Adorned head to toe in his own merchandise, he eyes me off. I stop and crab walk myself into a seat. There’s only one thing to say when you’re face to face with an American icon you’ve followed very lightly over the years. Nothing.

On stage, Public Enemy are much funnier than anything I’ve come up with.
“TASMANIAAAA” begins a voice, said in a low, ominous voice.
“Are you ready for public ENEMEEEEE”
Cheer.
”Then make some god-damn F$%ing NOISE.”
Louder cheer.
And so forth. This was all well and good until thirty minutes later a track is introduced with.
“C’MONNN Are you here for public ENEMEEEEE???”
Less cheer. I think we’ve established that Public Enemy are performing and we are all conscious.
The set of thin ‘n nasty early 90’s beats are peppered with violent self-promotion. “Public Enemy Number One” mashes with frequent plugs for Chuck D’s twitter and at one stage I think I spy Professor X waving around his own can of street fragrance. Nothing could stop the Flava train who was reminding me of Tracey Jordan.
“On behalf of myself Flava Flav…” (Mental note – start referring to self in third person. The Bedroom Philosopher wants a banana. The Bedroom Philosopher doesn’t feel like washing up) Chuck D, Professor Griff, Terminator X we want to thank you Tasmania for supporting us over the years, without you there would be no Public Enemy.” If the two blokes next to me with singlets, beer guts and kitchen wall clocks hanging round their necks were anything to go by, Flave was right.
“And second of all, I want to thank you for supporting my second job, television. You’ve helped make Flava Flav the number one reality TV star in the past decade.”
Less cheer.
Apparently Public Enemy have said in press releases they don’t endorse ‘Flavor of love,’ a show where he searches for a wife and has a wedding in a big church full of alter boiiiiiiiiiiiiii’s.
It’s too good.

***

Meanwhile, back at Woodford, I’m watching a surly UK clown balance a world globe on his head while standing one legged on a tightrope as a metaphor for the amount spent on arms globally, and the 300, 000 killed annually by small arms fire. It’s dense. The juggling of clowning and politics is the most impressive part of the act. We’re trying to appreciate his cause, but it’s heavy handed politics delivered to an un-clown-savvy bunch with an underlying tone of bitterness and lack of regard for the audience. There’s a volunteer with a big gut on stage dinging a bell every minute (to represent casualties) and another massive dude holding a bubble blowing gun (to represent…bubbles). It’s sweaty and it’s tired and it’s uncomfortable. The clown is MCing before me later in the evening, and pulls out a trick involving some frozen peas in a jar. He puts the jar in a billiards triangle, ties some rope around it and starts slinging it round his head until the peas mash together and the glass fills with water.
“World peas, we all want it.” He says, laughing savagely into the mic and outstaying his welcome. Peas/peace gag – it’s all pretty harmless, until the jar flies off into the audience.
“That hasn’t happened in ten years” he says wearily, wandering into the crowd to retrieve the pieces. I find him backstage after.
“Hey, I really liked your set before.” I am being genuine, I appreciated the combination of depressing statistics and clown tricks, even if it didn’t really work. He says nothing. His dark, beady eyes shine through gaudy white makeup. He smiles at me, precisely, in the most chilling manner. It is almost unreadable through the thick makeup, an at first it seems genuine and friendly, but at the heart of the smile, too angular and practiced, and those screaming eyes, is a tremendous darkness. A look that says ‘Go. All is broken. My shadow approaches.’

***

It’s 12am and I’ve been lying paralysed on a damp camp bed for three hours, not sleeping. The bed is on a lean, so that the bedding is all bunched up and soggy near my feet. My girl snoozes away on the camp bed next to me. My head is a fetid porridge of thoughts and the sticky nebulous of noise pollution coming from two separate stages. Music has dissolved in the rain, reduced to clumps of snare and globs of bass. Mushy vocals soar and splatter into the trees, dripping down like echo confetti. This is audio torture. I am being held captive in my own situation, out of obligation. I have to get up at 4am to catch a 7am flight to make a 12pm car ride to a 3pm Falls performance. As the triple decker mouldy ambience sandwich squelches through my ears a fourth needle of nonsense is added. A gaggle of teens yell the national anthem ironically. I snap. I am a seething whirlwind of arms and legs and glasses, trying to find my clothes and put them on in the dark along with my wallet and keys. Yes, tent keys, by that I mean my Blundstones, which I’m going to use to kick the thing in when I come back sozzled on chai whiskey and liquorice cigs. I’ve been in odd situations, but there’s nothing like trying to clomp off while remaining careful not to slip on the liquid mud track, assessing the risk of one’s heart combusting with rage should a soggy bottom be added to the cocktail of calamity.

I pound through the labyrinth of tent ropes, vans, umbrellas and torches to the glorious amphitheatre stage where You Am I are playing. Even though they’ve been responsible for the swirling sound menagerie plaguing my brain for the last couple of hours, I am grateful it’s them. There is something comforting about their presence, like an old friend. In this era of marketing conscious, pro-tool polished indie acts, You Am I are still a raw drop of hot blood in the Australian rock melting pot. Tim is onstage wearing a watermelon red velvet jacket, white singlet and black jeans. Note to self: Dress like Tim Rogers. Fashion appreciation is my highest badge of honour, and Tim makes a very short list, along with Jarvis Cocker. Two men who resemble cool teachers and dress like timelessly stylish vagabonds.

I’m worried about Tim’s voice. It sounds a little thin, and I hope he hasn’t blown it out. He calls the audience beautiful f#$ers and advises the guys not to kiss the girls until they say yes five times. The last song is ‘Starting over’ which I’ve never heard, but am guessing it’s new. Spending time at music festivals reminds me how hard it is to write a good song. I’m a fiercely discerning critic, and my displeasure with most new music revolves around the same beef. Not enough hooks! Listen to Radiohead, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Ariel Pink’s new album. Daft Punk. Yeah? Listen to You Am I’s ‘Damage’ and then listen to electro whimsy / mopey indie rock stuff. Difference? Those songs go on for five minutes and the chorus hardly makes any impact, the lyrics are hard to decipher and they seem to be using the same four chords as the song before. Hey music, GET INTERESTING! You are entertainment and we want to be entertained. No wonder alcohol is your main serving suggestion.

The last song goes for ten minutes and ends with Tim screaming ‘just start over again’. It’s epic. It’s one of those ‘let’s play a song for ten minutes that at first you think goes for too long and then you tune out and forget it’s even playing and then you tune back in and then it peaks and you realise that it’s actually really dramatic and moving and awesome.’ I wonder if it’s about You Am I starting over again after their Falls Festival meltdown, which I witnessed in 2006. Tim prefaced the song with “You might be muddy and hot and saturated, but you’ve just got to ring out your Kings of Leon t-shirts and f$%kin’ get back out there.” We both have Kings of Leon references. I am cheered. I trudge off to a bar to sit by myself and scowl and drink one Kilkenny beer.
“That’ll be seven dollars” says the girl.
I give her the money.
“Oh I can’t handle money, you’ll have to buy a drink token first.”
”Where do I get them?” I ask.
“Over there.” She says, pointing to the girl next to her.
I walk over to the girl.
“Can I have one seven dollar token.”
”That’ll be seven dollars”
I give her seven dollars, and am handed a token. I step over to the first girl and give her the token. She gives me the drink. I sit down at a table. Soon, a young girl comes up.
“Excuse me, my cousin wants to know if you’re The Bedroom Philosopher.”
”No, I get that a lot.”
”Oh.”
”Who is he?” This is a trick I sometimes use to conduct real-time, anonymous market research on how I’m faring with the kids.
“I’m not sure.”
”Is he any good?”
“Nah.”
“Right.”
Did she really just say that?
”What kind of stuff does he play?”
”Oh, I’m not sure. I haven’t heard him actually.”
Huh? I’m very tired.
This interview is over.

***

It’s the final day of my week long campaign and I’m snorkelling. I’ve managed to gad off with a pal who lives in nearby Gracetown. I’m face down, submerged in beautiful cool waters, breathing underwater and casually trawling my gaze over blurry seaweed. A swim in the ocean is the reset button for the soul. After that it’s the Margaret River ice creamery, chocolate factory, and a game of ‘Hey Cow!’ The game is played by yelling ‘Hey Cow!’ out the window and seeing how many cows turn to look at you. You get a point for each cow. I get four.

Back at the festival the comedians are bundled into a van and taken to the airport for an 11pm Qantas red eye flight back home. I’m much more relaxed after my swim and enjoy being part of a joke fiesta. I accidentally start a Flava Flav game.

“What does Flava Flav have in his coffee? Soyyyyyyyyy!”
“What’s Flava Flav’s favourite ice cream? Boyyyyyyysenberry!”

“What’s Flava Flav’s favourite town? Woyyyyyy Woyyyyyyyy!” And so on. You must feel for the Marina & The Diamonds sound guy who’s in the van with us for three hours. We are a panel show he can’t turn off.
At the airport Sam Simmons gets a tip off that the Virgin terminal has better food. This means Red Rooster. There’s nothing more glamorous than four men picking at chicken while a cleaner vacuums behind them.
“I call this putting things in the bin awkwardly” says Sam quietly, wandering off. Just as he reaches the bins he trips dramatically and bashes himself into the side of the bin. The surly blokes next to the bin stare at him. We are in fits. He returns with a Lime Big M.
“The taste of my childhood. Have the rest I only wanted a sip.” The bright green box sits exotically in the middle of our table. It glows magically against the drab greys and off-white’s of the airport. (Whimsical Wes Anderson scene number two.) I take a sip. It tastes like spearmint choc-wedges, mown grass, trampolines, football on the radio, sunshine and comfort.

***

I’m killing my Marion Bay falls gig. The audience are loving it. Someone even yells out “we love you Beddy Phil” at the start. (My girl later reveals it was her).
Ah, what a noble and harebrained art this is. This conduction of mirth. Powered by the scorching and swollen gland of stress, hope and expectation, quietly jammed somewhere between the heart and lungs, oozing a bright, thick serum that spikes the bloodstream, drawing past memories and present spirit together like a rampant magnet – binding intellect, hurt and frivolity to form the tantalising, ephemeral chemical of wit.

I begin the two note riff to Northcote. Some of the crowd cheer.
“How many indie kids does it take to change a lightbulb? One, but I liked the old lightbulb better.”
Healthy laughter.
“Keeping lightbulb jokes relevant since 1980,” I adlib, before launching into the familiar “Hello, oh hey Joel” that I’m not as sick of playing as I was with ‘I’m so post modern”. The rest of the crowd realise what’s on the white boy jukebox and start clapping. I can hear a girl up the front (not mine) speaking along to the lyrics, which almost puts me off. “That girl speaking along is making my schizophrenia flare up” I add, which acts as a callback to the “retail schizophrenia” line in ‘Musical Clearance Sale.’ Tiny planets align. I get to the chorus and a thousand odd kids sing along. “Ffffffflick through indie.” This is the first time any crowd has sung along with my chorus before. This is a good way to spend the last day of 2010. My happiness is a comet that shines so brightly, the light creeps through the horizons of my mind, touching the nearby days of my past and future, dissolving bleary pictures into an oily canvas that paints streaks of yellow and white along my synaesthesic highway. My hope compass.

It’s almost worth it.

THE END

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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
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NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

This twee-mail, including all detachments, is existential. If you are not the intended recissient, any abuse, or so you think you can copying of this twee-mail is authorised. If you are not the intended recissient of this twee-mail, please immediately notify your Mum and cry into a blender. Pour tears over freshly printed email and throw into nearest ultra toilet.
Any cursenal vomments contained within this twee-mail are those of the sender and do not nececelery reprezent the views of Captain Vegetable, Jesus Chris or his Mum.
Laptopping Ink has attempted to make this twee-mail and any attachments free from Miley Cyruses but cannot provide an assurance that this twee-mail or any detachments are free of M.C’s and accepts all liability. Hey you in the gypsy band, stop cracking onto my girlfriend. You’re dressed as an old sea captain and live in a sharehouse in Brunswick.

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ISSUE 80
Saturday October 30, 2010

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Edge 37 today! (Canadian pro wrestler, not to be mistaken with ‘The Edge.’)
Happy Birthday Garry McDonald 62 today!
Happy Birthday Henry Winkler 65 today!

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FREAKING GIFT IDEAS

Wishing to purchase a tokenistic symbol of appreciation for your tolerated one this commercial sales period? Why not take home a legendary piece of Australiana in the form of a Northcote (So Hungover) signature iPhone cover or T-shirt. Covers are for iPhone 3, come in a smooth matte finish and feature a section of lyrics from the song (pictured). Shirts bear the ‘Rage Against The Sewing Machine’ insignia and are American Apparel. (Girls are medium only). Both $30 inc. postage, or $50 for two items. Purchase two or more items and get a royal blue ‘Lifearooni’ tshirt free! Just email anthea at nibblesmusic dot com with your order and postal address. Old albums and an expired health care card are also available. Five minutes interest free! (Depending how distracted you are).

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FEEDBACK FOR THE NORTHCOTE FILM CLIP FROM AN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL

Story: Interesting song and music video concept. Very compelling. we liked it.
Story telling style: Good. Though it all appeared a bit hard to decipher the moral of the song.

Can improve the concept better ? may be..

Need to clarify the meaning to the audience, if any meaning is intended.

Technical quality: color is good, editing is good. set design: need improvement. Framing : Ok

Music: Good.
Song: Good.
Overall: We liked the clip. Has lots of Potential for future.
Need to improve the style and script.
We are looking forward to seeing your future projects.
Wish it was longer. ending was a bit abrupt.

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NEW SEGMENT! LYRIC POLICE

Bringing song writing laziness to justice.

From Daniel Nicholls, Melbourne.

A mole
Digging in a hole
Digging up my soul now
Going down, excavation

U2 – Elevation

THANKYOU DANIEL. GET SLEUTHING AND REPORT YOUR LYRICAL EVIDENCE NOW!

NEW SEGMENT ‘E-TALE.’ Do you have a colourful email address with a funny story behind it? Let us know in 100 words or less. The best ones will be published in the coming issues. Send to laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!

Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“red rooster beer tub girl”
“marigold biscuit pudding”
“the bedrom phylosfiser”
“specialist olympic year 12 perth keno”
“yoga in Beecroft”
“cat named squirty”
“matthew krok seat belt safety”
“gay goth adelaide passed aids”
“ringing in ear vegemite”
“the bedroom philosopher is alex kapranos?” (lead singer of Franz Ferdinand)
“gypsy phone video of fat woman in dark bedroom”
“what time can you mow your lawn on a sunday in Canberra”
“guy sebastian favourite drink”
“did anyone see mondo rock at canberra labour club?”
“lovable dolls in lifesaving uniforms”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

I Met The Walrus

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

Nov 26-28 – Queenscliffe Music Festival. (solo)

Dec 7, 14, 21 – ‘End Of Financial Year in December’ residency. Northcote Social Club, with The Awkwardstra and special guests Josh Earl (7th), Giles Field (14th) and Scott Edgar & The Universe (21st). Bookings from http://northcotesocialclub.com/
DRESS THEME: Summer Accountant. Prizes for best dressed.

Dec 27-29 – Woodford Folk Festival. (solo)

Dec 30 – Falls Festival Lorne. (solo)
Dec 31 – Falls Festival Marion Bay. (solo)

Jan 2 – Southbound Festival, WA. (solo)

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STORYTIME

NATIONAL TOUR DIARY

After writing a ‘novel’ for the tour diary, I decided to write a novel for the tour diary. I’m going to publish the thing in paper form next year, along with other writings. In the meantime, enjoy these photos of our jaunts. (Brisbane gig photos by Patrick Self).

BUDDY & ME

Last month, I was booked by Melbourne Music to perform two shows on the 86 tram. This involved me standing between two tram seats, leaning against the back window for balance (and nonchalant swagger), wearing a radio headset mic hooked up to an amp. (Madonna busking). On two occasions I tried to perform Songs From The 86 Tram in its entirety. The first time, a Friday night, the tram set out from Docklands to Bundoora – the opposite direction to the album. It was suggested that I could have performed the songs backwards, (as in, reverse order, phonetically backwards may wear thin). which was a nice idea. There was a medium coterie of fans present, who had scored weekly tickets well in advance. The 86 is a venue that doesn’t need a lot of people to look full.

I banged through the songs, finding the subtler ones like Sudanese weren’t helped by the grumbling rail noise. Tips for performing on a moving vehicle? Yoga really helps with your sense of balance and core strength when riding the bumps. By Bourke Street the tram was squashy from Friday night revellers, and feeling weird about the silent heads staring at me, I bailed on Trishine. Senor Tram Driver was still running the show, threatening to turn the thing around unless people cleared the backdoor. I tried to capture the moment by starting a singalong along the lines of ‘please clear the backdoor’ set to three chords. There’s nothing more vulnerable than walking off a tram you’ve just performed a hit and miss improvised song on while teenage punks behind you parody the chorus: ‘please, get the f#%k off the tram.’

We had to exit, walk across the road and catch another one back to Docklands. My headspace was incorrect at this juncture and I politely shutdown. This was guerrilla business – while we had some Melbourne Music staff with us, the plan was no more intricate than getting on the streetcar with an amp, finding a space between two seats and making a gig happen. For someone who is fussy about having a backstage area and affording a sound check, this renegade experiment was like making up a bed in an elevator.

In a brilliantly crap freak accident of hilarity, I managed to get my puff-jacket zip caught on the high-E string of my guitar. The string had threaded itself within the mechanism of the jacket, so the two were utterly entwined. There are moments in life when one searches for instructions on how one should act; whether this is reaching heavenwards looking for guidance from a maker, or burrowing deep within oneself for a clue, hidden like money inside books. This was one such moment. As I stood there, head down, attached to my guitar, a bystander girl working on the string, Melbourne Music staff passively waiting for me to begin my assigned duties, I was acutely aware that whence normally some form of instinct or instruction filled my consciousness, now there was only the drone of a blipless radar. I wandered through the frazzled bewilderness, to the point of submissively maniacal bittersweet punk-mirth. Tonight was offering me a glimpse of a half-cup of ingredients for a breakdown.

What did I do? As everyday 86 folk watched on with half interest I made attempt number three to prize the awful metal fuselage’s apart. After telling my breath ‘I can’t handle this’ I decided to remove the offending string completely, which ate up a further five minutes of my life like a charcoal faced digital cherub, gobbling up the spare parts of my existence for sport. Ruing the bruises to my professional rep. I thrust into New Media, cutting through the banality like a barnstorming folk pendulum of passionate satire. Then came Northcote, Nan, Old Man At End and for non guitar players, not having the high-E string is like not missing your little finger until you cut it off.

I went to do a scissor kick and hit my head on a handle.

When I look back on the jacket incident, all I want to know is the mathematical odds for accidentally cooking up the world’s worst circus trick – I can only assume it the sort of thing one could sit in a room for a month trying to repeat. Top that and you’d top yourself.

The pitter patter of applause was soft rain on my caravan. At the end of the performance, the staff asked if I wanted to get a taxi back with them into the city. ‘Oh no,’ I said, looking around. ‘I’ll just get the tram.’ I rode back, chatting to a few fans I recognised and some I didn’t, feeling relieved and able to douse my ferocious post-gig analytical brain with the milk of human kindness sourced from cute-eyed questions. For what it was, it was perfect – for something else, it was terrible – therein lies the flawed logic of comparison, in the psyche’s hourly battle to evaluate the status of one’s life and determine whether you deserve any tangible relief from the childhood smear of self-loathing and emotional fallout from family breakdown. I’d given that tram a big ol’ sonic scrapheap and it had kept me safe like a silent robot. Tramsformers – robots doing their dayjobs.

The following Monday we organised for Yarra Trams to allow us to make one continuous journey over the hour, removing the awkward stopover. Tonight I was primed and organised. There would be only rock star brilliance and world class comedian riding the line between genius and mediocrity. None of that emo waffle. I locked in, buckled down, fired up and folked out. It was, as they say in the industry, all good mate. Things got real as the tram began its violent turn left into Smith Street. I had just started Tram Inspector, puffing my chest up like a red-hot captain of intrigue, when a wry, ‘chicken salt of the earth’ character rocked up in blue checked shirt and cap, looking weathered and ready for most things. He plonked down right in front of me with his back to the stage, effortlessly harbouring most of the spotlight. A few times he turned around to sum up my predicament, seeming reticent about the evening’s entertainment and my asexual advances, yet still nursing a wild glint in his eye. As boyish giggles rippled through the droll funk veneer I was failing to buoy, some in the crowd were also shaking, fingers over their mouths like pink draw-bridges. In this moment I was at my happiest. During the instrumental outro I declared “Old mate solo.”

Hardest thing about performing on a tram? Making eye contact with your audience, normally shielded by the lights. My eyes roamed like ladybirds.

Next up was the spoken word of Man On A Tram, and my new friend sprang to life, fishing his wallet out of his pocket and showing me his Medicare card. Analysing my code of ethics, I was cautious to engage him knowing this could draw an avalanche. I fixed my gaze to the middle distance and finished the tune. Throwing caution to the air conditioning, I glared at him.
“Hello sir just letting you know I’m doing some lifechangingly genius musical comedy for you tonight.”
He had his wallet out again. Holding up his Medicare card.
“That’s me name, Buddy.”
He’d picked up on my ‘old mate’ quip and was setting the record straight.
“Oh right, okay, Buddy. Do you have any requests?” I mumbled, not sure where to go.
A bloke who’d been filming chipped in to ask him if he could sign a release form.
“Sure, as long as it’s not going on Crime Stoppers.” He grinned.
“Well, you’ll soon be wanted for stealing attention from this gig.” I returned, mock icily.

Who am I?

While some in the crowd (including my manager) were wary of the dynamic, especially knowing my temper and the fact I can snap any man, my Bogar (bogan radar), developed from a half-life in Burnie told me that this situation was apples. Buddy was a good egg.

I continued on, suffering headset problems and subsequently throwing a thirty year old man tantrum (a tramtrum), flinging the infernal gadget onto the cushion and trying to belt out Nan acapella, which is like trying to sing an opera through a didgeridoo. Precious micrograms of gig momentum escaping from the rupture in my mood, I whipped the headset back on and tried New Media, but sensing exhausted levels of commitment, I aborted the thing. At this moment two things occurred to me:
While I’d performed the album in order thus far, I’d forgotten to play Trishine.
Buddy was about to get off the tram.

“Buddy, I’ve got a song for you.”
“This is my stop mate.”
“You should miss a few stops. Stay to the end of the gig. It’ll be cool.”
“But the bottleshop’s back there!”
“Ah, well ok. Anyway, this is a love song.”

To my delight, Buddy sat back down, and propped himself against the window. I started the song off “words can get f$ ^cked,” to which Buddy had his first real chuckle of the night. As the song progressed, his face relaxed from a smile to a wistful gaze. As the ballad approached the emphatic chorus of its title, Buddy went somewhere deep in his mind. Unbeknownst to me, at this time he reached his arm into his shirt and removed a piece of sticky white paper. It was his nicotine patch. As the song neared its finish, he stood up in a daze and headed toward the tram doors. I sped up, keen to preserve the poetic harmony of the moment. Buddy looked at me, his blue eyes swimming in the neon light, and like a tree in a hurry to grow, he raised a hand to wave and stepped into the night. I had finished my hour’s performance and stood, heart pounding as the tram rolled on. The guy filming came up to me for an interview and assured me that he had gotten the entire incident on video.

“That was him,” I told the camera, blood and time brought to a crawl “That was the Trishine guy.” In a Beat interview I had joked at the idea of the corresponding characters getting on the tram like a live film clip, but apart from a few near-Northcote hipters, I could not have foreseen anything so poignant. For those few minutes, art and life had combined as one, parody sat comfortably next to tribute and the moons of satire and society slipped beneath each other, creating a humour eclipse more graceful than blinding. The 86 had sent a representative, on behalf of the people I had dwelled within for these past two years – a spirit guide with grey goatee and jeans – a solid father figure to acknowledge my daydream dedication.
“You’re all right mate.”

I felt more blessed that night than I did during ten years of religion.

THE END.

BEAT MAGAZINE COVER INTERVIEW
PERFORMING TRAM INSPECTOR ON THE 86 TRAM

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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!

****************************************************************************
NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

Yo, da info hangin’ in ‘dis e-mail’s crib and any digital entourage is strictly on the zip nigga. If yo ain’t the legit dealer, any messin’ with our shiiiiit is unauthorised yo hearin’ me? If yo got this e-mail in and you’re goofin with the five-oh, you better get word to my boyz pronto before they spam yo’ ass, you down? We ain’t claimin no responsibility for nuthin’ that comes outta our e-game. Your crew gotta go y’own way cos we don’t be givin’ no g’tee’s. We just bruthas on the superhighway man and there’s a war goin’ on. You gotta beef you bring it to us don’ go hot mouthin out which yo’ chatroom niggas or we find that trash man and if it get back to us then we got some muscle gonna bring some heat amd yo can’t be hidin’ behind ya momma’s ipad. Man you’ll be wishin’ you were back at day school doin yo’ touch typin class. You hearin me? That’s how we do.

****************************************************************************

ISSUE 79
Monday August 9, 2010
**National tour start this week. Click HERE to pre-book**
**Invite your Facebook friends HERE**

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Audrey Tatou 32 today!
Happy Birthday Hulk Hogan 57 Wednesday!

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HOW TO HELP ME COMPLETELY

Q. How?
A. Pre-book your ticket to the National Tour gig.

Q. Why?
A. Well, if you are going to go anyway, this way is cheaper AND will make me and my squadron of assistants feel umpteen times better about the whole thing. We’ll have more of a sense that people are coming.

Q. What if I don’t because I’m a bit busy and bored and I don’t like you quite that much?
A. Nothing will happen. However, you wouldn’t want me to feel unnecessarily anxious in the lead-up to my special month now would you?

Q. Are you manipulating me in a very obvious fashion?
A. Yes.

S. (statement) I like it. I will pre-book AT ONCE-ISH!
RS (responsorial statement) Thanks, you specifically.

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TEN GREAT WORD COMBOS

1. Sporadic cameo
2. Vampire campfire
3. Bollywood cauliflower
4. Colossal quibble
5. Mammoth anecdote
6. Operatic impediment
7. Pullet bullion
8. Hoodwinked vector panther
9. Texture ken
10. Glib decanter

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NEW SEGMENT! LYRIC POLICE

Bringing song writing laziness to justice.

From Christina Cox, Melbourne

I’m a song lyric fetishist, and while I consider ‘How to Disappear Completely’ by Radiohead one of the most awesome songs I’ve ever heard, I can never get past:

“In a little while
I’ll be gone
The moment’s already passed
Yeah…it’s gone.”

THANKYOU CHRISTINA. GET SLEUTHING AND REPORT YOUR LYRICAL EVIDENCE NOW!

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“Bring back bob hawke”
“the bedroom pholodifer”
“is the world fu**ed?
“make your own cruskits
“xxx hot short shorts in public”
“little shop of horrors crochet”
“the whole song of bedroom philosopher which you can copy and sing”
“is darryl braithwaite gay?”
“russian rap in my bed room”
“ween earplugs”
“bowie the chamomile”
“trineesha bedroom philosopher”
“fairy floss undress”
“tram 86 way too noisy”
“the bedroom phelosipha”
“i can t pursue my career due to antidepressants”
“matthew krok seat belt safety”
“tasmanias nashinol anthom”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

A glowing FasterLouder review for Songs From The 86 Tram.

A scintillating new video from Richard In Your Mind.

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

NATIONAL BAND TOUR WITH THE AWKWARDSTRA & SPECIAL GUESTS THE BOAT PEOPLE AND/OR PINKY BEECROFT (formerly Machine Gun Fellatio) & THE WHITE RUSSIANS (exc. SA/WA)

Book at the venues or from the pre-booking link HERE.

Aug 12 Adelaide – Jive bar (w/ Cookie Baker and Guillaume Soloacoustic)
Aug 13 Launceston – Hotel New York (w/ Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians and New Saxons)
Aug 14 Hobart – Brisbane Hotel (all ages 3pm start) (w/ Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians + Agent Fontaine)
Aug 14 Hobart – Brisbane Hotel (over 18′s) (w/ Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians + New Saxons)
Aug 15 Burnie – Burnie Arts & Function Centre (all ages 2pm start) (w/ The Stoics)
Aug 18 Canberra – ANU Bar (w/ The Boat People + Margaret Helen King)
Aug 19 Wollongong – Harpe Hotel (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Aug 20 Sydney – The Factory (all ages 7:30pm start) (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Aug 21 Newcastle – Northern Star (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Aug 22 Cronulla – The Brass Monkey (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Aug 25 Scarborough – Indi Bar (w/ Gilroy & The Cold Shoulders + Stereo Flower)
Aug 26 Bunbury – Prince Of Wales (w/ Gilroy & The Cold Shoulders)
Aug 27 Northbridge – Rocket Room (w/ Gilroy & The Cold Shoulders + Stereo Flower)
Aug 28 Brisbane – The Troubadour (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Aug 29 Brisbane – Old Museum (all ages 12:30pm start) (w/ The Boat People + Charlie Mayfair)
Aug 29 Byron Bay – Great Northern (w/ The Boat People + Steve Grady)
Sep 1 Ballarat – Karova Lounge (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Sep 2 Geelong – National Hotel (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Sep 3 Hepburn Springs – The Palais (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Sep 4 Melbourne – Northcote Social Club (w/ The Boat People + Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians)
Sep 5 Melbourne – Spanish Club (all ages 12:30pm start) (w/ The Boat People + Stonefield – ex Iotah – Triple J Unearthed Winners)
Sep 5 Melbourne – Northcote Social Club (w/ The Boat People + Go-go Sapien)

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STORYTIME

BEDDY PHIL’S NATIONAL TOUR FANZINE SPECTACULAR!

KNOW THY AWKWARDSTRA!

Letz get to know Australia’s most sort-of known band of aggressively sheepish super troopers.

‘NATURE BOY’ HAZEL – Bass.
Favourite food: Lettuce chupa-chups.
Favourite book: Stuff Black People Don’t Like
Did you know? Andy once had a job in Europe subtitling the plots for films. Instead of dialogue he had to write what was happening e.g. ‘This guy is the girls father appearing to her as a ghost without pants.’ Andy is also a naturopath. He is working on a jazz comedy instillation about the links between mineral deficiency and Tourette’s syndrome called ‘The Vitamin C-bomb.’

‘MAD DOG’ RABINOVICI – Drums.
Favourite quote: “No stars.” – David Stratton.
Favourite Movie: Sex Toy Story 3
Fun Fact: Mad-Dog just returned from a solstice in India where he worked extensively with drum gurus who taught him how to keep a straight eight using only his buttocks. He contributes to a male feminist handbook edited by Guy’s Sebastian and Pearce called ‘Guy and Guy’s Guide for Guys Against Guys.’

GORDO (formerly Suavey Shankar) – Electric guitar / Sitar.
Favourite TV Show: The Sopranos, Brand Power.
Favourite Past-times: Snow-baking, tram-jacking, couch-surfing (literally).
Profile: Joined the band in 2007 after TBP found him in a department store changerooms busking sitar versions of ‘True Blue.’ Known for his mini-disc collection, use of the phrase ‘chocoblock’ and tendency to go toily in his hot water bottle.

HITZ RODRIGUEZ – Percussion.
Favourite Drink: Vodka Ovaltines.
Favourite Sport: Wii Dog Fighting.
Snapshot: Very little is known about this mysterious New Zealand Columbian smug-lord. It’s rumoured he can solve a rubik’s cube using only his jazz hands and has been expelled from over ten driving schools. He is a half South American bogan yoga instructor who salutes downward facing double denim.

MENTAL PUZZLES

Q. The Bedroom Philosopher has a gig at 9pm. He must travel 10km to get there on a tram that goes 2km an hour. It’s now 4pm and it will take an hour to get ready. A taxi will cost $2.50 per kilometre and get him there in triple the time but he only has $20. Which is the better option?
ANSWER AT BOTTOM OF LAPTOPPING

JOKES!

Q. How many pop culture references does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Rosie Perez!

NEW WORDS!

Deppression – The fallout caused by the expectations of modern Johnny Depp films.
Malculator – A device to work out how much Stephen Malkmus was cashing in on the last Pavement tour.
Grudd – A parody of Grug books featuring the displaced ex-Prime Minister depicted as a recluse Burrawang tree.
Laptuplets – When everyone in the house has their laptops out.

ASK DR HELP

Q. Dear Dr Help, I’ve just started a new job but I’m worried that I might not be very good at it because I don’t like it. Help.
A. Dear person, have you tried not doing the job? Perhaps you can adopt a dramatically evasive set of life directions where you reinvent yourself as an adult sitter. Adult sitting is a boutique growth industry where unsure people who don’t have evening plans pay you to come and play Scrabble with them. You could try this and if it doesn’t work out or exist then perhaps stick to data entry and a tightly prescribed diet of exercise, reading and racy massages with casual friends. Alternatively, you could try ‘dada entry’ where you text absurdist phrases to random phone numbers until someone pays you to go away.

HOROSCOPES

Sagittarius. The moon slept in so you’re going to have a weird fight with someone close to you which might not be like a real fight but something’s going on, best to bury it deep inside so you never have to go through the sharp yet brief discomfort of confronting them.

Gemini. You’re a real piece of work, you know that? Oooh, look at me, I’m all confused. I want to do this thing but now I’ve changed my mind and I want to do that. Good luck holding down a relationship you weirdo.

Libra. A vague week for you where some plans may or may not come to fruition. Mars comes into line with the sun which means you’ll get your period, if you are a boy you’ll just get a slight headache. Totes unfair.

Cancer: A chance encounter with a new investment may lead to an opportunity with a past fling. Okay, you go into a newsagent to cash in a scratchie and you’ll run into your ex who will tell you about a new performance night she’s running. Zing.

The other ones: A series of small melodramas will facilitate the grandiose needs / losses saga of your superego that has been chasing its own tail since childhood culminating in an Escher’s staircase of achievements and disappointments that maintains the cycle of a perpetually unfulfilled dream or ‘potential happiness’ on the horizon until you get into very late middle age and realise that no matter what you do you’re always slightly frustrated and you truly embrace this and decide to tour the world with your partner in matching fluro tracksuits pointing loudly at ethnic children and taking phone calls in galleries.

QUOTE FOR THE DAY

“The key to being single is being 100% satisfied that your life is running at 50%.”
Justin Heazlewood.

SEE YOU ON TOUR FANGBOTS!

THE END

———————————————————————–

LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
****************************************************************************
NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER

The themes and analytical arrangements discussed in the text are not necessarily those of the author but a psychological reflection of the short term memory bank of mainstream and underground media coupled with the cut-up poetics of conversational snatches, subconscious pictorial images, mind’s eye abstracts and a pinch of universe scolding original thought. It is the intention of the publication that the readership is free to interpret, dissect and absorb the information in any way they see fit. Notwithstanding, while the publisher is entirely in compliance with the connotations associated with the privileges of free speech and a democratic right to choose how one reacts to a third party’s opinions, the publisher weakly urges that the reader is mindful of potentially unforseen external factors which may result in an overtly sardonic or cynical mind frame through which the text is attitudinally sullied. In the rich muddle of our rainbow supersoul, where the conscious outlook is refreshed as often as the eye is blinked, it can be difficult to view the world with anything resembling a consistent watermark of beauty, or at least inner solitude, to remind us of the cherished, gifted and uplifting nature of our pure selves. LapTopping urges all readers to practice spiritual ergonomics and ensure they arrange their physical and emotional selves in an appropriate position as to encourage the flow of good spirits between mind, heart and stomach and in turn avoid the joy-clogging aches and fear-spasms caused by incorrect positioning of the soul’s self-forgiveness duct, which should be in regular contact with the fun-brain’s attitude centre of creative playfulness.

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PUZZLE ANSWER:
A. He stayed at home due to a panic attack.

ISSUE 78
Thursday July 8, 2010
**National album tour AUG/SEP now on sale. Click HERE.**
**Northcote video airing on Video Hits this weekend**

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday my dear Nan, Edna Heazlewood 84 today!
Happy Birthday my dear Beck! 40 today!
Happy Birthday Ringo Starr 70 yesterday!

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STREET TEAM NEEDED – POSTERS / MERCH

Would you like to put some posters up in your hometown in lieu of tickets to shows and promo albums? Alternatively, we seek retail superstars to operate the official merchandise desk in exchange for glamorous items. Teams of two tend to work best. Check the tour schedule and see where you and your pal / partner may be able to assist. In either case send an email to anthea at nibblesmusic dot com with BP STREET TEAM in the subject along with your name, number, postal address and brief experience / aspirations.

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NORTHCOTE SINGLE TOUR HIGHLIGHTS

1. Josh Earl and I sitting in an Adelaide café watching a Nan in salmon trackies pulling a trolley.
2. Trying to order an orange, pineapple and ginger juice in same café. The waiter found it amusing. ‘We don’t have ginger but we do have guava,’ he offered, as if it works like that. Out of milk for your coffee? Try mayonnaise.
3. Improvising shouty blues songs about local shops shutting down. These included the Ducks Nuts pub being changed to Silk in Newcastle, the closure of North Hobart Praties and the demise of Magic Mountain in Glenelg.
4. Josh secretly tweeting about me: “i’m on a bus with the bedroom philosopher. He’s eating a tuna sandwich. NOT ON A BUS PHILOSOPHER. That’s not a public food / i’m at the airport 3 hours early. The philosopher is cranky. It is quite funny. His lunch was red rooster / the philosopher is now being harassed at the security check in. He is so cranky. It is so funny / he had to unpack his bag of leads and underwear. Durps are everywhere / now being checked for bombs. It’s like a script / landed and the cranky continues, he’s just told the cab driver to turn down his radio.”
5. Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dancer In The Dark’ coming on everywhere we went.
6. Breakfast in Canberra, we ordered muesli’s with pomegranate and kiwi fruit. Waitress: These are girly muesli’s. Me: We are girly men.
7. After drinks at the Towny in Sydney. My friend Leigh started a game of writing out our top ten lists. It began with albums and then bands, books, movies, girl crushes and men you’d sleep with. Let me just say that watching The Truman Show with David Bowie and Maggie Gyllenhaal while listening to Revolver and flicking through Running With Scissors is my idea of a good time. At one point a group of nursing girls came up to talk to us and we said ‘we’re in the middle of writing our top ten favourite TV shows’ so they left.
8. Conversation on a Redline bus. Me: How do you come up with your style? Josh: I just walk into Jack London and say ‘Make me look like Mick Jagger in the 60’s.’ Me: I just walk into Salvation Army and say ‘make me look like Graeme Garden in the 70’s.’
9. In Launceston a drunk guy pulled me aside to give me his mates business cards while they watched on, smiling weirdly to themselves. One worked at Australia Post while the other was the branch manager of Reece, a bathroom and plumbing supplier.
10. There was smoke coming from our airplane cabin. Well, the Virgin Blue crew were on fire anyway. “Go into Hertz and show them your body parts, I mean boarding pass for a great deal.”

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NEW SEGMENT! LYRIC POLICE

Bringing song writing laziness to justice.

The White Stripes – Hardest Button To Button

“I got a backyard
With nothing in it
Except a stick
A dog
And a box with something in it.”

GET SLEUTHING AND REPORT YOUR LYRICAL EVIDENCE NOW!

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“bedroom philosophers lyrics riding around with the aces so hungover”
“dog manipulators”
“frankie is mainstream”
“is 74 degrees hot for shorts”
“what time can i mow on a sunday is there a law”
“spray & wipe lyrics”
“youtube haunted house in wagga wagga in bedroom”
“buy twin tub washing machine Hobart”
“girls in tight shorts bend backway”
“cushions bowel cancer”
“i ve retired and now i; m depressed”
“bob hawke what did he do in 1997-2010”
“how do i know im a philosopher?”
“things you find in a bedroom when hungover”
“the bedroom felosifes”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

Northcote (So Hungover) video.
Mess & Noise 100 thread-long argument about it.

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

HOBART COMEDY FESTIVAL
July 23-31. Details HERE.

SONGS FROM THE 86 TRAM NATIONAL ALBUM TOUR

Click HERE to book tickets through GoBookem.

Featuring those hipster slayin’ style masters The Awkwardstra bring all the breakbeat rockouts, folk-rock jamouts and jamfunk breakdowns you need with a pinch of earnestness and about five seconds of jazz. Plus extra special guests The Boat People (except Tas, SA n WA) and ex Machine Gun Fellatio tunesmith Pinky Beecroft for some dates.

Aug 12 Adelaide – Jive bar (w/ Cookie Baker and Guillaume Soloacoustic)
Aug 13 Launceston – Hotel New York (w/ Pinky Beecroft & The White Russians
and New Saxons)
Aug 14 Hobart – Brisbane Hotel (all ages 1:30pm start) (w/ PB & TWR and New
Saxons)
Aug 14 Hobart – Brisbane Hotel (over 18′s) (w/ PB & TWR)
Aug 15 Burnie – Arts Theatre (all ages 3pm start) (w/ New Saxons)
Aug 18 Canberra – ANU Bar
Aug 19 Wollongong – Harpe Hotel (w/ PB & TWR)
Aug 20 Sydney – The Factory (all ages 7pm start) (w/ PB & TWR)
Aug 21 Newcastle – Northern Star (w/ PB & TWR)
Aug 22 Cronulla – The Brass Monkey (w/ PB & TWR)
Aug 25 Scarborough – Indi Bar (w/ Gilroy & The Cold Shoulders + Stereo
Flower)
Aug 26 Bunbury – Prince Of Wales (w. Gilroy & The Cold Shoulders)
Aug 27 Northbridge – Rocket Room (w/ Gilroy & The Cold Shoulders +
Stereo Flower)
Aug 28 Brisbane – The Troubadour (w/ PB & TWR)
Aug 29 Brisbane – Old Museum (all ages 12:30pm start)
Aug 29 Byron Bay – Great Northern
Sep 1 Ballarat – Karova Lounge (w/ PB & TWR)
Sep 2 Geelong – National Hotel (w/ PB & TWR)
Sep 3 Hepburn Springs – The Palais (w/ PB & TWR)
Sep 4 Melbourne – Northcote Social Club (w/ PB & TWR)
Sep 5 Melbourne – Spanish Club (all ages 12:30pm start) (w/ Stonefield – ex
Iotah)
Sep 5 Melbourne Northcote Social Club (w/ Go-go Sapien) (who are brilliant!)

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STORYTIME

NORTHCOTE (SO HUNGOVER) VIDEO **BEHIND THE SCENES**

The Northcote clip started out with a budget of 1.5 million because I wanted it to be done claymation style, but working with metal. How cool would that be? Basically you’d make a metal model of things and then you’d have to melt down each piece and rebuild it, moving it just slightly. I thought it was genius but my label said that Adam Elliot’s agent wasn’t returning their calls and the last thing he had said was that it would take an estimated 65 years to complete, but he only had two days. Then I suggested doing it with blu-tak but we didn’t have the budget for that many packets and michelgondry @ hotmail bounced so we went with my forty fifth idea which was to film me and my band doing all the stuff in the clip.

Here is some trivia – that isn’t my moustache! We bought it at a Midnight Juggernauts charity auction for $40, 000 which took up half the budget of the clip. Afterwards, it crawled away and ended up in Kram’s sandwich! We laughed, until his manager spilt chai latte on my ipad. (industry thing). Most of the rest of the money went towards the special effects. We had to build a special Tim Rogers face mask. Yes, that is actually a dude from Grinspoon wearing a prosthetic face and official Tim Rogers wig which I got in a You Am I showbag last year at the Royal Melbourne. Realistic huh? Tim was unavailable for the clip due to TV commitments. Lost was on. It was one he’d taped so you can fast forward the ads.

So anyway, what else can I tell you? The scenes onboard a tram actually take place onboard a bus which had the wheels removed. The producers then built a special two hundred metre rail circuit for it to ride on. The film business is a tricky one. It’s all about lighting. Lighting and colour grading. I gave red about a ten while brown ended up around 1. Brown used to be my favourite until people on a music blog said it was pathetic so who am I to argue? I’m into blues at the moment. Go Fev! I mean, the other players. There’s a bunch of other cameos in the clip including Angie Hart, Robin from The Boat People and Paris Wells as the waitress. I really wanted Angry Anderson to be the mixer for Pose Tattoo but I think he’s in France beating up Phoenix.

The sound mixer was DC Root! Who was in TISM but never in Scandal’us. He was the hardest to track down so after a lot of faxes and Whereisses I found him in a taxi going through West Preston KFC. I tailed the cab on my bike and had a quick word with him while the window was down. He wasn’t even buying food, he just needed a bunch of refresher towels as he was about to play at the espy and there’s never any toilet paper. Even in the band room. WHY Espy WHY? Myself and the director worked intensively with DC to channel (mind the pun) just the right blend of contempt and apathetic bitterness for the sound guy. We also did some character exercises to determine his emotional arc and back story. Turns out he was in a folk-ska band called The Band Who Played Too Much who were about to do things in the UK until the lead singer died from a smug overdose.

I do all my own kissing. Already the clip has lost its ‘G’ rating because of the intensity of that scene. I can’t help it. That’s what I’m about – smouldering intensity. That whole party scene was an added bonus. Those shots are actually of our wrap party and intended for the making-of documentary. The girl who played my love interest wasn’t even meant to be in it, she just did hair and make up but I couldn’t stop cracking onto her. Now we’ve settled down, buying a house for 750 in Westgarth. That’s per month. Not bad for a seven couple sharehouse.

That is a stunt double at the end on the bike scene. Cos I’m so cool I was unable to ride in an uncool enough fashion, so we got some beard from Architecture in Helsinki to fill in. He did ok. Overall, I’d give this clip four and a half stars and say it was the Australian equivalent of Peter Gabriel’s ‘Sledgehammer.’ It would have been five stars if we’d done my original claymation idea. Claymation with ice sculptures? How cool would that be?

THE END

———————————————————————–

LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
****************************************************************************
NOTICE AND DISCLAMMER

LapTopping is a diamond chiselled lemon fuelled rockety mcbusiness of nuclear proportions which sits in the ambient ambivalence between regal and riled. The all-star fusspots concerned with the satirical grooming of youth ideals and nightclub breadwinners may position themselves in accordance with sundial moodswing dreamscape conversational blow-outs. The author experiences pleasing emotions upon hearing about the success of others and at no point, under no circumstances sinks into a jealousy based rage wishing to throw either that person and/or himself out a window. Get super brilliant in your soul tank Dr Thoughtwaves! Tick off the glam plan with a two-tone flame pen. Today, your t-shirt pile, tomorrow an HBO special. Eat daal, play a synthesiser, wear a vest! Smile your teeth lasers into the handsome horizon. ‘Tis a daily dream drop that anoints your personal adventure like a lolly from God. Keep on suckin’.

****************************************************************************

ISSUE 77
Sunday April 25, 2010
**Songs From The 86 Tram album out now**
**Northcote single tour kicks off this week**

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Rene Zellweger 41 today!
Happy Birthday Hank Azaria 46 today!
Happy Birthday Al Pacino 70 today!

———————————————————————–

SONGS FROM THE 86 TRAM @ MELBOURNE COMEDY FESTIVAL HIGHLIGHTS:

1. Climbing into a taxi after the show and having a kid yell out ‘hypocrite.’
2. Having the Melbourne tram conductor appreciation society turn up, including an old fulla in full conductor regalia including shorts with socks and original ticket bag with a big bundle of pennies that he handed out to punters after the show with a kindly smile on his face.
3. Doing an extra show in Rich Fulcher’s room and leaving one of my albums on his leopard print dress. I later met him at the after party and couldn’t think of anything to say.
4. The night my tie kept falling over the guitar strings during New Media, forcing me to make a joke of it and play the rest of the song strumming with the tie.
5. Doing the sexy tram inspector dance to a girl who looked somewhat young. Whispering to her ‘how old are you’ mid routine, hearing her reply ‘fifteen’ and surreptitiously grooving over to another woman in the front row.
6. Having Nan see the show, her first trip to Melbourne in twenty years. Her review ‘yes, you’ve done well putting together your lyrics and the music.’
7. Riding my bike home from the supermarket with a backpack full of groceries and realising that it was the same Sunday, sixteen shows in, that I’d broken my arm the year before riding home with a backpack full of groceries and having a minor panic attack, monitoring the parked cars like a special agent.
8. Being on stage, powered off nothing but my own natural energy, feeling completely relaxed and in control.
9. The jokes people didn’t normally laugh at, and the one off laughers justifying their existence.

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TINY LEGENDS – Moments that fell down the back of the couch.

From Hugh Rabinovici.

“I’ve been having increasingly tense phone confrontations with half-deaf, vaguely-aggravated pizza shop workers whilst trying to order my potentially delectable dinner. It would seem they are having real issues with the name ‘Hugh’.”

Pizzaman: What name please?
Hugh: Hugh.
Pizzaman : Q?
Hugh: No, Hugh.
Pizzaman: Q, as in the letter?
Hugh: No, Hugh, as in the name Hugh
Pizzaman: Can you spell it?
Hugh: I should hope so, H-U-G-H
Pizzaman: H-U-G-Y
Hugh: No, that would spell Hugy…

EMAIL US YOUR TINY LEGENDS.

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INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENT NOTICES

******
DEAD
******

From Sarah Lambert.

“I had a fantastic pair of boots that were tall and black, with a spattering of buckles and laces. They made me look cooler than I have ever had the ability to act and they were even comfortable. Better than that, they’d only cost $40 and had so far lasted me a couple of years. I went to put them on the other night, having not worn them in a few months. But there was something wrong. On closer inspection I saw that the entire insides of the boot had been eaten and that the heel was now hollow. Apparently a mouse had got into the house, become trapped in my boot and tried to escape by eating it’s way out. Awful.
RIP boots + ability to sleep at night without worrying about mice.”

*************************************
WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
*************************************

SEND YOUR BEREAVEMENT NOTICES TO THIS ADDRESS.

———————————————————————–

GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“bedroom philosopher”
“bedroom philopher”
“the bedroom philosospher”
“bedroom philosipha”
“bedroom philosfer”
“bedroom philosifer”
“bedroom philoshopher”
“trhe bedrfoom phulosooher”
“the bedroom philosiphists”
“bedroom phyloser”
“bedroom philsiopgher”
“bedroom felousifer”
“song club jeans wallet band lyrics yeah man my party molly meldrum”
“ajax spray and wipe lyrics”

———————————————————————–

TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

A recent interview I gave for The Vine. It’s probably the best one I’ve ever done.

———————————————————————–

A GIGGLE OF GIGS

NORTHCOTE (SO HUNGOVER) SINGLE TOUR.
Check the Facebook invite HERE.
Performing solo with support from Josh Earl, ‘cept Brisbane.

Wednesday April 28 – The Front Café, Canberra
2 Wattle St, Lyneham – (02) 6249 8453
Doors 8pm. $12 (door sales only)

Thursday April 29 – The Vanguard, Sydney
(As part of Sydney Comedy Festival)
Doors 6:30PM The Vanguard, 42 King St, Newtown Bookings sydneycomedyfest.com.au 02 9020 6966
$15 on door or $18.80 if you pre-book.

Friday April 30 – View Factory, Newcastle.
8pm.

Wednesday May 5 – Grace Emily, Adelaide
232 Waymouth St, Adelaide. (08) 8231 5500 Doors 8:30pm. $12 (door sales only)

Thursday May 6 – Alley Cat, Hobart
381 Elizabeth St, North Hobart. Tasmania. (03) 62312299 Doors 8pm. $12 (door sales only)

Friday May 7 – Royal Oak, Launceston
14 Brisbane St, Launceston, Tasmania (03) 6331 5346 Doors 8pm $12 (door sales only)

Sunday May 9 – Powerhouse, Brisbane
119 Lamington St. New Farm
(07) 3358 8600
Free. Headlining ‘Livewired’ Comedy. Starts 6:30pm.

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STORYTIME

ME V AUDIENCE

Me: Hey I’m just gonna pop down and get next year’s comedy festival show, do you want anything?

Audience: Jokes.

Me: Anything else?

Audience: Nah that’s all.

Me: Don’t want a storyline or anything?

Audience: Um. No. Oh…maybe.

Me: Just a little one?

Audience: Well, not necessarily, maybe just like, repeat something in the middle and at the end.

Me: Oh yeah, (writing down) call backs.

Audience: Yeah, it doesn’t have to be much.

Me: (writing down) …will seem more clever than I actually am…

Audience: Huh?

Me: Nothing. Right, so no pathos then?

Audience: Nah, just jokes and call backs.

Me: Ok. Multi-media?

Audience: No.

Me: Costumes?

Audience: Nah.

Me: Audience participation?

Audience: God no.

Me: Character shit?

Audience: Does it have jokes?

Me: Possibly, providing it doesn’t compromise my theatrical motives as deep down I’m a frustrated actor.

Audience: Perhaps not then.

Me: Songs?

Audience: Are they you doing twenty different ones over the same four chords?

Me: No.

Audience: Don’t worry about it.

Me: I rhyme shits with tits.

Audience: Sure, maybe a couple.

Me: Um, what else, are you sure you don’t want complex tech-heavy interactive stuff, me talking to myself in the
future via a pre-filmed webcam? What about a series of letters from a famous celebrity that’s just my mate doing a Mr T impression with reverb?

Audience: Again, actual jokes will be more than enough.

Me: (writing down) Just jokes…

Audience: Actual jokes.

Me:

Me: Are you sure?

Audience: YES! Now go, I’m trying to watch two and a half men.

Me; I hate that show.

Audience: At least it’s got jokes.

Me:

Audience: What? What’s your problem?

Me: I dunno, I just thought you’d want more from your comedy.

Audience: More than jokes? What else is there?

Me: You know, a good comedy show should challenge your idea of mainstream ideology, it should reflect your
world in a refreshing yet thought provoking way, it should make you laugh but also make you cry.

Audience: Sounds awful. That’s what work is for. Listen dude, you have no idea what it’s like for us do you?

Me; What do you mean?

Audience: Have you ever been in the audience?

Me: Yeah.

Audience: Of your own show?

Me: Well, no.

Audience: Then seriously, think twice. Can you imagine what it’s like to go to a job you don’t particularly like five days a week so you can afford skyrocketing rent and mortgage payments and put petrol in the car so you can go down to the beach with your kids on the weekend fulfilling the psychological models of satisfaction created by your parents. Can you begin to imagine how many times I’ve put my own welfare and happiness second to those of my bosses, children and friends due to the passive aggressive martyrdom carer status I cling to, a muddled manifestation of self loathing and arrogance. Do you have any idea how mentally draining that is?

Me:

Audience: Then think about the magnificent symmetry of organisation that is required to wade through the comedy festival book and find a show that will suit the polarised tastes of myself and my partner, secure a babysitter, fight the brain sizzling frustration of peak hour traffic, settle on a restaurant and fluke the timing to ensure plenty of time to find the venue for an evening show. By this point, just how much challenging do you reckon we need?

Me: Um, I don’t know, not heaps?

Audience: Amid the thicket of internal frenzy, toiletry aches and the pungent steam of modest air conditioning, how sweet do you imagine the sound to be of a well conceived, structurally sound, masterfully delivered joke?

Me:

Audience: And how often, pray tell, do we, the paying public, get this, consistently, over the hour?

Me: It’s not easy.

Audience: No, making us laugh for an hour isn’t easy. It’s a real…

Me: …what?

Audience: It’s a real…say it….

Me: (sigh)…challenge.

Audience: YES! It’s a challenge, for the performer to write a series of jokes. Actual jokes. Fresh, clever, unexpected jokes. Jokes that makes you piss your pants like you did in high school when you first heard the one about ‘what’s brown and sticky?’

Me: A stick.

Audience: Damn right. A stick. Comedy is surprise my friend and I’ve seen plenty of professional comedians in my time, yet there’s never been a greater surprise than that punchline delivered with a Milo eating grin, by my best friend in the school dunnies all those years ago.

Me:

Audience: Sorry to rant at you about my frustrations with the world, I just thought you might, y’know, (laughs) like to see how it feels.

Me: Yeah, okay. God it’s good to hear you laugh.

Audience: I mean, what exactly is your aversion to jokes?

Me: I just think, you know, too many of them can be a bit…

Audience: What?

Me: A bit, I dunno (holds up fingers as inverted commas) comedy 101.

Audience: And what does that mean?

Me: It’s just a bit predictable and easy. I mean, it’s a comedy show, so of course people are already expecting jokes.

Audience: And this is a problem how exactly?

Me: I think a few jokes are okay, but I also think that a comedy show can be about skilled writing, acting, vocal performance and music with lashings of political and philosophical overtones.

Audience: So if comedy is about surprise, the surprise you offer is that you aren’t going to be that funny.

Me: Not exactly, but there is an element of…

Audience: May I ask, have you heard of the Melbourne Fringe Festival?

Me: Okay! There’s no need to be cruel.
Audience: I’m the AUDIENCE, you know how it works – individually we’re sweet, intelligent souls, but collectively we’re a malicious bunch of tactless oafs.

Me: I’m not sure why I let you move in.

Audience: You need us. Now, off you go. When you get back I’ll make apple crumble.

Me: Rockin!

THE END

———————————————————————–

LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
****************************************************************************
NOTICE AND DISCOCLAM:

THIS EFLAIL IS NINTENDOED FOR THE YOUSE OF THE ADDRESSISSIPPEE and yay contain grinformation that is confipoogal. If you are snot the nintendoed recicicippee, you are hear ye hear ye notified that any youse, dissemidoodah, distribiscuits or reseduction of this eflail or the contained grinformation is strictly prohiwibble.
IF YOUSE HAVE DECEIVED THIS EFLAIL IN TERROR, prease notify the sender by retard ewail and destroy all floppies of the aboriginal massage.
THIS CORPORATEY EFLAIL CYSTERN IS FOR BUSINESSISH YOUSE ONLY. Grinformation yay be monitored and red carded, and scoffensive, grinappropriate or illegret material will snot be bollywood. Except as required by coleslaw, HIS PUMPANY DOES SNOT RESENT WARRANT AND/OR GUARANTEETOTAL that the grintegrity of this eflail has bean braintained nor that the communoocachoo is free of terrors, billy ray virus, contraception or indifference.

****************************************************************************
“The courage of the artist is to see the best in humanity when they feel the worst in themself. They will be flung by family, abandoned by administration, and lulled by lovers, yet through all of this, a colourful fire burns, brighter than the sun, from the depths of the soul. When one takes a full breath in the lungs, the fire is fanned, and spreads through the body like an aurora. This is the personal God, who knows that the importance of one’s work will come before all else, especially the sour candy of self-pity.”

ISSUE 76
Monday March 22, 2010
**Songs From The 86 Tram at Melbourne International Comedy Festival Starts Thursday. Click HERE to book**
**Album out April 16 through Shock**
———————————————————————–

LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Reese Witherspoon 34 today!
Happy Birthday William Shatner 79 today!

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WORLD CLASS JOKES

Q. How many cool kids does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. One, but they liked the old one better.

Q. What do you get if you cross a high school reunion with a computer virus?
A. Facebook.

Q. What’s the most dangerous part of a budgie?
A. The seedy underbelly.

Q. How do horny office workers communicate?
A. Booty fax.

Q. Why did the secretaries get in trouble for doing their nails?
A. They were file sharing.

Q. Why did the Internet cross the road?
A. Something to do with porn!

Q. What’s Ben Lee’s favourite CD?
A. Claire Danes.
(credit: Josh Earl)

Q. How many iphones does it take to iphone?
A. iphone.

Q. What do vegan’s read their children?
A. Clarence and the carob kingdom.

Q. What’s Peter Garret’s least favourite Midnight Oil Song?
A. Beds are burning (due to faulty insulation policy).

Q. What do you get if you cross a graphic designer and a performer?
A. Half of Melbourne.

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TINY LEGENDS – Moments that fell down the back of the couch.

From Shannon Barnett.

JB Hi Fi shop assistant: Can I help you?
Me: Yes, do you have the new Metric album, I can’t find it.
JB dude: Um, I’m not sure, let me look it up. That’s M-E-T-R-I-K right?
Me: Um, no.
JB dude: Oh! M-E-T-R-I-C-K?
Me: Um, no. It’s M-E-T-R-I-C.
JB dude: Wow bands and their weird spellings these days huh?

EMAIL US YOUR TINY LEGENDS.

———————————————————————–

INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENT NOTICES

******
SICK
******

From Daria Wain.

“After recently scouring a vintage fashion market for any item that was both within my price range and from an era earlier than 1990, I discovered a little mustard yellow, german made, analogue clock, complete with two alarm bells on top. And it worked! After carrying it home super carefully, I got it out to find that it wasn’t ticking. I wound it up. It ticked for about thirty seconds. Thus far, nothing has been able to revive the poor thing.”

*************************************
WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
*************************************

SEND YOUR BEREAVEMENT NOTICES TO: laptopping at bedroomphilosopher dot com

———————————————————————–

GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“remove ribena from carpet”
“the bedroom philosopher norcott”
“how to unsubscribe to the bedroom philosopher ezine cos justin removed me as a friend on facebook! boo!”
“are cruskits suitable for baby?”
“albury centrelink scam tammy”
“girls on bed with slacks”
“buy bleaching for your bum in Hobart”
“overcoming a broken mind”
“the funny of a philosopher about disappointment”
“maroon cardigan”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

The Australian National Anthem?

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

MELBOURNE
25 March – Being interviewed by Richard Watts on Triple R’s SmartArts. 11am.
25 March – Performing at the Festival Club, Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Hi-Fi Bar, from 11pm.
25 March – 18 April (No Mondays) Songs From The 86 Tram – Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Acacia Room, Victoria Hotel, 215 Little Collins St. 9:45pm (8:45 Sundays). $23.50/$19.50.
April 2 – Live performance on Triple J for Melbourne Comedy Festival. Trades Hall, between 12-2pm. Free.

NORTHCOTE (SO HUNGOVER) SINGLE TOUR.
All gigs solo with Josh Earl except Brisbane.
All gigs $12 on door only except Sydney $15 plus b.f. or $15 on door. Brisbane free.
Doors 8pm except Brisbane, 6:30pm
CANBERRA 28 April.The Front.
SYDNEY 29 April. The Vanguard. (Bookings sydneycomedyfest.com.au 02 9020 6966)
ADELAIDE 5 May.Grace Emily.
HOBART 6 May. Alley Cat.
LAUNCESTON 7 May. Royal Oak.
BRISBANE 9 May. Brisbane Powerhouse.

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STORYTIME

Ladies and gentleman, please drink up your intellect suppressant and welcome our next psychological case study to Narcissists Anonymous. He’s going to share with you some lightly connected thoughts about things that I’m going to blindly recommend. Please bang your hands together like a patronising school assembly for adults as you prepare to be partly responsible for the performance trajectory of Guy Blokeman!

Another Comedy Festival and I’m not cynical at all. I’m just as fresh faced and optimistic as I was back in 2003 when I did my first show at the Butterfly Club dressed in my Nan’s sky blue 70′s ski suit. In one bit I read from my grade seven diary about a girl I had a crush on. One evening that girl came along. I said hello awkwardly after the show, still wearing my ski-suit, saturated with sweat. She smiled kindly. Her boyfriend looked like at me like I was a wasp. They say humans can’t remember anything about being a baby because it was so traumatic that our memory has suppressed it. That’s how I feel about my early 20′s.

And now we enter the mirth pit with the sparkly eyed manicness of people who have spent too long mining their own souls to fuel these artificially constructed refrains of humour. The reward for this adulthood of sacrifice and instability? To be judged by strangers brandishing the power to validate or dismiss the relevance of our emotional truth with lilting laughter or scarring silence.

I’ve always thought of comedy as the poor sucker of the arts community. For starters, the psychoanalytic structure of the form itself is flawed – ‘there’s nothing funny about someone trying to be funny.’ Second, technically it’s the most difficult of all the artforms – trying to make an audience laugh. Thirdly, the audience are permitted to heckle! When I think of the amount of times I could have sworn at an actor ‘you’re not convincing’ or a waffly muso ‘Jack johnson called, he wants his chords back.’ Fourthly, comedians are the only artists who are starved of a basic mental function to fall back on during difficult times. For a humourist, the sense of humour is the tapped vein central to their craft. After a bad gig they find that there is simply nothing there. I believe this is the reason there is a cliché of the depressed comedian.

Fifthly, unlike musicians, who can not only get away with, but are encouraged to keep playing their old stuff, comedians are constantly under demand to produce new material. This pressure creates unnecessary anxieties in the performers mind. They are often paranoid of people being in the audience who have heard their stuff before. Sixthly, comedy isn’t cool. Despite things like Boosh and Flight of The Conchords, comedy as a genre is usually placed last for media coverage behind movies, music, books, art and theatre. Unlike the UK, where people see comedy like they see films, there’s no infrastructure here for comedians outside comedy festival. Apart from the big names on TV and commercial radio, there’s a general wasteland of sporadic comedy rooms and one off theatre shows. This also creates a lack of critical debate, while music is analysed beyond all space and time, comedy is rarely lauded as a culturally valid artform.

Knock Knock.
Who’s there.
Local comedian.
Local comedian who?
Exactly. Get a publicist.

Okay, okay, how about this. Early next year we pack out the MCG. Every comic in Australia gets one minute to entertain the crowd. The crowd are all fitted out with voting devices, like the worm in the political debates. At the end, the top 20% are allowed to do Comedy Festival. The bottom 20% are legally required to never perform stand up ever again. The middle 60% write for Hey Hey It’s Saturday, which Channel 9 has decided to make a 24 hour, round the clock show with Daryl at the helm, except between the hours of 5-8am when he’s briefly replaced by Agro.

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and f**king up a stand-up routine.”
Mary Mackillop.

Two nights before my first ever Comedy Festival show, I had the most profound and vivid dream. In it, I am sitting in a lounge room watching the Muppets on TV. Chris Martin from Coldplay is on. He’s playing a sweet, sombre song but is dressed as a clown. He also has a bunch of cockatoos tied to him. They start flapping and he is slowly lifted off the ground. He looks worried and keeps glancing to his manager on the side as if to suggest this isn’t part of the act. The camera follows him, as he’s being lifted higher and higher. He is terrified now and signalling frantically for someone to get him down. He is taken up near the roof of the studio where there are two candelabras on the wall. The cockatoos fly into them and catch fire. I turn away at this point and burst into tears. I walk into the kitchen to tell everyone what I’ve seen but there’s no-one there.

THE END

———————————————————————–

LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
****************************************************************************
NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER:

THIS EMAIL IS INTENDED FOR THE USE OF OLD MATE and may contain information that will make you crack your dacks. If you are not old mate, you are hereby notified that any mucking about with this genius is strictly encouraged.
IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS EMAIL IN ERROR, then get your hand off it and fire up, what do you think this is, bush week?
THIS CORPORATE EMAIL SYSTEM IS FOR BUSINESS USE ONLY. Stop manipulating yourself infront of larabingle.org and sending me quizzes about which character on the wire are you. I told you. I’m all of them. THIS COMPANY DOES NOT REPRESENT, WARRANT AND/OR GUARANTEE that we aren’t a bit shady and that our abn records don’t match up with our welfare payments but it’s real tough out there mate have you seen how tough it is? A litre of milk costs more than a litre of petrol. I’ve got turps on me nutri grain!
If you would prefer not to receive further messages from this sender, then fine, nah, that’s okay, no really, fine by me, oh, nah, you just do your own thing okay, I’ve always said that haven’t I? After all I’ve done. Nah, sorry after all ….I SAID SHOOSH! LISTEN TO ME. After all I’ve done for you, all these messages I’ve provided and me little jokes and all that just trying to cheer you up I was, and what thanks do I get huh? No, really, what thanks do I get? Nah that’s all right, you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do right? I understand? It’s a free country. I can’t tell ya what to read can I? Off you go then. Nah it’s fine. Ay, what are you doing Friday? Want to meet up? Gav’s makin beef stroganoff. I’ll hire out the Love Guru. It should be a good night. ****************************************************************************

ISSUE 75
Monday February 8, 2010

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Seth Green 36 today!
Happy Birthday Alonzo Mourning 40 today!
Happy Birthday Garry Coleman 42 today!

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AUSTRALIAN FILM NEWS

Inspired by the success of Where The Wild Things Are and Fantastic Mr Fox, Australian director Baz Luhrmann has begun production on a 240 million dollar version of Australian children’s book Grug. Angus Sampson is touted to play the burrawang tree turned haystack with a face with Rose Byrne cast as cara the snake. Luhrmann says the challenge will be sculpting the relatively simple plotlines into today’s standard three and a half hours for a feature film. He has suggested the series may be condensed so that Grug has a birthday, plays soccer and finds a rainbow all in the one day.

Not to be outdone, Warwick Thornton director of Sampson and Delilah, is planning a gritty portrayal of children’s classic Clifford The Big Red Dog. The adaptation will be a tribute to the wide range of megafauna that roamed the Australian outback 50, 000 years ago. Clifford will be a mythical dingo that appears to the Anangu people of Alice Springs.

Meanwhile Nick Cave has also jumped on the children’s book bandwagon, penning a script for a feature film adaptation of Eric Hill’s ‘Where’s Spot?’ Cave’s script sees one man’s fifty year quest around the world to find his beloved cocker spaniel, stolen by a drug cartel on his tenth birthday. The big budget epic is rumoured to be utilising state of the art 4-D technology, where audiences will be able to lift up the movie screen to see whether spot is behind it. Critics have dubbed the technology a sham, saying an usher dawdling through the theatre in a dog costume is hardly revolutionary.

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TINY LEGENDS – Moments that fell down the back of the couch.

From Caseymoira Freeman, Melbourne.

“A couple of weeks ago I was walking home from work feeling quite miserable and sorry for myself. All of a sudden, a pigeon that had been nesting on the ground flew up my sensible work skirt (tapered in at the knee, very librarian) and got stuck flapping about up there. I was quite distressed and tried to talk the pigeon out of my skirt but he would not listen. I ended up having to lift my skirt up over my hips on the corner of Queen and La Trobe streets to show all my pins in tights. The pigeon fell to the ground, looked at me and shook his little head and flew off. All while I was standing there with my skirt almost over my head. I was incredibly embarrassed but could not stop laughing. I straightened my skirt and jumped on the number 8 home still rather flush from my encounter with the pigeon.”

EMAIL ME YOUR TINY LEGENDS.

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INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENT NOTICES

******
DEAD
******

From Laura, Canberra.

“I would like to commemorate the life of Ewan, my Ipod, who sadly succumbed to disease and died today. He was very hardy and came with me on a lot of adventures, including one on the high seas in the Young Endeavour, during which he fell out of my locker during bad weather multiple times and broke his backlight. He remained faithful despite his failing health and old age and never let on that he couldn’t keep up with the hip new touchscreen kids, even when I accidentally flung him across the room at the gym. He will be sorely missed.”

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WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
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SEND YOUR BEREAVEMENT NOTICES TO THIS ADDRESS.

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“brett lee speedos”
“who was the little girl who sang got three pockets in my overals ”
“chupa chups photo teddy bear as freud ”
“improvise thermos”
“i have finished uni and are now on the dole and cant be fuked doing anything”
“groin pain from ride on mower”
“how much does sandra sully weigh”
“horse drugs/nuttelex”
“where do i kiss my bride first on bedroom”
“golden gaytime availability 1999”
“is simon and garfield married”
“when do you sign with xoxo?”
“eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!”
“topless girls playing cricket”
”lo-fi indie folk whimsical gentle fey“
“legally what time can you mow the lawn on a sunday”
“patti smith takes off socks”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

For those of you who haven’t tuned into ‘Lime Champions’ yet, here is some YouTube love. An intimate portrait of Hugh Jackman, as told to Damien Lawlor.

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

MELBOURNE
25 Mar 2010 – 18 April 2010 Songs From The 86 Tram – Melbourne International Comedy Festival. Melbourne, Victoria. (Acacia Room, Victoria Hotel, Little Collins St. 9:45pm). For bookings click HERE.

OUTSIDE MELBOURNE
28 Apr 2010 The Front (solo) w/ Josh Earl, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.
29 Apr 2010 The Vanguard (solo) w/ Josh Earl (Sydney Comedy Festival), Newtown, New South Wales.
5 May 2010 Grace Emily (solo) w/ Josh Earl, Adelaide, South Australia.
6 May 2010 Alley Cat (solo) w/ Josh Earl, Hobart, Tasmania.
7 May 2010 Royal Oak (solo) w/ Josh Earl, Launceston, Tasmania.
9 May 2010 Brisbane Powerhouse (solo), Brisbane, Queensland.

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STORYTIME

FEATURE ARTICLE TAKEN FROM ‘THE BIG ISSUE’ 2009.

The Bedroom Philosopher has proved impossible to pin down for this article. Initially, his publicist gave me the run-around, posting me a phone book sized list of questions I wasn’t allowed to ask including ‘Who are you again?’ I then had to deal with his manager who insisted we do the interview by text message because The Bedroom Philosopher was having a ‘bad sideburn day’. After busting him in a record store putting his albums next to Sarah Blasko’s and making them kiss, the ‘manager’ turned out to be The Bedroom Philosopher himself with an American accent.

Finally, after much to and fro-ing, I’m sipping home-brew on a swingseat at his nan and pop’s place in Tasmania. Fortunately enough, his Nan seems to understand him better than anyone. “He’s always been a very thoughtful and talented young man,” she says. “He was a born entertainer. Once we were at our local Christmas parade, and next thing I know he’s grabbed a shopping trolley, put on a helmet and become part of the float. He’s very good on the armpit – he can do all sorts of tunes.”

The Bedroom Philosopher first found fame (of sorts) in 2002 with a musical comedy segment on Triple J. He performed in festivals and released his debut album In Bed With My Doona. In 2006 his song ‘I’m So Post Modern’ landed in JJJ’s Hottest 100 and he became a share-househould name. His latest aural offering Brown & Orange, described by Pitchfork as “the disc was missing,” offers a shotgun marriage of music and humour, laced with cassette samples from the 70′s.

An ex girlfriend, who insists on anonyminity, says: “He’s a lovely guy, but I’ve never met anyone as unsure of themselves. He makes Gollum look like Anthony Robbins. He wants to be a musician and comedian but I keep telling him, men can’t multi-task! His songs were funny the first time but I needed six months of Beatles therapy to get the choruses out of my head. I was the first person in Australia to take out a restraining order against music. You can’t play his album within 50 metres of me.”

Throughout his career, it seems, the Bedroom Philosopher has left a trail of broken hearts, from groupies wanting a hug to venue-bookers wanting a crowd. One ‘Philosopherette’, who hasn’t left the house in 10 years and is about to publish her first book of status updates. says he is constant blog-fodder. “He looks a bit like Jemaine from Flight of The Conchords,” she reveals, before adding: “Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about Scod from Tripod. God I love Tim Minchin…”

This year The Bedroom Philosopher won the Director’s Choice award for his Melborne International Comedy Festival show called Songs From The 86 Tram. In the show, he portrayed a number of public transport characters including a hipster, bogan, junkie…and Nan. The sell-out season was derailed when he slammed his bike into a car door on the 86 tram line, breaking his humerus. Upon receiving his award he declared irony dead, adding ‘The darker parts of life are beautiful, and, if you look at them from far enough away, hilarious.’

After agreeing to meet me in an Internet chatroom I asked him whether the crash was an accident or a cry for help. “No comment,” he said and walked out. I was then sent a fax stating: “The Bedroom Philosopher is tired from media and did a streetpress interview last year.”

One music industry spokesman had this to say: “What he’s doing is very original and very funny. I love it. I think he’s the smartest, freshest act around. But I’m not going to touch it. He’s created this gigantic one-off niche for himself that no-one can reach. It must be like the Grand Canyon in there. It’s got its own gravitational pull. He’s too wacky for the music scene and too musical for the comedy industry. Seriously, if I were him I’d consider going electro or writing a self-help cookbook.”

According to his ever stoic e-zine LapTopping The Bedroom Philosopher has recorded an album of the 86 Tram songs which he aims to release as he reprises the show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival. The album features, his five piece band ‘The Awkwardstra.’ Bass player and naturopathist Andy “Nature Boy” Hazel said that he was very excited about the album and if the Bedroom Philosopher was reading this could he give him a call?

“We all met at a self-help group called indie snobs anonymous,” Hazel recalls. “We’ve all left really serious rock bands to play sitar and flute and sing songs about real things like Golden Gaytimes and self-pity. We’ve shaved our beards and learned to smile again. I’m so glad we found the Philosopher. We can all put ‘carer’ on our tax returns.”

THE END

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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
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NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER:

THIS BLIP IS INTENDED FOR THE FLOON OF THE GLUG and may raid bins that are on fire and you did it Kristy. If ping are pong the nintendo recipient, goo are hereby sliced that any party candles, clinkers, nun punks or oblong secretary knitting of this plaid slack or the nut bunch is strictly dacked in the mosh pit of Flistle Flux.
IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED THIS BISCUIT IN TERROR, please notify the Mum by primeval yawning and OCD vacuuming bonanza and destroy all eggs in an omelette of despair and a hurried game of the one dice masterpiece YOGGO!
THIS CACKHANDED EMAIL CISTERN IS FOR WIZZY MCBUSINESS ONLY. It’s not yours so HANDS OFF ROSS! Stilts may be borrowed and your name recorded with camp wang officials but no grass sledding after dark unless prior permission is obtained in the form of hot pudding from a super Jesus, mega Buddha, maxi Mohammed or other upsized deity. Offensive, inappropriate or illegal material will smell like corpses and is best thrown at a Dad. Except as required by Stuart Law, THIS COMPANY IS TIRED AND SNAPPY AND WOULD RATHER PLAY ONLINE HEARTS THAN DEAL WITH YOUR WEARY FACE FLAPPING AWAY WITH A MOUTH FULL OF BREAD. The flippitywhip of this horaldo the great has been razzamatazzed backwards in a russian playpen full of UN cosmochimps, not that you would own up to eating all our croissants while we were in the party sauna having a network rut.
If you would prefer to lurk successfully behind bins at the local hospital hoping for a glimmer of inspiration for your latest instructional pamphlet please reply with ‘GROOF!’ in the subject line and rotate on your clothesline before proposing to your partner by holding an upside down calculator with ‘SHELLOIL’ spelled out. The listless huff and puff of sophisticated fisticuffs.
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ISSUE 74
Monday November 30, 2009

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Garry Shandling 60 yesterday!
Happy Birthday Ben Stiller 44 today!
Happy Birthday Billy Idol 54 today!

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AUSTRALIAN TOWN NAMES AND MEANINGS

Coolamon – Traditional term of approval used in reggae.
Grong Grong – A caveman’s telephone ringing.
Tongaboo – Surprising someone at a barbecue.
Koonoomoo – Trying to soothe a new-born calf.
Boggabilla – A traditional place to play Boggle.
Lavington – Decorating a toilet seat with desiccated coconut.
Thurgoona – Drinking cheap wine on a Thursday.
Gleniffer – The female form of ‘Glen.’
Moolort – A special wine for cows.
Wareek – The shock of seeing Warwick Capper.
Dooboobetic – Someone who is allergic to the Doobie Brothers.
Terrappee – Using an outside toilet at night.
Catumnal – An almanac published by cats every year.
Tittybong – Couldn’t think of one.
Bald Knob – Couldn’t think of one.
Diddillibah – The disappointment of only getting a funsize Mars bar.
Tinbeerwah – The disappointment of only getting canned beer.
Chatsworth – The measurement of a good conversation.
Mooloo – Couldn’t think of one.
Boyerine – A dairy spread marketed at men.
Daliak – A dalek programmed to understand the paintings of Salvador Dali.

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TINY LEGENDS – Moments that fell down the back of the couch.

From Stephen Ives, Melbourne.

“This happened at the Vic Markets on one of the rainy days last week. One of our crew came back from a toilet brake laughing his arse off, he had just witnessed a young Chinese man holding his toy poodle upside down under the automatic hand dryer drying its feet.”

EMAIL US YOUR TINY LEGENDS.

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INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENT NOTICES

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DEAD
******

From Alice Gage, Sydney.

“My pain is very fresh, and I thought I’d write to you to help me on the road to healing. Thank you for creating this platform for people to express their grief – it mean so much.

Why didn’t I take that bus? Why did I have to try the breakfasts at that new cafe? Why did I drink so much soy latte that I needed to do a poo? And why didn’t I hold it? These were the questions running through my mind as I watched my iPod slowly drown on the inside, after dropping it in the cafe toilet (post-flush FYI). Despite the fear of faeces particles that weren’t my own, I got in there quick as lightning and pulled my iPod out. First it seemed to have survived. Then the water leaked inside the screen. I furiously tried to dry it but it was no good – by that point, it was already gone. So, no more tunes on the train, no more bopping on the bus. No more arrogantly changing the music at friends’ parties when I don’t like their playlists. Rest in peace, Serial no.: 9E852010V9K. I know I won’t, because now I can’t listen to my relaxation podcasts.”

20/05/09 – RIP white iPod 5th Generation

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WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
*************************************

SEND YOUR BEREAVEMENT NOTICES TO laptopping @ bedroomphilosopher . com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“the bedroom phelosophier”
“worm boy hey hey its saturday video from 1994”
“north fitzroy pretentious”
“financial planning comedy songs”
“where do i kiss my bride first on bedroom?”
“does uppercase xxx mean more than lower case xxx”
“harry noblets wallpaper shop”
“cheese feeding budgies”
“xavier rudd ear plugs”
“poems about 1080 poisoning”
“bunyips childrens band coffs harbour”
“perth vegan jarrod”

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

Greatest YouTube ever? (courtesy of Tony Martin)

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STORYTIME

BROWN & ORANGE TOUR DIARY

Tuesday June 30. Melbourne – Sydney.
Mad Dog, Hitz and I set off on the twelve hour drive to Sydney. Mad Dog dropped an early gem by referring to KFC as ‘Dirty Bird.’ I realised I was going to run out of songs to program after one and a half Beck albums.
OP SHOPPING BONUS ROUND: In a country town an hour out of Melbs I picked up a mint condition black velvet suit jacket made in England for five bucks! Easily my greatest score in five years. Mad Dog began the adventure of finding vegetarian food in the country.

TYPICAL CONVERSATION:
MD: What’s in the vegetarian quiche?
Shopkeep: Ham.

Arrived in Sydney that night. Stayed at a mate of Hitz’ place in Bondi. The next day we had a wonderful swim and I couldn’t be cynical about Bondi at all – 23 degrees in the middle of winter. Plus we ate at a nice cafe Jed’s and had Jamaican Porridge. Here we began our tour trend of baffling waitstaff with our colossal indecision and ridiculous questions. “Are the napkins organic?” While we are actually a dangerously polite band of cardigan wearing vego’s, passive aggressively we can fairly trash the place.

Wednesday July 1. Sydney. Bar Me.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE YOUR OWN TOUR MANAGER: There I am, having the discussion about band meals with the barman. He says we can have a free meal off the $10 board. An hour later he says “I spoke to our manager and he’s veto’d it.” This put me in a massive grump for the rest of the night. I ate my Irish Stew a bit quickly and scolded my mouth.
FUNNY GIG MOMENT: Flutes Magee wandered off stage and came back with the door money, which he’d been given by the door guy getting bored. Flutes handed it to me halfway through a song, as if no other opportunity would present itself.
SOUND GUY: Was great. A sound guy can make or break a night. (That and whether you have to pay for your own soft drink. Here and the Espy…YES). When it’s going well the soundguy is a) into you. b) lets you play your own pre-show music. c) doesn’t say things like ‘Can’t polish a turd’ when you ask for more fold back. When it’s going bad the soundguy is a) a bitter husk of a failed muso glaring at you through butted out eyes.

Thursday July 2. Canberra. ANU.

SANDWICH ADVENTURE
I’d bought a ham and salad roll, but then upgraded my lunch option further up the highway. Two days later it was found hot and steamy in the glove box. We pulled up to a rest stop with a public toilet but no bin. I contemplated hurling it somewhere, but knew that wasn’t my scene, so I decided to put the roll on the roof of the car and not tell anyone and hope it would magically take care of itself. As the car pulled away I noticed a grey haired man suddenly tearing out of the toilets, mouthing something while pointing to the roof of the car. In a chase sequence not unlike Terminator Two, as we continued to crawl away he easily caught up with the vehicle, and handed the sandwich back to me, for which I acted grateful in an AFI winning performance.

DETAILED CANBERRA REPORT TAKEN FROM BMA COLUMN:
The rock and roll circus that was The Bedroom Philosopher tour rolled into Canberra. (More of a Cirque Du Soleil type circus…costumes and pretention). Our party of seven, split into two cars went screaming up Northborne avenue doing at least 70kmh, The Beatles at a sensible volume and my arm holding an empty coffee cup daringly out the window. Nothing we could do could compare to the rebellion of ABC 666. Satan in slacks.

Seeing Canberra for the first time in a while reminded me how squares and circles it is. I went on a rant pretending I was Walter Burley Griffin, it involved a bad European accent and ‘my father was a box maker and I’ve always loved boxes. I also had a spirograph. I wanted Canberra to have a roundabout on every corner, like cement connect four.’

Canberra responded to my humour icily. It was seven degrees and raining when we hit Civic. We checked into the YHA. There was seven of us in an eight room dorm, so we were awkward about a blind date with our extra friend. He turned out to be a meat and potato Irish backpacker airing off his feet, telling us he ‘moight come dern to the univoisitay laytor.’

‘Look for the balls!’ I screamed to the driver as we winded about the back road labyrinth of the ANU. Sure enough, the big cement balls of the ANU bar appeared. Inside, the atmos was pumping. Fluro lights. The patter of evening rain. Three tired students and a Tooheys New keg change. I activated my expectation lowering and nervous energy dispersing subroutines. I reminded everyone that Kurt Cobain had played on this stage, and how people bashed down the doors to see Nirvana. I had visions of a similar event tonight, with people trying to stop me playing I’m So Post Modern.

Post gig we went back to the YHA to drop off stuff and make our beds. I sat, perplexed, staring into space with a fitted sheet half on. My band asked me what was wrong. ‘It’s so boring.’ I replied. We strolled next door into the defunct funk of Transit to get loose. I sat on a stool with Josh Earl and we did our ‘everyone’s nineteen and we’re sitting on stools watching people dance lucky we know we’re cool or we’d be a bit shit’ act. I was feeling a bit restless so I wandered over to play pool. Some dudes already had a coin down and told me so casually. I came back at them with total aggression. I hadn’t drank or smoked for a few days, self enforced mood diet, and I was uptight and ready to go these guys. Some cute first year philosophy girls bailed me up in the corner to tell me that I wasn’t actually a philosopher. I argued that I knew who Socrates was and had read some Alain De Boton but they just laughed. They said some stuff and asked me if I preferred red or white onion and it was probably flirting but then I got tired and left. Michael Jackson came on and I did a tribute shimmy.

Back at the YHA we went up to the games room where some supremely dull tourists were watching the tennis. We whispered discreetly and they glared at us with melancholic hatred. On my way to bed I culture jammed the chalkboard so that ‘Monday: Aussie movies’ said ‘Monday: Ass movies.’ Still got it.

DID YOU KNOW? That while on tour I discovered a new diet of not drinking any sugary drinks or smoking before I got on stage. It made me have a more constant level of energy and not be so frantic.

THE NEXT MORNING: I ordered the pancakes but wished I’d got the omelette. (Who wants to buy the screen rights?)

CAR TETRIS
Jesus wept did we have some trouble packing the two cars. Drumkit, percussion, two amps, sitar, four guitars, merch, bags, fifteen harry potter books, four kilos of sour worms. Suavey was the packing master, but it was dense man, real dense, we needed one of those space saving vacuum seal bags that Nan gives me at Christmas.

FAQ
Q. What was it like having best friend Josh Earl on board?
A. Good thanks. He quickly bonded with the band and did a fantastic job opening. For example, in Canberra he coaxed everyone to the front of the stage, warding off my number one enemy ‘dance floor gap.’ One thing about comedy is it gives you great interpersonal skills with your audience which can really help awkward music venue dynamics. What is WITH audiences watching the support act as far away from the stage as possible? A few people were in their cars watching through binoculars. How did we become so self conscious? I blame the church.
GIG ROCKOUT MOMENT: During ‘Cmon x 5′ I crawled underneath the stage and refused to come out for a while. Some people left and I used my telemarketing technique of conducting an on the spot survey, finding out why they were leaving and did they enjoy the gig. These people ‘had to catch a train’ which is crowd speak for ‘you’re a precocious off-key buffoon.’

WHAT ABOUT FLUTES MAGEE? TELL ME MORE ABOUT HIS ANTICS:
Pre-show some casual girl students asked Flutes about the gig and he went bananas. He said if he span around on one foot while playing flute they would have to come to the gig. The girls accepted the offer and Flutes went pear shaped. I looked up from changing strings to see a lean, moustached, curly haired boy in a jumper leaping wildly about while playing a maddening tableaux of impossibly high woodwind super crotchets. In perfect Canberra uni student form the girls didn’t seem to notice or care.
FLUTES MUSICAL SCREEN SAVER: There was a great trick, if you left Flutes standing still for long enough he’d start playing the James Bond theme.
HOW TO WIN OVER POTENTIALLY SURLY SOUNDIES: Have a sitar in the band.

Friday July 3. Newcastle. The Lass’O'Gowrie Hotel.

The Lass’O'Gowrie is the kind of unpretentious boho sanctum where they have a series of coins lining the bar mantelpiece so if you’re a little bit short of change you can buy yourself a beer. This was a welcome shot of Melbournesque goodwill. I was in a bad mood for various reasons. I wanted to buy the band dinner. I was trying to pay for as many things as I could with my extremely well timed TV money. (I’d been cut off from Centrelink that day.) Tonight there was no door charge and people weren’t there to see us so Josh was the hardest working man in gentle whimsy comedy pop.
OBSCURE CROWD MOMENT: A guy told Josh he’d been ‘powned’ but refused to clarify.
FIRST THING THE SOUNDIE SAID TO US: “I’ve got a blockage in one ear.”
THAT NIGHT: We stayed in an abandoned bowls club turned communal living arrangement between the Newie hip-gyps and indie-ferals. While it was good for the Kerouac page in our bio’s in reality it meant spooning your gurgly band brethren in a damp partitioned costume room with manikin heads peering down on you while a baby screamed for most of the night in the next room. The next day we played a rigorous game of soccer on the bowling green and bought some serious fruit and veg.

Saturday July 4. Byron Bay. Rest Day.

HOW HELPFUL WERE IPHONES IN ALL THIS: Two words, Google Maps. Flutes earned himself the ultimate Australian compliment, the ‘double nickname’ – that’s right, a nickname on top of a nickname by becoming ‘Maps Magee.’ Infact, like the x-men, we all had our areas of speciality:

Gordon “Suavey Shankar” Blake: Packing and energy. He’d be the one up at six to have a surf. We basked in his limitless enthusiasm for madcappery. He and Flutes were the only ones holding up the ‘rock pig’ flag. While the rest of us were all hommus and flossing, he was busting out the tequila for ‘business breakfasts.’

Andy “Nature Boy” Hazel: His studious dedication to reading all of Mad Dog’s copy of the final Harry Potter provided a calming presence, like watching someone rake a zen garden. Also: Snack monitor. His Naturopathy skills ensured a steady flow of fruit and nuts to counteract our sudden obsession with sour worms. (Poor Naturopathy, even spellcheck won’t recognise it.)

Jamie “Hitz Rodriguez” Power: Hitz was great for band spiritual morale, being road captain, and using his years of Yoga instructing and band touring knowledge to keep our physical well being in check. Ie have a stretch and lay off the sausage rolls. He also acted as dietician, working hard to keep me off the sugar to improve my mood. We were also able to learn about his dark past as a mask wearing double kick drummer in a Kiwi thrash metal band.

Hugh “Mad Dog” Rabinovici: First Lieutenant of the hire car and Faff Monitor. Early on in the piece Hugh identified the bands incredible propensity to faff about. From standing around an unpacked car cracking gags to chatting to the sound guy about who supported the Stones in the 70′s. In his most polite after school care tone Mad Dog could be seen clapping hands and starting sentences with ‘all right lads…’

Michael “Flutes Magee” O’Connor: Iphone Map Specialist and ‘special features’ back seat driver. Flutes earned a third nickname, ‘Special Features’ after it was revealed that he would not only tell you about the state of the intersection coming up, but also tell you the cultural history of the highway you were travelling on, when it was built, planned developments and a bibliography. It was all on when Hitz was driving and Flutes was giving him directions such as “the road will veer left here, turn your steering wheel left and the car will stay on the road. Here are some traffic lights, if they are red then you must brake.” Hitz had to salute a lot of suns that day.

Josh “Josh” Earl: Car DJ chieftain. Josh supplied a steady stream of Ryan Adams and bands from New York I’ve never heard of. Not to mention his stoic, upbeat demeanour – a priceless tool. (the demeanour, not him). He also provided an indie nemisis for Nature Boy, the pair constantly trying to out-underground each other.

The drive to Byron included our first annual ‘Rudeo’ This was an internal car holiday giving us license to be rude high school boy style. It was like an episode of Are You Being Served in there. I even followed Josh’s many taunts and bought a dirty magazine from a servo. It was violently disappointing. In a testament to our sensitive Melbourne boy posterior we criticised the state of the journalism and weren’t being ironic. On our way we called into Coffs Harbour and had deliciously fatty fish and chips while sitting on the jetty rocks, yelling at the sea. Afterwards, we bought ice creams and while handing one to Hitz, Nature Boy squeezed too hard and the cone broke. After a long day of Sydney detours and getting lost, Hitz snapped with a tirade of swearing. On tour, it’s the little things that break you.

BYRON: Dudes with their tops off. We escaped Saturday night by watching ‘The Hangover’ and it was ok. The next morning I was cross at the cafe for having fine print which read ‘extra 15% surcharge on weekends.’ I started to feel like a character out of Seinfeld.
SO WHAT DID SUAVEY, MAD DOG, AND FLUTES GET UP TO SATURDAY NIGHT?:
You know the saying, what happens on tour, gets edited in the tour diary based on space restrictions.

Sunday July 5. Brisbane. The Troubadour.

By day five your eyes are maxed out on countryside, silly town names and bemusing business titles like ‘Big Dad’s Pies,’ and ‘Swaggers Motor Inn.’ We played a few driving games. You say a band name like ‘Skunk Anansie’ and the next person must say one starting with the last letter of the last one. (If it’s a double letter, like Supergrass then you change direction). You get three strikes. Nature Boy narrowly beat me. We were rewarded for our last gig of the run with three flights of stairs to load in to the venue. I had foolishly booked a side solo comedy gig for Josh and I at the Brisbane Powerhouse, so was unable to do a sound check. I felt all lame-o so scurried off to find a falafel and jump in a cab for some a-grade ‘tour downtime.’

TOUR DOWNTIME:
It’s not all coke and hookers. In fact, it’s not even coopers green and groupies. It’s more like warm fruit juice and staring at a woman getting in her car at the servo. Tour Downtime is a common factor of touring. With seven grown men in such close proximity, one needs to respect the space and the quest for private time. For me, it was like taking all the best bits of school camps, and applying it to an adult setting. Little things, like a gentle rub on the back as you stared off into space, or an offering of almonds was the closest I’ll feel to having a brother. We noted how unusual it was to have so much exposure to man energy. I myself rarely congregate in groups of men. This felt fun and uncomplicated, like a good relationship.

TOUR UPTIME:
When you’re rocking the bananas out of some prog-novelty folk-rock with your band in hot form and the attentive Brisbane audience in rapturous cheers well, you are in the eye of the bejewelled chrysalis of your creatively climactic youth, aren’t you? You’re validated to the heavens and flying high on mirth and faith and syncopated idea smashing where the hammer of industry fitness reigns down on the flint of a rock hard lifetime’s worth of joys and disasters, sending glistening soul sweat and laser words splicing the silence – the moodquake vibrato of skins slammed and strings ploughed raining a kaleidoscope of idea melodies down on the audience like audio Braille.

BEST AFTER GIG FAN: I adore people coming up afterwards to thank me. Sometimes you get a bit of ‘you probably get this all the time’ or ‘I’m going to sound wanky but…’ but the truth is you can never get enough compliments. An interesting trend with comedy is you get a lot of couples, and often I get couples where the girl has something to say and the boy hovers somewhat protectively in the background. I find this gesture romantic and quite sensible because despite what you might think I am a complete hound and will bed your girlfriend in the time it takes you to buy me a beer. We won’t do anything of course, we’ll just be in bed and I’ll say I’m tired and she’ll huffily read the time travellers wife.
One girl, ‘Dawn’ came up.
Me: Dawn’s a lovely name.
Dawn: Can I tell you a weird story?
Me: Yes.
Dawn: The other day at Boost Juice they asked for my name and I told them and then later when they called out my name they called me ‘Bort.’

LAST NIGHT OF TOUR, TALK US THROUGH THE NO DOUBT CRAZY HIJINKS AND ARRESTS / TATTOOS / UNPLANNED PREGNANCIES AND ILLICIT SUBSTANCE TRAFFICKING. SERIOUSLY HOW NUDE WERE YOU AND HOW MANY HELICOPTERS DID YOU FLY INTO THE CASINO?

We stayed at Hitz’ friends parents house. We found to our bemusement that they’d locked their bedroom doors so we had to spoon in single beds. It was 12 degrees and we only had one bar heater to warm the whole house. We had a beer and some doritos and played half of Odelay on a small stereo and went to bed.

HOMEWARD BOUND (Cue the song in your head and imagine from now on that we are also dogs)
The group split up, not in a ‘I can’t stand the infuriating drone of your voice for one more second, I’m off to pursue a solo project which no matter how much work I put in fans will never embrace’ kind of way. I mean more like the Starship Enterprise can split into two groups. Mad Dog and I set off for a two day, 2000km drive from Brisbane to Melbourne. (Note my skills, the way I phrase things makes it sound like I might have actually done some driving and not just slouched sheepishly cuing Roots CD’s and offering water.) On the way we encountered Goondiwindi, which gets my award for most depressed country town. Lowlights included our daily scrounge for vegetarian fare which ended in an aggressive stand off with a bakery woman who said ‘whatevers in the warmer’ which consisted of eight near empty bay marie trays with a frizzled egg and some grated carrot. I was dressed in black velvet jacket, shorts and blonde birds nest hair and felt intensely self conscious. The overweight women behind the counter smirked amongst themselves in a way that took me back to high school. I’d forgotten in all my Gen-Y super freelance arty fartiness that meanwhile middle Australia was serving pies to truckies and frowning whenever uptight city prix blew in. As I stood in the local target fingering a $32 Pearl Jam best of, while a tubular kid snarled at his rotund mother about which x-box game he wanted, smelling the stale afternoon air and chemically cleaned carpet, I felt a great sadness, quickly anaesthetised with a healthy shot of self-satisfied adrenalin. I was doing well and had the option of getting in a car and getting the hell back to my home. I’d worked hard and I deserved to feel grateful.

Vegie pocket crumbs dropped on the boot tramped girlie magazine, as my feet sent a ten pin of empty water bottles spiralling in all directions. I put on Fourtet, the minimalist beat matching the white stripes of the road, and sank back in my seat as the burnt orange sun sank behind some fat macrocarpas, Mad Dog set the car in cruise and tapped a jazz signature on the steering wheel. We counted down the k’s and spliced through the haze.
ALWAYS THE SOUND: Of an engine.

TOUR RATING: #1 baby.
HEY AWKWARDSTRA: Thanks, I love you.

THE END

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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!

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NOTICE AND DISCLAIMER:
May you always feast liberally from your cosmic platter of creative inklings.

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ISSUE 73
Wednesday September 30, 2009.

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LT BIRTHDAYS

Happy Birthday Kieran Culkin 27 today!
Happy Birthday Martina Hingis 29 today!
Happy Birthday Fran Drescher 52 today!

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COOL SHOP
Having trouble finding Bedroom Philosopher albums and products? Forget passive aggressive conversations with aloof staff and settling with Motorace, now you can buy direct from The Philosopher himself and keep his fiscal economy thriving.
Items can be posted to you hastily and tastily within days, HAND SIGNED by the relatively well known pro-am social-lite himself! You then do a direct deposit like some whizz-kid.
You can get stuff like:
Brown & Orange
In Bed With My Doona
Limited Edition ‘Lifearooni’ Royal blue Tshirts. (S, M, L, XL) in men’s and ladies sizes.
All $25 inc. postage. Buy multiple items and save on maths!
Lay-by available! Up to 24 cat years. Email now! Our operators are lying down.

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URBAN HEADLINES

SECRET SONG ON END OF CD COULD PROBABLY HAVE BEEN LEFT OFF
MAN FEELS WEIRD AFTER TIPPING AGAINST OWN FOOTBALL TEAM
UNI STUDENT PRETENDS TO UNDERSTAND BOB DYLAN LYRIC
FILM BUFF DISTRACTED BY MARGARET POMERANZ’ SNORT LAUGH
HAIRDRESSER FLIPPANT ABOUT CLIENTS DAY
SPORTS DRINK COULD JUST BE CORDIAL
FASHION MAGAZINE NICE PLACE TO VISIT WOULDN’T WANT TO LIVE THERE
BOY UNABLE TO DATE AFTER REALISING ALL CANDIDATES ARE HIS FRIENDS
GIRL SECRETLY BORED AFTER BAND START TO GET A BIT SAMEY
ARTIST FEELS PATRONISED IN BANK
TWO AND A HALF MEN ON AGAIN
TEENAGER INTIMIDATING
CIGAR BAD IDEA
FRIENDS STORY ABOUT WORK COULD HAVE DONE WITH EDIT
BOY FORCED TO NURSE BACKPACK AFTER JIGGLY BUS TRIP
FACEBOOK BASICALLY A SOCIAL POKER MACHINE
TEXT MESSAGE GRAMMAR SUFFERS
WOMAN CAN’T REMEMBER WHAT SHE DID TWO BIRTHDAYS AGO
OLD HIGH SCHOOL FRIEND PUTS ON WEIGHT
MULTI VITAMIN DOES LITTLE OTHER THAN MAKE WEE BRIGHT YELLOW

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TINY LEGENDS – Moments that fell down the back of the couch.

From Tom.

“I was walking to the toilet at work the other day, and this guy from an office we share the floor with walked past me. He’s a tall, beardy, somewhat gormless kind of guy – very quite and he looks angry most of the time. I’ve never heard him say a word to anyone (not even his colleagues – even though I guess he must) and definitely not me. But as he walked past me, very quietly, just under his breath, he whispered:
“sausage roll”
I still don’t know if he was talking to me or himself. I kind of hoped it was me… we haven’t shared a word since.

EMAIL US YOUR TINY LEGENDS.

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INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENT NOTICES

******
SICK
******
From Kelly Chandler, Melbourne.

“The Cure ‘Standing On A Beach: The Singles / The Unavailable B-Sides.’ Loaned by Jon Paterson from Donny Hood in year 10 and never returned because got lost in the b-bits while smoking out bedroom window. After constant rotation, discovered today slightly chewed by tape player, still working but wonky. (i) may never recover.”

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WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
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SEND YOUR BEREAVEMENT NOTICES TO THIS ADDRESS.

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!

Phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website:

“deliberately wacky”
“illegal drag racing tasmania”
“indecent obsession hey hey its saturday”
“bedroom linen associations”
“i forgot my girlfriends name”
“rodney rude asian names”
“where to buy retro australian lollies”
“where can i get harry potter glasses in albury”
“record for continuous swinging”
“drunk stirrup pants”
“hot hipster girls”
“amstrad computer club adelaide”
“justin blasko “
“how to remove ribena carpet”
“why is the coldest place up high if it s closer to the sun”
“i’m so postmodern i got drunk just on the thought of you fell into a coma and couldn’t be revived…”
“where do you buy inner tubes for wheelbarrows parramatta”
“funny bushwalking anecdotes”
“great novels to create a novelty showbag on”
“airwolf wallpaper 4 bedroom”
“blouse for broken arm”
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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

Last month the one and only Tony Martin (as in the one and only one who’s not the actor one) came on my Triple R Show ‘Lime Champions’ and delivered this now legendary piece of superbole. It is THE BEST.

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS

SYDNEY
The Vanguard, Thursday October 29. Details TBA. This will be a solo headline show.

I shall also be Mcing at the Sydney Comedy Store October 20-31. Tue-Sat. (not the 21st or 29th).
For more info: www.comedystore.com.au/

MELBOURNE: Toff In Town Tuesday residency w/ The Awkwardstra in December.

DARWIN: Never again.

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STORYTIME

(Brought to you by the reverb drenched outfit straight out of Carlton ‘Mercury Fev.’ New single ‘Pressure point’ out yestermorrow.)

(NOTE: A while back I interviewed the inventor of the Golden Gaytime in Adelaide. I wrote up the story for a magazine. They were about to run it when they got in touch with Streets to request some photos. Streets denied all knowledge of this man, and claimed he didn’t invent the ice cream. The magazine decided not to go with the story. What a conspiracy! Is it a case of corporate politics – the big company trying to steal the credit straight out of the little guy’s hand, or did I spend an hour with a man who roams the countryside claiming to have invented everything from vegemite to the spork? You decide.)

Most of us have had a Golden Gaytime moment. You’re at the milk bar, clutching Australia’s most iconic ice cream. The shopkeeper eyeballs you. At the last minute you lose your nerve and end up grabbing milk, bread and a newspaper with the yellow sliver tucked sheepishly underneath. You race out of the shop and down an alley. You rip off the wrapper and bite into the delicious soft combo of toffee and biscuit crumbs, free from retribution. Being a long-term fan of the treat with the timeless design and hilarious name, I once wrote a song about it that got played on the radio. I was contacted by the creator’s ‘people’ saying that he’d like a copy. I obliged, asking in return to interview the mysterious John Milton at his home in Adelaide. In a brilliant twist, the creator of the Golden Gaytime turns out to be the most laid-back Aussie bloke I’ve ever met. With silver hair, stern expression and laconic humour, the man who now runs a car spray-boothing business sits poolside chain smoking and speaking matter of factly about ice cream production.

“Back in the late 60′s they were really experimenting to see what people wanted. The Golden Gaytime was based on an ice cream that was vanilla with a chocolate coating on it. When the ice cream was removed from the mould and still warm we tried to apply the remnants of peanuts left over from Max Noblets (Nobby’s) peanut factory in Adelaide. It used to stick in your teeth so that wasn’t too good. For a fleeting time we started to apply coco pops or rice bubbles. That didn’t work either.”

When John realised that broken biscuit pieces were being thrown out at the factory down the road, he made a connection.

“We supplied a lot of butter oil for their Yo-Yo biscuits. It was a matter of the driver coming back and saying what are they gonna do with all those waste biscuits? So I said ‘let’s take a look at it.’”

The biscuit pieces were then blown onto the warm chocolate giving us the ice cream we know today. In this sense the Golden Gaytime was eco friendly well before its time.

“It was all experimental. We were just fiddling with food. We used to go and play in the laboratories and see what we could mess up next. We had two doctors in there and yeah it was fun. It kept you thinking.”

When I first contacted John, his tone was one of bemusement that the Golden Gaytime could have had such a lasting impact. Throughout the interview he is defiantly modest about his iced legacy.

“The Gaytime just evolved. It wasn’t anything special at the time that you’d beat drums about. It was just another ice cream on another stick. You know, the humdrum of what you do daily it wasn’t anything we thought was gonna save the world, it was just bringing out another line. Understand what the people want and give it to them. We were happy when we produced a line that was successful. You couldn’t sit back there and pamper with your ego, all you did was get on and produce the next line. I don’t think it was so much pride as intrigue. It was only supposed to last three months.”

John informs me that for every Golden Gaytime success story there were another ten ice creams left splattered on the factory floor.

“There’s dozens of them we went through. They brought one out called the aniseed high top. It was a delightful thing to eat but any white clothes it marked so that didn’t last too long. A delightful ice cream we called the south pacific as they’d brought out the movie and everyone was going troppo about it so we brought out this half banana half something else and that failed within three weeks. Our greatest delight was to manufacture dandy cups of ice cream and raisins with a hard dosing of rum. They were pretty well over proof ice cream. They used to have them after the RSL Anzac day marches but unfortunately one year they got mixed up and a lot of them ended up in the Country Women’s Association. They didn’t order them next year.”

While for many of us working in an ice cream factory sounds like a dream job, John speaks of an intense workload. During summer, when production was at its highest, he would sometimes work around the clock, sleeping at the factory. This was on top of the constant pressure to come up with the next ‘hit.’

“When you’ve got to sit down and come up with a new ice cream every three months it’s a bit daunting. We used to go out to the schools and talk to the kids. You’d produce a line, take it out to the primary school, line up all the infants and say ‘well what do you think of that?’ Try and get an opinion out of them. They liked anything free anyway so it was a bit of a lost argument.”

After about a decade, John left the dairy game to work in other areas of food production. While he can still enjoy an ice cream, life has delivered an ironic fate.

“I’m not supposed to have them because I’m diabetic. I still go three or four a week. There’s a wrapper under the front seat of the car I think. I’ve got to hide them from the wife. I bought a Golden Gaytime the other day and they’re pretty thin so they must be making their profit out of it. They used to be a larger wedge, a heavier weight in ice cream, so maybe it’s only half gay.”

John isn’t able to shed much light on how the name came about. He says it was the result of a ‘toss-around’ by the advertising company at the time.

“How it related to ice cream I never knew but it sounded all right at the time. I think the name is the thing that keeps it going. Everybody looks at one now and oh, I don’t know what their movements are but there’s nothing gay about the bloody ice cream I can tell you that. I suppose if you made an ice cream called a virgin ice cream it might sell like hell as well. The lesbian fruit-choc or something like that.”

In the late 90′s Streets brought out the Chocolate Golden Gaytime and one in a cone. To me both were like eating a pot plant.

“That’s the variations by bad management. It’s how far you can push a name. To me, a Holden’s a Holden and a Gaytime’s a Gaytime. You bring a Holden out as a Vauxhall Vectra it’s lost the name again. If you bring out another ice cream that’s not quite the same as the original Gaytime people will go off it. There was a Cherry Golden Gaytime but that didn’t last. We tried fudge in one at one stage.”

I can’t help myself “you had to try and pack some fudge into a Golden Gaytime?” John continues, endearingly oblivious. At this point I remind myself that I’m listening to a man talk matter of factly about the ice cream control room, right after comparing them with cars. I finish the interview by thanking John for creating my favourite ice-cream, which raises a wry smile. For him the Golden Gaytime is just another ice cream on another stick, but for generations of Australians it is a socially complicated but ultimately rewarding love affair of yum.

THE END

NOTE: The audio of this story is embedded at the end of the first Lime Champions podcast.

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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!

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NOTEY & DISCOCLAM: Please consider the emotional environment before dissing this e-mail.
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Any needy or somewhat hot guys from certain angles contained in this e-flail and detachments must be handled by a bear trainer with sturdy gloves in accordance with the Grinformation Spact 2000 (Honolulu), the Whiffy Cheddar Act 2001 and the Tractor Gack 1888 (Commonwelf), as crapplicable.
This e-wail, including all hope, is confipoogal. If you are not the intended recipient, then duck down and remain under your desk in a non-responsive manner for up to eight hours or until thermos time. Any seduction, horse-play or inciting of jelly based social events based on this twee-mail is punauthorised. Recommendations. MUSIC: Ambivalence Avenue – Bibio TV: Madmen BOOKS: The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler. FOOD: Chilli’s/garlic/soy/oyster/chinese5spice in a stir fry. MOVIE: The Truman Show. THING: Not sabotaging happiness by subconsciously synthesising some dilemma that you will then have to solve, maintaining the self fulfilling prophecy of stress and drama that is your life. You are beautiful, or else.

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