Aloha Tiggerfolk!
Play the new game:
ROCK STAR!
BAND NAME!
HIT SINGLE!

How to play:

A) Work out your rock star name. FIRST NAME: This is your nan or pop’s first name hyphenated with your SECOND pet’s name. SURNAME: Your second ever street name. For example, my Pop’s name is Leonard. My second ever pet was a cat called Snowy. My second ever street name was Totterdell. Therefore, my rock star name is Leonard-Snowy Totterdell.
(NOTE: If you’ve only ever had one pet, or street name, take that. If you’ve never had a pet or street, contact administration for further counselling)

B) Work out your band name. To do this, you need to find an anagram of your full name (middle name too). The best way to do this is to download BLACKDOG’S ANAGRAM GENERATOR here:
http://blackdog4kids.com/games/word/martin.mamo

(You may have to download a little runtime program for it to work, it may take about five minutes)
Once you have it running. Type in your full name and hit ‘anagram now’ pick the one that you like best. For example, Justin Marcus Heazlewood becomes:
SIMULTANEOUS CHOW DAZE JR.

C) Work out the title of your hit single. This must come from a sentence in the last text message you received. It can be a word, fragment, or the whole sentence. For example, the last text I received was from Tom Doig, and I have taken “Come play on Thursday.”

Send in your entries in this format.
Name: Justin Marcus Heazlewood
Rock star name: Leonard-Snowy Totterdell.
Band name: Simultaneous Chow Daze Jr.
Hit Single: “Come play on Thursday.”

Leave your entries in the ‘Comments’ section at the end of this News brief!

NEWS (brought to you by ‘Optimus Prime’s’ stunning new acid jazz album ‘Fold me into a truck, milady.’ Even the most decepticonic of critics are raving. Let this challenging collection of saxophone and vocoder anthems ‘transform’ you.)

• I’ll be returning to Melbourne for three days on the 17th. Then off to Tasmania for a week on the 20th. Then I’ll be playing at the Tasmanian Falls Festival, before returning to Sydney for at least a couple of weeks.

• The Ronnie Johns Half Hour is resting, after having six episodes aired. The Christmas episode, of which I wrote the ‘photocopier whisperer’ sketch, will be repeated on Christmas day – and then the rest of the series will follow – I think. The show has rated well – moving up to 500, 000 viewers for the last episode. There’s no news of a second series, as yet. We are, however, talking seriously about contacting an acting agency for TV monkeys.

* After two attempts, I have retired as ‘warm-up guy’ for the Ronnie Johns live nights. My second stint began spiritedly, but soon dissolved into a fringe stroking confidence implosion – involving me hiding behind one of the television monitors and trying to disappear like Cat Power does at her gigs. My own personal ‘jumping the shark’ moment was when I’d abandoned any sense of ‘sport’ to determine which audience members ended up with items from the box of merchandise I had, and was just handing/hurling out Channel Ten pens and X-Factor CD wallets. At one point, after sending a barrage of objects into an unlit section of the audience, I hit a woman square in the face with an Australian Idol hardcover notebook and pen set. To make up for the blunder, I ensured she was renumerated with a CD-wallet, glowstick and a large quantity of pens. I’m thinking I would have been a good warm-up guy for a show like ‘Party of Five.’

• I received this poem from a fan called ‘James’:

If you’re depressed:
your really good
If cos your famous your now stuck up:
you suck.
* I attended the Triple J Christmas party in Sydney recently. My first conversation with anyone went like this:
Me: Do you know who won the J-award?
Guy: Wolfmother
Me: Damn, I really wanted Claire Bowditch to win. So what’s the J-award for, best album or best band?
Guy: Best album I think.
Me: Right. So have you heard the Wolfmother album?
Guy: Yeah. I’m in Wolfmother, so I’ve heard it quite a lot.
* ‘I’m So Postmodern’ will be in the Triple J Hottest 100 list again this year! Last year the song made it to #180 with only two months of being played – it’s been requested heavily this year and a similar campaign will be launched to vote in next LapTopping in early January. Voting begins January 1.
* I’ve written a couple of new songs lately. ‘Blue Chords’ is about lay-bying a pair of blue cords from Revolver. ‘Tessa the Hairdresser’ was kinda abandoned after an enthusiastic first verse and chorus. As was my prototype Christmas anthem ‘The whole world’s f*ucked’ written at six in the morning after a bender at the Town Hall Hotel. While in ‘Circus Bear,’ I’m going for the world record for saddest comedy song ever written. The ‘memory from the 80’s and early 90’s song’ that many of you contributed has reached its first draft stage! Next issue I shall splash it out and see what you think.
* Recommended website – www.one.org. You can save the world Pooglet. After this, you can have a giggle at: http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29830 – tip-off courtesy of Leigh Rigozzi.