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LapTopping – 76 – “Maggi Happens”

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

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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.”

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WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
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SEND YOUR BEREAVEMENT NOTICES 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:

“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

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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 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. ****************************************************************************

Early Girlfriends (2010 – The Big Issue)

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In grade 10, my girlfriend Kristen cheated on me with an older guy. When I say older, I mean he was on his P’s. I’d tried everything I could with her: a four-hour phone conversation when we lived half-an-hour away; some serious leg playing; I even let her boss me around and change her mind every five minutes about whether my school shoes were ‘yay’ or ‘nay’. She ate my chips, she finished my jokes, she left cryptic messages on my pencil case. Now I think about it, she was pretty annoying.

As an apology for cheating on me she blu-tacked the lyrics to Roxette’s ‘It Must Have Been Love’ to my locker. I was devastated. It wasn’t my locker. She’d been seeing eight other guys while we were together. The ‘youth group’ she’d taken me to was just a big second date.

Earlier, in grade six, I had been part of a girlfriend lottery scheme for four-eyed boys. I was placed next to Tennille. She was from New Zealand and had brown skin, blue eyes and a shy but funny demeanour. I was an egg with a bowl cut. We wrote letters to each other, sat next to each other at play-lunch, I think once we even spoke. Crunch time came during the school camp. It was night and we were wandering around the bush, high on Chomps. With childlike curiosity, and not-so-subtle urging from friends, we gravitated towards the back of the cabins; alone for the first time. We stood there staring at the moon-flecked wood pine for 10 minutes. Neither of us spoke. I didn’t breathe.

My brain had bungee-jumped into my heart, which was skydiving into my stomach, which had unravelled down my legs. I knew why we were there, but I also knew that it was impossible. She was so lovely and warm, and waiting patiently, and if I had just let my eyes close and my face drift forward, guiding it gently against hers – the softest snap-crackle-tickle could have been mine. I did not. Would not. Couldn’t. With twigs cracking like Pop Rocks, I led us back to our friends.

A few weeks later, Tennille said she didn’t want to keep being my girlfriend. This message was delivered by her friend, in a note, photocopied from a Magna Doodle. I went into denial, relying on a cocktail of Ovalteenies and Fruita to get by. Where had it gone wrong? I attributed it to the fact that the day before, Mum had come to pick us up in her little Yellow VW Beetle. The thing roared like Crazy Frog and looked like a Matchbox Pop Ball. Tennille didn’t look so rapt about being in the back seat. Yet the more I think about it, the more I come back to that night behind the cabins. I had revealed a crucial weakness of character. I had tucked my windcheater into my shorts.

My first real kiss wouldn’t come until four years later, when I started wearing contact lenses and girls realised I was all right in the face. I used to attend a regular Christian camp, which had such dangerous rope swings (not to mention ute-powered grass sledding) that it was in your best interests to have JC on side. Saturday nights were always pretty flirty and we’d guzzle our desserts down, watching girls from afar. Once, a love-struck couple got their braces stuck together and they had to call in the SES.

Through a series of whispers and trampoline dares, I’d paired up with Chantel, both of us shy and second-tier cool. We meandered up the gravel road and, under a clear night sky, I told my body that history wouldn’t repeat. It’s a shame it didn’t, because we bumped teeth. Several times. Even God had to look away. It lasted a couple of minutes, after which we slunk back in silence, too embarrassed to ever talk to each other again.

Twelve years on, not much has changed. Only now I bump hearts.

 

 

Northcote (So Hungover) lyrics.

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Hello. Oh hey Joel how you going? Ya. I’m just on a, uh, tram, just really hungover. Hey, you know that um, band competition we went in, So You Think You Can Copy? Yeah, we won man! Yeah we got a record contract out of it. We’re with like Independent Records, they’re like an off-shoot of Sony. Ya we have to make like one over-hyped album, we get uh, Molly Meldrum kudos, Rage guest programming rights, a memory stick full of Myspace friends and we can write the soundtrack to an ad of our choice. Na man we haven’t sold out, we’ve still got creative control. Oh, our t-shirts, yeah extra smalls have gone. We like changed our name too, we’re like Rage Against The Sewing Machine, we’re all about anger and fashion. How is your album going? Yeah you laid down some tracks? Oh, actual tracks, for Connex? Yeah right. I guess you’ve got to pay for the studio hire huh? What’s it called again? ‘Z-sides and Demos.’ What’s a greatest hits concept EP? Nothing but secret tracks. Yeah right. Are you worried about people burning it? I meant in a fire. Hey, did I mention we picked up a grant? Yeah, Grant Taylor, our bass player. We picked him up from the side of the road, he was like passed out. Ya, we had to deal with an agent and everything. Demestos mainly, he was in pretty bad shape.

RIDING AROUND ON THE 86, SO HUNGOVER.
GONNA GO DOWN TO JB HIFI, FLICK THROUGH INDIE.

Ya so um, last night we supported uh, Pose Tattoo, like they’re fronted by Sad Sanderson down at the Fitzroy anti-social club. Ya. It was alright man but you know the mixing was really bad. Like, my G & T didn’t even have lemon in it. You know like the band’s really gelling, like our hair, it’s just like we’re going through an 80’s thing at the moment. Anyway man sorry I couldn’t come to your gig the other night, I just didn’t really want to go. How was it? Ya, you smashed up your gear afterwards, that’s pretty rock. Oh, in a car accident, yeah right, that’s not so good man. Hey I had to go to hospital the other day too. It’s these new jeans man. I just couldn’t get my wallet out. Yeah. They had to cut me out. A local anesthetic.

RIDING AROUND ON THE 86, SO HUNGOVER.
GONNA GO DOWN TO PONY, PRETEND I’M IN KINGS OF LEON.

Ya, I just, I’m really busy you know, I’ve just got so much on my plate. I got this uh, tofu salad and it’s just going everywhere man. You know this whole like record contract and stuff I just, I don’t want it to go to my head you know the last thing I wanna do is become like a cliched character. Anyway man I better go I’m like running out of street credit but um, ya, it’s a shame you can’t come to my party. I know, I just didn’t invite you though. Laterz.

Purchase through iTunes.

LapTopping – 75 – “Marigold Atlas”

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

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DEAD
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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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News 10/2/2010

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NOTE: Northcote (So Hungover) is temporarily down from iTunes so the album can be uploaded April 16. Northcote (So Hungover) was the most requested song on JJJ’s Super Requests last week! Also I won the Green Room award for ‘Best Cabaret Production’ for Songs From The 86 Tram.

* ‘Tram Inspector’ the first single from Songs From The 86 Tram has been getting a fair spin around Melbourne. It scored Single Of The Week’ in Inpress: “….The Bedroom Philosopher’s hysterical skewering of meat-headed ticketing inspectors falls somewhere between a Fame-era Bowie slink and inspirational Hunners balladry. I like my musical comedy to, as the name suggests, be musically captivating first, funny second. Luckily, with Tram Inspector, both come equal first.” Clem Bastow. It’s up on iTunes. Triple J have favoured ‘Northcote (So Hungover)’, my first playlist add since Pomo in ’05. The album is looking set to come out late March.

* Would anyone like to do a remix of one of the album tracks?

* A big ‘ol BP ad will feature in the next Frankie magazine, due out mid-Feb. This includes details of a run of dates April/May with Josh Earl, who is about to unleash his ‘Womans Weekly Cake Book’ fury on Australia. We’ll be touring Canberra, Sydney, Adelaide, Hobart and Launceston. I’ll be doing Brisbane solo.

* I’ve moved house, again. The fifth sharehouse in two years. Is this some kind of record? Is it the fact I write my name on my bananas? I think this is the one. Neat location, cheap rent, sweet people (a couple), quiet surrounds and a bedroom with an adjoining sunroom bit separated by doors that I can set up as an office. This is something I’ve wanted for a while, to avoid the OCD nature of self-managed admin hell, where the first thing you do each day is check your emails in the nude.

* Lime Champions is back on the air after a summer break. You can tune in every Monday at 7pm on Melbourne’s Triple R. Or stream it live, relatively easily at www.rrr.org

* I’ve ceased my columns with Canberra streetpress BMA and The Big Issue. This is due to increased busyness. I got a bit burnt out towards the end of last year. At one point I made a play castle out of toast and tiny teddy’s.

* I sold some stuff on Ebay for the first time. The highlight was a promotional photo of the Sick Puppies from 2001 (my uni journalism days) which fetched $30 from a Japanese gal. I also got $10 for some old ‘Chaser’ newspapers from a guy on Magnetic Island who requested that I ‘pack well please.’ The rest was the best of my basketball card collection from 1994. (I amassed about 750 LA Laker cards. Pity they were such a crap team back then.) Unfortunately, most of my Magic Johnson laker cards didn’t go past $1, which made the exercise a bit more trouble than it was worth. (Especially when I spent $30 on an online subscription to find out what the cards were worth. Not much. I needed some Shaq rookie action. Shaq attack! (Sorry if I’ve lost you girls.)

CLICK ON POSER BELOW, I MEAN POSTER TO BOOK TICKETS!