hot soup girl

Voodoo.

2005-08-28T02:22:00.000+10:00

hot soup girl: I watch some crap on television. Last night I watched Pretty Woman, The Director's Cut and read the original screenplay at the same time. I conducted this experiment for the benefit of science, but did science thank me? No.

Signalstation: There was a director's cut? I hope it involved the director getting cut.
Signalstation: Tiny little cuts on the arms and legs that will get infected.
Signalstation: wait... I just realized you said you had the screenplay. Why?

hot soup girl: The director's cut addendum was the only reason I watched it. I was hoping for a gritty, unhappy ending.
hot soup girl: I'm joking.

Signalstation: Ah. Thank goodness.

hot soup girl: Well, sort of. Apparently the original screenplay was quite different to the one they ended up filming. In the original, Julia Roberts' character is a hypersexual drug addict, and ends up being rejected by Richard Gere. It ends badly.
hot soup girl: Mary Gaitskill says that when the director of The Secretary first approached her about adapting her short story, he promised her that he wouldn't 'do a pretty woman' to the original text.

Signalstation: The craziest I've done is watched the film while dressed all trampy and humming "Some Day My Prince Will Come" the whole time. I figured it might work like a magical love spell, luring a rich man to find me, see the movie and clothes, get the hint and whisk me away from all this.

hot soup girl: That sounds like voodoo.
hot soup girl: Did a rich man find you?

Signalstation: Not yet.

hot soup girl: Well, one can hope.

Signalstation: And this make-up is getting kinda crumbly.... it's been years.

I'm Not Alive.

2005-04-21T16:22:00.000+10:00

Hey baby. What've you, uhm, been up to?

Right, right. Yeah, me too. Real busy, y'know how it is. Well, first I had to go on tour with the Billy Corgan Poetry Roadshow, giving him enunciation training and packing his mouth with dry ice between readings. Then I fell off a ladder while polishing the smoke alarm, plus the phone got disconnected so I had to communicate with the outside world using only my pheromones. Which was pretty exhausting, and frankly I don't think my glands have had a workout like that for ages.

So yeah. Nice to see you.

In other news, my housemate, K, stuck his head out of a first floor window yesterday and when he looked down, he saw Nicholas Cage and crew filming 'Ghost Rider' in a Melbourne alleyway. Highlights apparently included watching Nicholas ostentatiously 'prepare' for his role between scenes: chanting 'I'm NOT ALIVE! I'm NOT ALIVE! I'm NOT ALIVE!' (the titular character of 'Ghost Rider', for those who don't know, isn't alive) and loudly singing the intro to 'Surf Safari' by the Beach Boys between takes. K shared a clandestine eye-rolling moment with a member of the crew before leaving Mr Cage to it (where 'it' equals getting your wig fluffed by an assistant). Wish I'd been there. Lucky bastard.

Girlfriend in a Coma.

2004-11-22T20:22:00.000+10:00

hot soup girl: Here's my idea: you pay a corporation to put you in an induced coma for a month or two, while they run your life for you. You wake up and everything's been dealt with - ex-partners broken up with gracefully, all messy loose ends tied up - and you just pick up where they've left off. Robots may be involved.

signalstation: maybe a robot duplicate of yourself?

hot soup girl: Sure, why not?

signalstation: I'm glad it was that easy to convince you. I was ready to weep hot tears of frustration if you weren't willing to concede.

hot soup girl: I'm all for the robot. I'm thinking it would look like a rough fascimile of you, with a plate printed on its chest letting people know that they're interacting with a proxy.

signalstation: A proxy that thinks nothing of extending a middle digit and telling someone on your behalf to "sit on it and spin, shit-eyes" while breaking up with them.

hot soup girl: Maybe. Personally, I'd like my facsimile to deal with the situation with grace, self-respect and compassion. It's just that I'd rather sleep through the accompanying suffering, while the robot glides through with emotional imperviousness.

signalstation: Ah. See, I want a two-fisted duplicate. One with a reputation so fearsome that people will plead with me not to enter that coma.

hot soup girl: That works.
hot soup girl: This idea reminds me of the induced comas that opera singers opted for in the 70s as a effortless weight-loss solution.
hot soup girl: That didn't work out too well. Probably because the appropriate robot technology hadn't evolved yet.

Do you like the internet?

2004-09-21T23:38:00.000+10:00

Oh, I know, everyone says they do.

Three things:

1. Check out the amazing art of Ray Caesar, reminiscent of work by Mark Ryden (and Loretta Lux too, actually). I'm particularly in love with cat girl, supergirl, the girl with the eyeball and the girl with the unwieldy cranial protrusion and fibrous arms. Deliciously wrong.

2. I stumbled across a new word today: 'callipygian'. It is my gift to you, and to your perfectly formed buttocks.

3. And lastly, look, I am not kidding about this: clicking on the next link will take you directly to Batman and Robin porn. (I concede: this isn't going to work out for everyone, but I think it's neat, in an 'Oh dear' sort of way.)

Briefing.

2004-09-16T01:57:00.000+10:00

Okay, thanks for coming in. We're running a little late, so let's jump to it and get the briefing underway.

Firstly: the goddamnest most funniest dinosaurs I ever did saw.

Secondly: Charlie White and Joshua.

Thirdly: blueprints of sitcom houses (and a map of Gilligan's Island) by Mark Bennett.

Fourthly: masks. Masks and masks and masks and masks and masks.

That's it. Please take your dossiers with you and follow Frank to the armoury, where you will be equipped with matching engagement rings that release an odourless knockout gas. Have fun, kids!

Feathers.

2004-06-06T01:18:00.000+10:00

I did some calculations, and in the end, decided on a pelican. My first choice, a swan, appealed for romantic reasons, but lacked stamina. Geese, though stout, resilient and certainly capable of flying across whole oceans at a time - as I myself would need to - were too trapped by flock mentality. I mean honestly - who can be bothered with fixed migratory routes and V-formations? Pfft. It's a culture I have no time for, and frankly, that's why I dropped out of highschool in the first place. And so, a pelican: clumsy, sincere, beautiful in flight; ugly, so they say, in repose. Good at fishing. Longest beak in the world. I'd hoped you might like that.

Next thing you know, there I am, stumbling out of the library with an armful of books on feather chemistry and wind dynamics and maps of tiny un-named mid-Pacific atolls (just rocks really, but somewhere to rest along the way). With a scalpel, I cut out pictures and made a collage: a caricature, sure, but good enough for creative visualisation. Then I stole a bunch of graph paper from the art shop and spread it out on the carpet at home. For diagrams. I turned the laundry into the Coral Sea; the hallway runner into the Equator. Micronesia sprinkled across the kitchen floor like crumbs.

Abraham Ortelius drew the first map of the Pacific ocean in 1589, and these days they take photographs from satellites. But there's never been a map like mine: a bird's eye view, for reals. I've sent it to you in the mail, fifty sheets rolled up inside a gym bag. It'll get there before I do.

When I arrive, I'll come to you as you leave the office. I don't know what day, or even, really, what month, but I'll get there and I'll wait for you in the carpark at closing time, pectinated claws folded neatly beneath my soiled plumage. Perhaps I'll sit on the bonnet of your burnt umber Ford Escort and rest my wrinkled, scrotal neck pouch against your windscreen. I will preen, I will oil myself, I will run my tattered bill through my down, because I want to look my best, for you. But there will be broken feathers, injuries, a bleeding tongue. Lice, too, no doubt. I could almost fall asleep there on the hot metal, dreaming of the many times I considered drowning. I could have happily dropped straight into the sea - plummeted, pinions tucked to my sides - were it not for the memory of your soft seafoam skin, the white sandbar of your forehead, the coastal sweep of your receding hairline.

I will tuk-tuk my lower mandible in exhaustion, and wait. I'll be patient. I'll shut my eyelids and picture a nest: three plain, bluish eggs. I'll be patient, and wait for you to finish work and find me. What a surprise it will be. I'll be patient. I know how your boss likes to keep you late on Fridays. I can wait.

Blink blonk blunk.

2004-02-28T00:47:00.000+10:00

'Driver', the latest issue of Cordite is up. It's sexxxy.

Also, toy piano music.

Fonda.

2004-02-07T21:49:00.000+10:00

HSG: Have you ever heard Jane Fonda's Workout tape?

K: No.

HSG: I heard it once when I was fifteen, and all I remember is Jane Fonda screaming 'Make it BURN!' over and over.

K: Sounds terrifying. Why is she telling people to set fire to things? That doesn't sound like effective exercise.

HGS: Exactly. It's more like Jane Fonda's Arson tape.

Organ Grinding.

2004-02-07T21:27:00.000+10:00

Has it been a while since you saw some monkey automata?

Thought so.

I can see it in your eyes: dull, haunted, monkey-less.

Honeybunny, put down the saucepan. Come to papa.

Tiara.

2004-01-26T01:26:00.000+10:00

Call it a sabattical: I spent some time wearing a tiara at the beach. Those who know me in real life know this is not a fabrication.

So, a brand new year, and lots of things are different already. Mister Pants has returned. Spalding Gray has gone missing. Angels are falling out of the sky like broken satellites.

Also, a friend of mine, Simmone Howell, now has a story up at the Barcelona Review. Fancy.

I've got two pieces up too, a pdf of an old poem at Going Down Swinging , and a search poem called A Prank Call To John Howard in the latest issue of Cordite.

A search poem, by the way, is what you get when you type a 'title' into, say, Google, and then fashion the results into something that looks like a poem. Mine are not the best example of the form; I suggest checking out some of the others on the site.

Haiku Mania.

2003-11-20T00:31:00.000+10:00

Davey Dreamnation, the hand inside the puppet head at Cordite and ludicrously successful musical 'artist' (who acknowledges the following as influences: 'Drugs, opinions, music, media, beauty, penguins, vanilla slice, national anthems, sports modelling') has just returned from the World Haiku Conference in Japan. Here's a sample of what he had to offer.

Sick.

2003-11-20T00:24:00.000+10:00

Trust me, even if I'd been around this week, you wouldn't have liked it. I've had stomach flu since Friday night and have been crawling around the bathroom floor throwing up and fainting and stuff. I am up to Day Number Five in bed. I am seriously hardcore. I rock it to the tip top. I am so hip it hurts, gastro-intestinally.

Meanwhile, I heard you were looking for these:

* Your pen
* Your photo album
* Your vinyl collection
* Your pay cheque
* Your mother

Funny how they're always in the last place you look.

Furry Pop.

2003-11-04T12:31:00.000+10:00

Been listening to Olivia Newton John singing 'Physical' tonight. Especially the bit at the end where she gets all raunchy and primal:

Let's get animal, animal
I wanna get animal
Let's get into animal...

I cannot resist singing along, but add the word 'suits' to the end of each line, as Our Livvy herself ought have to begin with.

Cheese House.

2003-10-17T01:54:00.000+10:00

First, you get a house. You get a house, and then you get some cheese, and then you cover the house with the cheese. That's the recipe.

Then, you get a jacket, and a bedroom, and a couch, and a desk, and a bathroom, and you do the exact same thing.

Then, you set a piano on fire, and you serve the fruit platter.

Let's Put an End to This.

2003-10-15T12:38:00.000+10:00

It's becoming a bit disgraceful, isn't it? It's becoming a pattern. Whenever I actually bother to show up, it's the same old thing: no sooner have I strolled in the back door, whistling like I'd just nipped out for a packet of cigarettes a half hour instead of a month ago, than I'm talking about myself again. Telling you how great I look in a poncho or showing you my brand new water-skiing trophy. And you stand there, tears of fury collecting in the corner of your eye, as I do a little dance - a foxtrot even - on the kitchen linoleum, kiss you on the mouth and ask what's for dinner.

So, what's for dinner?

Here's the thing. I'm giving a talk later this month at the Victorian Writers Centre, as part of a seminar called 'Writers & the Web: An insight into the possibilities for writers online'. Also on the panel: Michele Sabto, Michael Farrell and Dr David Reiter. As you can see, they're all much more famous than me. More info down the bottom of this page.

Oh, and another thing I forgot to tell you: I had something published a while back over at Cornerfold. It's in flash - click on the picture of the doll to launch, and turn your speakers on.

Anyhow.

Later, after I've mopped the gravy up with a torn piece of vienna loaf, sung a few bars of push it in your ear, and then made your eyelids flutter with four hours of breathtaking, super-human, 'Hey, I'm home now baby and I ain't never gonna leave you again until the next time' sex, it's time for you to go downstairs. I'm fast asleep, and my snoring's rattling your collection of carnival glass. There's a shovel in the laundry and a vegetable patch beneath the jacaranda tree the size of a grown man, if that man was lying down. You know what you have to do, and I can't say as I blame you. You know I meant everything I promised, but you've just got to make sure.

Sweetpea, I ain't never gonna leave you.

How the Trouble Starts.

2003-10-11T20:36:00.000+10:00

Here's something I overheard today:

BOY: So, if I see an object, I can use that object to end the world. That's how it works.

HIS GRANDMOTHER: Dear? I'm really not interested.

No Offal.

2003-09-09T02:51:00.000+10:00

Okay, so I'm gonna be all 'Hey dude, look at me!' for a moment here. The marvellous Signalstation has conducted a Q & A with me via email (and to be honest, I took an embarrassingly long time to A the Qs, so I'm chuffed to see they still wanted to use 'em). Hurrah! Click here to find out what kind of robot I'd like to have and under what circumstances I may be coerced into eating offal.

Handkerchiefs.

2003-09-09T00:42:00.000+10:00

In one dream, it was handkerchiefs, the coloured silk ones that magicians use. He felt his lips itch, and putting his fingers to his mouth, found a corner of fabric poking out. He pulled and out popped a string of scarves, one after another, tied at the corners. At first it seemed wondrous: like kissing, like finding money. Imagine the looks on their faces! he thought. At last, a real talent! He liked the handkerchiefs, and some had tiny, silver, hand-painted stars that made him feel lucky. Also, there were economic benefits: no longer would he be forced to purchase handkerchiefs like ordinary men. He couldn't wait for the weekend. He couldn't wait to show his ex-girlfriend.

But after the eighteenth handkerchief—a blue one with white dolphins swimming along the edge—he started to get frightened. Each handkerchief ended with another knot, another handkerchief. On it went. It began to hurt his oesophagus. They were scratching him. His gag reflex made a comeback. His eyes watered. It seemed as though it would never, ever end. And it didn't.

Another time it was tongues. His tongue came out and then he grew another and that came out too. He grew another but the third tongue was deformed. A broad, triangular stump of flesh: a cane toad's tongue. He didn't know how to speak with it. He knew that even if he managed to learn how, his voice would be different than before and this made him unhappy. He looked in the mirror and manipulated the strange, vestigial amphibian tongue with his fingers, tried to stretch it. It struck him that he was now ugly. No one will ever be able to love me with this tongue, he thought. I will be alone forever. And he was right.

For a week, he awoke with a lump in his throat and foam on the pillow. He dreamt that cocktail umbrellas pierced the hollow of his cheek. He dreamt of spitting tennis rackets and mice; a surge of blue electricity like vomit. He dreamt that bullets poured from his mouth into a glass slipper. In the mornings he would drive to work, thinking: This means something. Perhaps I should go to the dentist; maybe I should stop telling lies. This is a sign of some kind. This is a sign, a sign. But it wasn't.

---------------------------------
[This story appears on the Visible Ink 'Soundtrack' CD.]

Zombie Poems.

2003-09-03T23:09:00.000+10:00

Now, I ain't gonna get all sombre and apologetic. And I ain't gonna throw my arms around you and start blubbering about how sorry I am not to have spoken to you for weeks and weeks and how I've been carrying a photo of you around in my wallet (the one where you look like crazy old Boris Yeltsin even more than usual) and how I take it out and look at it when I'm sitting in the toilet cubicle at work. Okay? I just ain't. Picture me slapping you on the back, that'll do, and handing you a twenty so you can go get us both a beer or something. I've missed you. What? No, I didn't say anything, it must have been that guy. That guy over there. That's the guy.

Anyway. There's a whole buncha things I've neglected to tell you about, as you can imagine. I don't have time to spill them all now but one thing you have to do is go visit Cordite. I know, I know, you don't usually read online poetry magazines because they're jam packed with rhyming couplets about endangered marsupials. Understood. But this issue is all about - get this - zombies.

Yes, zombies.

Also, Buffy the vampire slayer and Sarah Connor, and the removal of Phar Lap's heart.

There's a review of Undead (the new Australian zombie extravaganza) written by my esteemed housemate Dr Mangan, as well as an interview with the film's directors, conducted by my friend, international pop superstar Davey Dreamnation.

And while you're there, check out the blog: I've made an urgent plea for zombie equality, and need a few more signatures on the petition.

Micallef.

2003-07-23T01:22:00.000+10:00

So last night I was in the studio audience of Micallef Tonight. I won't say too much about it - lest I gush - but I did have a chat with M Signalstation about the experience today; he's posted an extract from the transcript here.

Incandescent vs Fluorescent.

2003-06-30T00:25:00.000+10:00

You know what's interesting? People who look as though they're lit from within are very attractive - whereas people who are actually, literally, lit from within are much less so.

True fact.

Island.

2003-06-24T19:36:00.000+10:00

We've been on this island so long I barely remember what life was like before. If I sit and concentrate really hard, with the hat pulled over my eyes, I see a room with model aeroplanes and a broken ship-in-a-bottle. There's a girl in pink cashmere, who smells like vanilla coke. Sometimes there's a voice - announcing the weather or reminding me that Winchesters Peanut Butter is the crunchiest peanut butter there is - but that's pretty much it. The sea air has a way of wiping you clean, and I never was much of a brainy type person anyhow.

Some of the others remember more, but then, they left more behind than me. Maybe if I'd had an audition to go to, or an invention to build, or a stockholders meeting to chair, I'd be unhappier about being stuck here. But I don't mind it. I like our cosy, thatched huts, and I like coconut cream pie. I never have to worry about numbers or money or the alphabet, plus there are two pretty girls here who mend my clothes and don't slap me and call me stupid like the others used to.

We've built rafts. A dozen, at least. Something always seems to go wrong with them. The professor keeps coming up with blueprints and I keep spilling soup on them or accidentally using them to start the campfire. I'm so clumsy. I guess I've always been that way.

Actually, there are a few other things I remember from before. A sound: something whipping through the air. And a dark room, stinking of camphor and cider apples. Sometimes I wake up at night and my fingers ache like I've been holding onto something awful tight, but I try not to think about it.

There's a breeze that sweeps through the palm trees. Late at night, I crawl out of my hammock and go listen to it. It's like silk rustling, or hands rubbing together. In the moonlight, sea spray shaped like a genie rises from the lagoon, wearing harem pants and holding a scimitar above its head. It whispers that one day there will be another storm like the one that brought us here. It says one day a plane will fly overhead and see a smoke plume or the wreck on the beach. I stare at the genie in silence until I'm too tired to stand up. Open sesame, it says, and tune in next week.

Not long ago, the professor repaired the radio transmitter with seaweed and oyster shells. Powered by bamboo bicycle, it filled the air with scratches of noise; static; fragmented voices. Howls. An army of ghosts. When I first heard it, a stream of pee ran down my leg and puddled in my sneaker.

Anyhow, silly old me, I confused it with the desalination machine the professor had built the week before and when he came back from lunch I'd already poured half a bucket of seawater inside. His eyes popped like crazy and the skipper chased me around the camp, bellowing and slapping me with his hat. He hit me so hard my shoulder turned blue.

But in the end, no one was really that surprised. I can't help being me, after all, and in no time, Ginger was scolding the professor and clutching me to her bosom like an Emmy. The skipper called me 'Little Buddy' and we got to eat clam chowder for supper and play canasta, just like usual.

I still have the bruises, and Golly do they smart. But it was worth it.

Sign.

2003-06-22T23:57:00.000+10:00

So it's true. There was a Time Out. Yes there was. If you were here, or at least within fifty metres of here with an unobstructed view and a pair of binoculars, you would have admired the way I made the sign with my hands: the lazy horizontal hand resting atop the defiant verticality of the other. You would have said to yourself, 'That's a T that could never stand for Tailspin or Topsoil or Truffle Oil or Tap Dancing or Tantric Sex, no no.' And even though the light reflecting off the lens of the binoculars would have given you a headache like the bloody dickens, you would have known instantly what I meant, and that, my darling, is why I love you.

Because that's the kind of astute web-citizen you are. You've learnt not to panic. When you see a straw hat or torn jacket floating like jetsam on the surf, you don't scream for the lifeguard. You're an old hand at this standing-on-the-beach caper, and pal, this ain't nothing you ain't seen a hundred times before. Like last winter you found a stingray on the sand, lying upside down, gasping for breath. Its lips were like the lips of a human baby and the sounds it made, well, you've been trying to forget them. It had nostrils - wet slits in silver rubber - that opened and closed, opened and closed. You poked it with a stick and stared for a half-hour and wondered how to get it back in the water without touching it with your hands and it felt like your life would never be the same if you couldn't and then you heard the others shout your name and you walked back to the carpark and someone gave you a can of Bondi Cola and it tasted really good. Like ginseng and cinnamon. This is nothing like that, of course; it's quite different. But still.

I promise nothing: things get washed ashore all the time, we both know that. We're men of action, us. And sometimes, inaction.

And maybe the T did stand for 'Tailspin' after all.

You know, my love, I think it did.

Poodles and Biscuits, Sir.

2003-05-16T23:37:00.000+10:00

Right now, and for at least the next ten minutes, this is my favourite thing in the whole world.

Water.

2003-05-09T00:32:00.000+10:00

Sometimes, the hero is trapped in a room that begins suddenly to fill with water. For whatever reason - maybe a burst water pipe or smashed aquarium or malfunctioning sprinkler system or even, perhaps, because the room itself is underwater to begin with, like the control room of a submarine - a torrent of water rushes in.

The hero tries at first to escape. She kicks at the door and then, finding it won't budge, tries to pull the grate out of the ventilation shaft. She swims across the room, looking for tools - a letter opener, a crowbar - and although she sometimes finds these things, they are useless.

The room becomes separated into two layers, like a salad dressing. The bottom half, obviously, is water, above which the remaining air floats like oil. The submerged portion of the room is transformed. Papers, previously stacked neatly on the corner of the desk, become snarls of watercress.

The surface of the water - too turbulent to have formed a meniscus - is the dividing line between two worlds. Below, it is strangely calm. Above, there is foam and noise. If there are others in the room besides the hero, this thin slice of air, narrowing by the minute, is where they will shout, hatch plans and comfort each other. The hero ducks into the water again and again - swims with blocked ears through the slow-dancing shipwreck looking for a forgotten window pane or laundry chute - but returns always to the surface to breathe.

In time, the hero will run out of options and tread water with her forehead touching the light fitting. The others will tire and disappear one by one. As the level rises further, the hero will tilt her head back until at last only her nose and lips remain above the surface, pressed to the plaster, taking rapid little sips of air.

It's okay, though, because the hero knows that something always happens at the last minute. She will prevail. She will be rescued. The flow will abate to a trickle; a wall will give way. There will be a miracle.

The hero, in fact, is wrong. There's no plot twist. The water always fills the room completely. The room never contains an exit. The hero never escapes. But that space at the top - that twenty, fifteen, ten, five centimetres of air between the ceiling and the encroaching surface of the water - that space is enough. Until it isn't.

---------------------
[This story also appears in HEAT 7]

Things.

2003-04-26T23:21:00.000+10:00

Shoes.

Dress.

Ping-Pong.

Brains.

Silo.

Sandwiches.

Five items I can't live without.

2003-04-22T00:37:00.000+10:00

My life-size effigy of David Niven. My collection of seismological graphs. My turnip. My hand-of-glory. Sand.

Eno.

2003-04-21T00:15:00.000+10:00

"Whenever my stomach hurts, I stop punching it."

Brian Eno

Rich.

2003-04-20T20:24:00.000+10:00

I'm sick of being wealthy. This morning I was so bored I ate a cake of soap. It was rose geranium.

Wonderful Things My Friends Have Made #896.

2003-04-16T23:54:00.000+10:00

The Empty Show.

The Penguin Doesn't Know Much.

2003-04-16T15:31:00.000+10:00

But it knows this: Happy Birthday, Michael!

Datura stramonium.

2003-04-14T23:22:00.000+10:00

Every night of summer, there was a moon lily. As the light faded, the green vine strangling the balistrade in our back yard released a handful of delicate white trumpets that unfolded in slow motion.

Moon lilies are like the running sequences in Chariots of Fire and the Six Million Dollar Man. They ought to have a soundtrack.

Like this: Chhh-Chhh-Chhh-Chhh.

They are unstoppable.

My father and I would oversee their opening, sometimes with a stopwatch. Some took only minutes to expand fully - thudding open like umbrellas - while others took an entire evening just to bust open the green carapace, the egg that encased them.

'It's important to be observant,' my father would say. He'd cradle his beer (sometimes his fourth already) with one hand while with the other he'd pluck off the sticky, bruised remnants of the previous night's flowers. We watched in silence - or perhaps marvelled over the swiftness of a particular moon lily's escape - while my mother set the dinner table.

He and I would remain there, timing the moon as it began its arc. Later, at dinner, I'd watch the way my father spread the napkin across his lap with flamboyant precision, while my mother's lay beside her plate, clean and folded and flat as a sealed envelope.

Three Products I Have Invented.

2003-04-01T23:20:00.000+10:00

INFLATABLE GOD
All-purpose deity, great for picnics, camping or in the pool!

MANUAL ROBOT
Make it walk by moving its legs with your hands!

IMAGINARY CAT ENCASING A REAL DOG
Two pets in one! A real bargain!

If you'd like to order any of these items, please contact our service department.

Attention All Llamas.

2003-03-31T15:44:00.000+10:00

Davey Dreamnation, international rock superstar, is back online.

If you're unfamiliar with his work, I suggest you first take the time to slap yourself very, very hard across the face with a neenish tart (that is, if the greedy llama doesn't get to it first) for having been so shamefully out-of-touch with contemporary music.

Once you've scrambled back to your feet, you'll of course want to find out more about this reclusive pop enigma, read his FAQ, and perhaps even take a tour of the Camp Davey compound.

And don't forget the music (it's all about the music) especially a certain Aria award-winning tribute song which kicked off his whole career.

Another Day, Another Fetish.

2003-03-28T01:32:00.000+10:00

Who knew one could have so much fun in the kitchen? (Safe for work. Messy, but safe.)

Raw Meat.

2003-03-19T01:20:00.000+10:00

Mark Ryden has a website. Why is it that I'm only just now discovering this? Clearly I've been too busy sewing my own mascot outfits. Bollocks.

I almost Forgot.

2003-03-19T00:55:00.000+10:00

You left your macrame owl at my place. I'm holding it to ransom until you finish that Monkee fanfic you've been working on.

Hop to it, buster.

Backstage.

2003-03-18T20:50:00.000+10:00

I parked my Honda Civic next to a sign that read 'Veterans Only.'

Walking into the club was like landing on the planet where barbershop quartets come from. Chattering tap shoes, frenzied jugglers, wannabe ballerinas looking ready to vomit at the slightest provocation - it was the kind of mayhem that seems light-hearted fun to a bystander and like the eighth circle of hell to anyone trapped in the middle of it.

There were children, swaddled in satin, who shrieked and wove between tables. A distraught Jack Russell whined and scratched and tried in vain to wriggle out of his tasselled bolero jacket and humilating dog-sombrero. Two toddlers assaulted a ventriloquist's dummy. An old digger went flying when the potted palm against which he was leaning tipped beneath his weight; a gaggle of ladies from the canteen scooped him up off the floor like dollop of spilt cream. And, picking his way through the scrambling crowd, an empty-handed man in a threadbare tuxedo jacket searched nervously here and there for something he'd lost. Something valuable.

Agitated, he rubbed his hands as if to make a fire in his palm.

I Depend On Meat.

2003-03-17T14:56:00.000+10:00

More evidence, if such a thing were necessary, that I am easily amused.

(Also, I depend on Hats Of Meat.)

Limbs.

2003-03-16T01:22:00.000+10:00

The room is awash with dirty light, like a photograph obscured by a coffee stain.

There's a man crouched on the carpet. He's holding something, inspecting it carefully.

At first I can't make out what it is, this thing cradled in his hands. I step closer and peer over his shoulder and that's when I realise that it's a woman's head, a length of spinal cord trailing from her severed neck. Though bloody and clearly removed with violence, there's something modular about the head and jutting jigsaw-piece of bone - it looks like it might just 'click' back into place if reunited with the body it belongs to. The woman's face is white and creamy and beautiful, like Elizabeth Taylor circa National Velvet. Her eyes and mouth are closed serenely.

The man is wearing soiled grey yoga pants, and beside him a pile of dismembered limbs reflects a soft diffused glow, like sunlight through tissue paper. The woman's eyes flutter open, and sleepily, she mumbles a few words. In the heap of limbs, a foot begins to twitch. The man strokes her pale forehead tenderly.

'Shhh,' he says.

The Wild West.

2003-03-15T01:11:00.000+10:00

K: You know where I am right now? I'm on our front lawn, bringing in the rubbish bin.

HSG: No way! That's amazing.

K: Yeah. This cordless phone has a really long range. I bet I could just keep walking until I got to your shop and then walk in your front door still talking to you.

HSG: You know, there's a machine that allows you to do that. It's called a mobile phone.

K: Whatever.

HSG: Hey, check this out - if you were here right now I could make you coffee 'cause my work just got an espresso machine.

K: Really? Excellent.

HSG: Yeah, totally excellent. I made myself one this morning and then stood around going 'Look at me, I'm drinking a fucking cappucino.'

K: That's nice. Do you swear at yourself a lot?

HSG: All the time. I love it.

K: Do you go 'I'm drinking a motherfucking cappucino so shut up, bitch'?

HSG: Yes. Yes, I do.

K: Thought so.
K: I'm in the lounge room now. I'm listening to cowboy music.

HSG: You so are not.

K: I am. Listen.

HSG: Wow.

K: It's Rawhide. Did you know that the era of the 'Wild West' was actually incredibly short?

HSG: Yeah, I remember reading that somewhere.

K: Only about twenty years or so.

HSG: Twenty seconds, I thought.

K: Yeah. Like some guy put on a cowboy hat, and then his friend said 'Aw, take it off, Jim.'

HSG: And that was it.

K: And that was it. Exactly.

From the mouth of the Congo To the Mountains of the Moon.

2003-03-12T13:13:00.000+10:00

Sometimes, when I'm walking home or waiting by myself at a tram stop, I recite poems. The sound of words escaping into the air is comforting when alone, and if the morning is cold and the poem turns to steam, then so much the better.

There aren't many poems I remember by heart, to be honest. Aside from my own, the ones lodged in my head are from childhood; the first poems I ever committed to memory. Scrape my brains out with a spoon and stuck to the inside of my skull you'll find some Coleridge, a little Shelley and a smattering of Pam Ayres.

My favourite, though, is the beginning of a poem called The Congo, by Vachel Linsday. It's a poem filled with blood-lust and voodoo and skulls. As I child, I loved it. Mr Pansini, my fourth grade teacher, taught me this poem.

I loved Mr Pansini in the way that children love people who can produce coins from behind their ears. Mr Pansini would bring Aboriginal message sticks to class and tell us stories of the Dreamtime. Mr Pansini would hold Sudden Death Maths Challenges on Friday afternoons during which we would face each other like gunslingers and fire numbers at one other, and encouraged us to grunt 'Uh uh uh, and another one bites the dust...' whenever a reigning champion was felled by a challenger's superior arithmetic. Mr Pansini held my bloody face when (falling off my bicycle for the millionth time) I smashed my chin against the bitumen of the netball court. Mr Pansini, my mother assured me years later, was a real dish.

But. The Congo. I'll never know what possessed Mr Pansini to teach us a poem about cannibals. Why did he choose a poem so obviously controversial, if not downright racist? Years later I found the poem in a book of my father's and realised that, read in its entirety, it's a dangerous poem; a poem full of gunpowder. The full title is, in fact, The Congo (A Study of the Negro Race) and begins 'Part One: Their Basic Savagery.' I did not know this at the time, and he only gave us the first portion, which is a little tamer than the rest. How then, to take such a poem? Vachel defended himself (and indeed distanced himself from the the piece) but it seems to me that there is no absolute judgement to be made: perhaps it is both beautiful and offensive.

Mr Pansini taught us this poem using the choral suggestions in the original piece and added elements of his own, transforming the class into a three-part rhythm section. He did a marvellous job and even now, I recite it using the same inflections that he himself demonstrated. He would have us stand up, hoot and beat our chests as necessary as we chanted:

Then along that riverbank
A thousand miles
Tattooed cannibals danced in files;
Then I heard the boom of the blood-lust song
And a thigh-bone beating on a tin-pan gong.

It's in my head even as I write this, and as tempting as it is to pound the table and shout along, I can't because I'm in a library. Sometimes I do it in the shower and this poem lives for me - despite its problematic race connotations - because of its music. Also, and perhaps most importantly, it's wonderfully transgressive. Imagine, as an eight or nine-year-old, shouting:

Whirl ye the deadly voo-doo rattle!
Harry the uplands!
Steal all the cattle!

Poetry seemed then, as now, an exhortation to do mischief. To break the rules. To steal cattle and bang gongs with human thigh-bones. Thanks, Mr Pansini.

Some Words Of Advice.

2003-03-11T21:34:00.000+10:00

Dear Disappointed in Darlinghurst,

In a way, the whole week was just a countdown to tonight. You had plans. Preparations. Things you had to do to get ready for this moment. Here are a few of them: borrow aftershave, wash bed linen, buy candles and new jocks, practice walking with your chin in the air and try to embody all that is sexy about Sean Connery. Make sure the bathroom's cleanish. Think positive thoughts, that was another one. Also, wash behind your ears. (For some reason, almost every time you spent extra effort scrubbing that little patch of skin on your head behind each ear, you get lucky. Sorry, I should have italicised that, for special emphasis: you get lucky. Of course there's no scientific explanation for it, but it just feels right, somehow - even if it's only the confidence of knowing that you'll smell nice if you do end up getting nuzzled.)

(Though there will be no nuzzling tonight.)

Here's what you were thinking about yesterday: shouting over the noise of the music. More specifically, that part where one of you can't quite hear what the other has said and so that person (the one who can't hear properly) cocks their head to the side as an invitation for the other (the one who's speaking) to position their mouth closer. That's a little parcel of flirtation right there: proximity, exposed neck, private discussion. And then, when the communication is delivered - undoubtedly a witty retort of some kind - the one who listens smiles at the other, the posture lending a quality of irresistable coyness. Heads close. Breath on neck. Upturned face. Raised eyebrows.

And here's another idea that's been occupying the space between sleep and wakefulness for you: pillow talk. Daydreams of crazy carpark-sex have been replaced by fantasies of post-coital debate about John Cage. In the past, topics of discussion in bed directly after (or even during) sex have included the following: dark matter, robotics, the AGPS Style Manual, scones, leaf litter, the career trajectory of Alan Alda, asteroids, nudibranchs, recipes for home-made lemon butter and how bad your sense of direction is. More recently, while alone and half-asleep, you've imagined murmurs, fragments of conversation - a montage sequence of giggling and intense looks and playful kisses leading, inevitably, to second-servings of everything. Accompanied by a soundtrack. And - let's be humiliatingly frank here, shall we? - it's probably something like the Dawson's Creek soundtrack. Isn't it? Isn't it? Fuck.

You got it bad, my friend. You miss the jolt of recognition, the feeling that someone else has used all these words before, and in this very order. You miss being told to shut up. You miss the opportunity to juxtapose the absurdly highbrow (ie. "And that was the moment I became fascinated by the study of ethnomusicology as it pertains to brain wave patterns...") with the lowbrow (ie. your fingers moving inside her).

You even mentioned tonight's so-called 'date' to a couple of people - in fact, reciting answering machine messages to friends and milking them of hidden meaning has become something of a team sport. Word structure has been analysed to reveal desirable personality traits; a running joke has become evidence of flirting. Let's face it, you got yourself into this mess by reading poetry into a pile of alphabet fridge magnets. Whatever it was that might have happened would be happening right now - this very half-hour - were it to happen at all. She called it off. That's okay. There's no shame in being wrong about these things. Everyone's allowed to make a mistake, once. Let it go.

It's static electricity and marsh gas. There's no such thing as the old lead-into-gold. The muppets were sock puppets.

Cast your mind back a week or so and try to remember how it felt to be cynical.

Good. Now, hold onto that. Baby, the sky's the limit.

2003-03-09T00:42:00.000+10:00

Ganguro Girl Delighted With New Banner Ad.

"When I discovered that my blog had been adorned with a special, double-sized banner ad, I just about fell off my platform shoes with happiness. It's super-good, and I can't wait to get home and cover my whole head with white lipstick in celebration! Thanks, Bloogle!"

We Like The Moon.

2003-03-07T23:32:00.000+10:00

We also like zeppelins and marmots.

Movement at the Station.

2003-03-05T23:57:00.000+10:00

Okay, so Cordite's back up. It's a blog now (published daily instead of quarterly) and the theme of the current issue is 'Test Match.'

In the meantime, perhaps you need more dogs with roofs. It's just a thought.

Trespassing.

2003-02-27T22:02:00.000+10:00

Me: What are you doing here?
Avril Lavigne: I'm providing the soundtrack to your dream.
Me: Oh no.
Avril Lavigne: Don't bust my chops, Old Lady. I just play the gigs they tell me to.

Jazz.

2003-02-26T22:12:00.000+10:00

'Do you like jazz?' he asked. The boy kicked his foot against the side of the bus shelter. 'I like it,' he said. 'You waiting for the 505?'

'Yeah,' I said.

'It's always late.'

'Yeah?'

'Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't even show up. I'm gonna go see my mum. I was late last time and she didn't like it.'

'I can imagine.'

The boy slipped his hand into the back pocket of his jeans. He pulled out a scrap of paper.

'Wanna see a picture?'

'Sure.'

He handed it over. It seemed to have been torn from a magazine.

'My brother. He's in America. I'm gonna go see him next year when he gets out of the Navy and we're gonna hitch around. See stuff. Y'know?'

'I like his hat,' I said. I gave back the picture.

'Whaddya mean, hat?'

'It's a good hat.'

'He's an officer.'

The boy sat down beside me on the bench. His legs jiggled.

'So, do you like jazz?' he said.

'Actually, I do.'

'Yeah? What else do you like?'

I pulled the zip closed on my backpack. I tucked it between my knees. I said nothing for a moment.

'I like lots of music,' I said.

'Gangsta's where it's at.' He smiled. 'I've got a piece. The police don't know nothing. I keep it here in my sock. The police don't know anything about it.'

'Okay,' I said.

Bees.

2003-01-28T22:30:00.000+10:00

I just don't know about the bees anymore.

It used to give me arms of gooseflesh, imagining the black cloud swimming through your home like an airborne manta ray. The swarm, as I pictured it, would hang in the air, drifting from room to room until it found you undertaking some mundane household activity (perhaps in the kitchen, hands submerged in soapy water, humming along to The Boys of Summer and not realising that this would be the very last time you would ever scrape carrot curls from the blades of your chrome Alessi cheese-grater).

The cloud would hover a moment, silently contemplating the angle of attack. Undulating sexily, it would float into position just behind the nape of your neck where it would form a shape like an exclamation point, or an arrow, or a swordfish aiming its sharpened snout between your atlas and axis vertebrae.

In my vision, this is the best, the most beautiful, the most excruciating part: this ballet of strategy. This moment of stillness before the uncoiling of potential energy. Soon after, of course, there's a mess of writhing and stinging and screaming and squirming and scrabbling for purchase on the kitchen linoleum and so on, just like in the movies. In fact, at this point the special effects go a bit low-budget: we go from, say, Industrial Light and Magic to George A. Romero. But that's okay.

Recently, however, problems more pressing than aesthetics have begun to emerge. I'm starting to rethink my approach. For starters, how expensive are bees these days, and how am I going to get them into your ventilation duct? Can they be trained? Is it realistic to hope that they will actually descend upon you rather than upon the heavy yellow stamens of the arum lilies on your dining table?

Also, are you even allergic to bees? This seems like it might be important. I'll have to slip it into conversation at the next staff meeting.

---------------------
[This story appears in HEAT #7 and on the Going Down Swinging #22 spoken word CD.]

Funny Like Burning

2003-01-20T00:38:00.000+10:00

Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow.

This is so funny it makes my dorsal webbing hurt.

Rabbit*.

2003-01-16T22:30:00.000+10:00

How would he put it? We just don't see each other any more, he'd probably say. Whereas the real truth of the matter is that he doesn't see me and I still see him plenty.

I don't think he realises how sobriety has changed him. He used to dance, used to make happiness go off inside people like a kernel of popcorn. This one time, he climbed a nine foot wrought iron gate to get into a Louis Prima concert, tore the shirt off his back and danced all night in the arms of a cigarette girl without ever spilling his whisky sour. That's who he used to be back then - a real catch, the kind of guy who could turn his baby blues on you and make a drunken twenty minute dissection of contemporary jazz feel like an eight week summer holiday in Tuscany. He was like time away from yourself. He was a long, cool drink of water. He tasted like butterscotch schnapps and smelt like the clean, acetone page of a brand new Playboy, one advertising bespoke slacks or first class air-travel or hi-fi systems the size of a teacup. In essence, he was a real gentleman, but one who also knew how to do the hot potato.

That's all over now, of course. These days he works to a tight schedule that does not include happy hour, cocktail hour or champagne breakfasts. He changed, he changed - the litany of the jilted, I know, but he truly became the kind of guy we used to make fun of. He started listening to Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. He gave away his Reidel glasses and bought a George Foreman grill. One Christmas someone gave him a copy of The Celestine Prophecy and the fucking idiot actually read it every morning on the can. It was so pathetic I almost couldn't bear to watch.

For a while I was in-between friends and used to visit him sometimes. He'd decided not to see or hear me by then, so I used to just tag along for an afternoon, watching him file stock reports and unwrap soggy alfalfa sandwiches at his desk. I used to give him helpful advice which, to his great disadvantage, he could no longer hear.

My friend Tony, who has a great, though exhausting, job as part-time imaginary friend over at a kindergarten, kept telling me, let it go. But when it was good, nobody understood me like that lovable old drunk did. He treated me with respect, he never made me hop over anything, and he never once offered me a carrot. Not even as a joke. Dear God, I loved him for that.

Anyhow, here's what happened. Last month I was helping a new friend of mine do some Rorschach tests at the doctor's clinic when I got a hankering for a smoke. I slipped outside for a moment and that's when I saw him, pulling out of the car-park in his battered sedan. I hadn't seen him for a couple of years and I'd forgotten that, unlike myself, he'd become old. He was hunched over the wheel, white as cornflour and with a peculiar look on his face.

Thing is, I'd seen that look before, eighteen years ago. The day he told me he was 'getting out' and that he'd never liked me in the first place. He looked sick of himself, I guess that's one way to put it, or like his skin was burning and he'd realised he couldn't just take it off like a jacket. Curious, I went back inside to reception and found his file in the cabinet: liverspots, benign melanoma, a prescription for ear ointment. And then, paper-clipped together, a bunch of test results and referrals. Two of them to oncologists. Funny thing is, it wasn't even his liver; it was his colon. And it looks like they might have to operate, poor guy. Take out a whole section.

Y'know, I've always been interested in medicine. Maybe I'll sit in on it.

[* this is a reply]

Bang.

2003-01-13T22:41:00.000+10:00

look. your head went bang.
you were standing there, sulking against the doorjamb
hair growing so fast it made your face sort of out-of-focus
(a blurred halo of speed)
& then it happened.
bingo. exploded.
you'd been swimming and the reek of chlorine filled the room
& gave me a headache. i've still got it.

Monster Truck Mayhem.

2003-01-09T00:48:00.000+10:00

Going Down Swinging published a couple of poems of mine in their annual Ozlit anthology a while back and I realised just now that, since their brand spanking new website went online, one of them is available for download in PDF format.

It's not a new poem. It's not a great poem. It's not even about monster trucks, and I have sworn on my mother's grave that all poetry I write from now on will be about either monster trucks or Ralph Macchio's headband in The Karate Kid.

But it's there - and apparently it won't be there forever - so I'm linking to it. Goddamn it.

Looking for a House?

2003-01-06T00:59:00.000+10:00

My friend and I are looking for a person of taste and discernment to move into our lovely weatherboard house in Melbourne.

Could this person be you?

There's some more info over here, if you're interested - alternatively, you can just email me to come check it out.

Yay!

French Toast.

2002-12-30T01:25:00.000+10:00

The robot wheeled itself in a circle and prodded my shoulder with its claw.

'Hey,' it said, 'I thought you were going to calibrate my sensors today.'

I rolled across the mattress and turned my face to the wall.

'Everything's been eight milliseconds out in my right sensor since Saturday. It's like non-stop dé jà vu. You said you'd fix it.'

'I will,' I said.

'I've just been on the balcony, watching the birds fly around. With the delay, it's like there's ten times as many. It's making me crazy.'

'I said I'll fix it. Come back later. You kept me up all night and I've hardly slept.'

'I've been up since you were fifteen. I haven't slept ever. Have you thought about that?'

'Are you really going to start this now?'

'You know, when you rub your eyes like that, it looks like you're going to pop them right out of the socket.'

'Just go away.'

'I made coffee.'

'Away.'

'I think I might be pregnant,' it said.

'Impossible,' I said.

'It's not.'

'It is. I disabled your egg circuit.'

'All I know is I'm up the duff. You must have made a mistake.'

'This is ridiculous.'

'Anyhow, you're awake now. I thought we could go play tennis.'

'What?'

'Tennis. With the machines next door. I said we'd meet them at eight.'

'So go.'

'It's doubles.'

'For fuck's sake.'

'C'mon. You used to love tennis. And they're waiting for us.'

'How can you possibly play with a faulty sensor? You'll be swinging at balls that have already gone past you.'

'This sensor thing's nuts. Did I tell you about the birds? When I look at them flying around outside, I'm registering each bird in, like, twenty different locations simultaneously. Where it's just been as well as it where it is right now. So, even though there's only a dozen birds out there, it looks like the sky's full of them. Each bird looks like a trail of birds.'

'Fascinating.'

'You can be a real prick, you know that?'

'Is there coffee?'

'Yes there's coffee. Also, French toast. Not that you deserve it.'

'Bring it in. I'll eat in bed. Get the tool set too - I'll do the sensor.'

'You're such a fucking gentleman.'

'Whatever. Bring coffee.'

---------------------
[This story also appears in HEAT 7]

2002-12-19T00:55:00.000+10:00

Twenty-Six Things Or People Who Have Appeared In My Dreams, Their Presence Surely Indicative Of A Hyperreal World Where Models Of Reality Dominate And Reality Itself Has Given Way To Simulations Of Simulations Or, Alternatively, A World In Which I Have Some Kind Of Incurable Brain Infection:

Tetris
Subtitles
Advertisements
Zsa Zsa Gabor
An antelope with steel teeth
Former Australian cricketer Greg Matthews
Sausage rolls made from people
A tiny girl with an afro who lived in a carton of laundry powder
Monkeys that spoke only Japanese
The guy with the top hat and monocle from the Monopoly board
A punk band called The Professor Geoffrey Boltons
Mandelbrots
Gregory Corso
A flayed man carrying his own intestines in a glass suitcase
Bill Clinton wearing a halter top
A giant machine that made perfect potato salad
A musical entitled 'Almost As Good As Jacky Shorts'
Jet packs
Books shaped like onions
Drinking fountains
A twenty-foot-tall paper mache model of Robert Louis Stevenson
The kids from Degrassi High
Dead horses
Airports
Cutlery
Google

Proboscis Monkeys.

2002-12-18T13:46:00.000+10:00

Also,

Thank you for your attention.

Show me. Show you.

2002-12-04T23:22:00.000+10:00

As anyone will tell you, there's nothing I love more than a freakshow in my pocket. Go visit. I'm especially fond of the pervert, the crippled showgirl, and the gladiatorial exploits of the bearded ladies.

Also, the adventures of Kikkoman, soy sauce superhero, must be seen (and heard) to be believed. And whatever you do - WHATEVER YOU DO - don't put the incorrect condiment on your yellow egg-roll thing. The consequences are dire.

Later: Oh my lord. Kikkoman has adversaries:Banana and Shrimp Showtime.

This is going to be bigger than gospel music.

Dirt.

2002-12-04T01:50:00.000+10:00

The doll taught me to wisecrack, but I was always better in the other role. Eight times a week the doll hypnotised me and made me squawk like a chicken, then gave me dirt and told me it was creme brulee. It was all part of our brilliant act: I pretended to be in a 'suggestible state,' and the crowd shrieked with horror and delight. The doll sprawled on my lap and mocked my hesitation. I wore a sailor suit and cried into a champagne glass.

I ate the dirt.

They called us 'the best comedy duo since Pinochet and Villa Grimaldi.' They said we 'presented an affectionate insight into modern cruelty.' They named us 'Kenny Everett for the elite.' We were taking them by storm. We were killing them in the aisles. We were a hit.

The doll made me do awful things, and not always just for the purposes of 'subverting the niceties of contemporary theatre.' There was no respite from our routine. Sometimes the doll told me I had diseases and made me scrub my face with toothpaste and oil of clove; sometimes it put instant coffee up my nose while I was sleeping. After Saturday matinee - depending on its mood - the doll might force me to pee out the hotel window, or call me 'Princess,' or make me point out each scar and tell the story of how it came to be there. None of these acts had anything to do with 'transcending the banality of abuse' or ' commenting on pop-culture's discourse of violence.' This wasn't about show business or even art. If I protested, the doll dropped its jaw at the hinge, flailed its wooden arms, and let rip with a eye-popping gurgle that invited the Heimlich manoeuvre. Or, it would recite the alphabet in singsong and stop abruptly at the letter 'P'.

When not touring, we stayed at the Eureka, the best hotel in Ballarat. The room service was excellent but the doll, being a doll, never ate. It enjoyed Honduran cigars, although I don't know where the smoke went, since the doll was made of solid Baltic pine. I also wondered where the voice came from. I'd tried to investigate. The doll told me to mind my own business.

The doll read a lot in its spare time. It had a particular fondness for Camus and Beckett, though I'd seen a gold-embossed copy of Flowers in the Attic hidden under the bath towels that the doll thought I didn't know about.

---------------------------------
[This story also appears as a collaborative animation on SBS's Cornerfold website.]

Gone.

2002-11-24T23:45:00.000+10:00

This post has been removed while being considered for publication elsewhere.

Do I Wish Laurie Anderson Was My Mother?

2002-11-24T22:57:00.000+10:00

Damn straight.

Tub.

2002-11-13T20:39:00.000+10:00

There was a bath tub. That was the main thing. The room was otherwise empty, with three large rectangular windows punctuating the far wall.

But the most important thing was the tub, which was filled with hot water. I stood over it, holding a sachet of brown powder in my hand. I tore the sachet open and sprinkled the powder into the water. The steam curled upwards like a crab claw.

Then - and I have no idea how this happened - I was in the tub. Some time had passed. I knew this because the water I was lying in was now cold. I also couldn't open my eyes. They seemed glued shut somehow. I had a thought that filled me with utter dread, and that thought was: 'Uh oh.'

The tub was full of eels. Thousands of black, baby eels. Had this happened before? The situation seemed familiar somehow. I couldn't see them, but they were there all right, entwined in my hair; clustered at my scalp, my groin, armpits, eyebrows, eyelashes. For now they were asleep, but I knew that any movement - even the opening of my eyelids - would wake them.

I began to lift my hand out of the water, in an achingly slow arc. There was a technique for getting oneself out of a situation like this - which I'd read about in a textbook or magazine - if I could only remember it. It involved math, as I seemed to recall. Something to do with angles.

I'd always hated trig.

Barrel.

2002-11-12T02:39:00.000+10:00

Sometimes the barrel will be held up by shoulder-straps, like a giant wooden pinafore. Other times it will seem to hover about your torso as if kept aloft by an invisible gust of wind from below, Marilyn Monroe-style.

Naturally, you will be nude beneath the barrel - that goes without saying. It's also likely that you will sport a waxed moustache or pipe or cloth cap of some description, although these details are to some extent negotiable. What is certain is that your nakedness will be accentuated by the comical addition of shoes - maybe even a pair of argyle socks with garters.

There may be a musical accompaniment. You might hear a jig or flourish of harps when you wear the barrel. Alternatively, there might be complete silence, as if all the air in the world just stopped moving. No one knows for sure which it will be. These things are determined on a case-by-case basis.

Mission.

2002-11-12T02:37:00.000+10:00

Answer telephone. Pull note from envelope. Unfold paper. Read instructions. Book plant ticket. Acquire passport. Adhere fake moustache. Meet with contact. Accomplish task. Kill opponent. Memorise intelligence. Destroy evidence. Return to safe house. Report to Control. Remove disguise. Unpack briefcase. Clean weapon. Eat bran muffin.

---------------------
[This story also appears in HEAT 7]

Tasks.

2002-11-12T02:26:00.000+10:00

There are a few things I'm going to ask you to do. Tasks I wish you to undertake. There will be danger, oh yes, and not all of you will make it back alive. But remember this: I loved you. I truly, truly loved you.

1. Go witness some genius. Regrettably, I don't live anywhere near NYC - but if you do, I absolutely insist that you to go see Michael Barrish read his story The Letter at the Bowery later this week. Go as my proxy and report back posthaste. Do some courtroom sketches on a napkin. I want diagrams.

2. Get rocked. If, on the other hand, you're in Melbourne, you might like to see Perth band the Tucker Bs when they're in town. They begin a national tour for their new album in a fortnight, and play at the Tote on Wednesday, November 27th with Disaster Plan and Thursday the 28th at the Rob Roy with Architecture in Helsinki. They're also playing on the following Saturday and Sunday, but details are unconfirmed at this stage. Y'all should come. They're kinda Pavementy, or at least they were when I saw them last.

3. Make me number one with a bullet. International Superstar Pop Icon Davey Dreamnation's hit song Hot Soup Girl (a musical tribute that continues to both humble and delight me) has been sitting at the ~~#4 spot~~ on the LoFi chart at MP3.com for weeks now. If you'd like to see it rocket to number one, such a thing might be accomplished if, say, a bunch of people visited the site and downloaded the shit out of it.

Just sayin'.

4. Make a Thomas Pynchon paper doll. "Pynchon likes to use money to buy things. Things Thomas Pynchon can buy with money include: fresh fruit and vegetables, movies starring Molly Ringwald, allergy medication, road maps, fake moustaches..."

Out to Lunch.

2002-10-28T00:13:00.000+10:00

The management wishes to apologise for the lack of action (hot girl-on-girl or otherwise), at this blog. There's a little more going on over at the News Explosion - for those interested in such matters - but for the moment, we humbly offer these diversions:

1. Spin: an adventure involving one man, a chair, and a whole lotta clicking.

2. Merlin's Wizard: because sometimes rock'n'roll ain't all apples.

3. Postal Experiments: or, what happens when you try to send deer tibia through the mail.

4. Elocution Lessons: the rain in Spain falls mainly on the...

5. DIY George Bush speech: includes offensive noises, so you don't have to.

6. Merry Christmas: Because Santa *hearts* Roy Orbison.

Thank you. Normal programming will resume shortly.

Back from Meatspace.

2002-10-23T17:58:00.000+10:00

I have four-and-a-half more days of holidays remaining, goddamn it, and I plan on frittering them away on beer and skittles. Don't call me. Phone's off the hook.

Manties Celebrity.

2002-10-07T16:29:00.000+10:00

Ordinarily I avoid the temptation to talk here about ludicrous search request phrases that turn up in my referrer logs, but this is really too good to keep to myself. Finally, my dream has been realised; I've been linked to by a porn site. And not just any porn site. A porn site for men who wear panties.

Two of them, in fact.

As the kids say: Boo-ya!

How did this happen? Well, here's the sequence of events: First I discover 'Manties' on the net; I link to them. Consequently, I start to recieve an extraordinary number of google hits from the search request 'men in panties.' Then, I decide to give these visitors little presents by posting more references to Manties; now it seems I've made it into the inner circle. All in good fun, you understand, and somewhat driven by my affection towards these lovable perverts. Now, allow me to state for the record that, generally speaking, I like perverts and find the idea of a grown man wearing baby-blue satin lace-ruffled underpants both adorable and somehow admirable for its bravery. But it is also - and let's not be coy about this, people - funny. It just is. I don't think I need to explain why.

Anyhow. I suggest scrolling down the page of each porn site to read the little inspirational aphorisms they have regarding men wearing panties. This one in particular, I think, would make excellent copy for one of those 'You don't have to be crazy to work here... but it helps' signs they hang up in office kitchenettes:

Our job is to make you happy - that's why we have so much men who wear panties around here!

Interestingly, I'm in good company, since a similar thing has just happened to Michael Barrish. A while ago, he wrote a story about finding pictures of an ex-girlfriend on a porn site; now, after having his site Oblivio linked to by Cruel Site of the Day and a slew of sex sites, his stats are showing up a bunch of porn-related search strings.

The deliciousness of this - which isn't immediately obvious to a first-time reader of Oblivio who's just dropped in for a serving of smutty schadenfreude - is that Barrish lies a lot. He makes stuff up. That's part of the fun. In fact, before Oblivio, he had a brief project called Crowbar, and its single topic was lies. The ex-girlfriend story? Not true at all.

Today, he's written a poem about it. I like the last line, myself. Poignant.

Leisure Suit.

2002-10-07T00:38:00.000+10:00

I am translucent with happiness, for tomorrow I begin three glorious weeks of holidays. Best of all, the first two are to be spent playing host to the lovely Miss Soapagator: puppy-licker, ham inspector and trusted confidante of Senor Hernandez. The lady will be emerging from the jungle and peeling off her pith helmet sometime later this evening. Excellent.

Meanwhile, if anyone knows of any thrilling outings to be had in Melbourne, I'm open to ideas and/or invitations to parties, gigs, galleries, covens, mob violence or car-pooling. Drop me a line or leave a comment below suggesting an activity, preferably one involving giant squid.

Thank you. Let's rendezvous at the helipad at sixteen hundred.

Press to Detonate.

2002-10-02T03:39:00.000+10:00

I'm flushed. I'm breathless. I'm fanning myself with a bus ticket.

It's all just too exciting for words. Someone hand me my ventolin, quickly. And loosen my stays, mother. Moisten my fevered brow with a compress.

Ah. That's better.

So, why the hysteria, you ask? Why the pandemonium?

Because, dear reader, Cordite #11 is now online, and I swear to god it's the craziest issue ever.

I kid you not. This issue is so hot I'd, like, totally have sex with it.* This issue's so hot it's like looking at the sun.

It features poems by Melissa Ashley, joanne burns, Ken Bolton, Michael Farrell, Ian McBride, Nick Whittock, Ali Jane Smith and many more.

The theme is copyleft, with articles by Rebecca Cannon and Pi O; interviews with David Penny and Emilie Zoey Baker and audio poetry by Clark Randerson and Paul Mitchell. Delicious, strawberry-scented kudos is to be heaped upon the editor for his spectacular work (especially considering his gruelling tour schedule).

But one of my favourite things about #11 is the addition of the News Blog, edited by yours truly. This issue will be my last as poetry editor, and first as poetry news blogger. It's cutting edge. Hurrah!

Go there now. Right now. And look, I don't want to hear any namby-pamby crap about not liking poetry, you damn fool. Poetry's so hot you could cook an egg on it. It's better than crack. All the cool kids are into poems these days, dontcha know? It's true, I asked some skaters down at the local ramp. Converse is out, poetry's in - that's what they told me.

And you know that raise you didn't get last month? The one you thought was a sure thing? Well, I was talking to your boss yesterday and he told me it's because you don't like poetry. So I really think you should go check out the latest issue of Cordite. It'll be good for your career.

* If it had genitals, that is. Which, being an online poetry journal, it probably doesn't.

Pyrate Resources.

2002-09-22T23:02:00.000+10:00

Yes, yes - I realise Talk Like a Pirate Day is now a thing of the past (only 362 days 'til the next one, arr!). But for those of you with a fixation, shall we say, on all things pirate, I've done a little plundering. Blackbeardlives, f'rinstance, is a veritable treasure trove of swashbuckling-related info, including the origins of the Jolly Roger flag, the pirate's code of conduct (which includes a handy diagram illustrating exactly how many pieces of eight you're entitled to if your leg gets hacked off during a raid) and a spot of myth debunking.

I've also found a number of sea shanties for you to learn (and there'll be a quiz later, administered by cutlass). I'm intrigued to learn that although these songs were sung for pleasure, they were also, more often than not, used as a method of time-keeping. Many were designed to last as long as a particular ship's task, like the turning of the capstan or windlass.

But as far as I'm concerned, there's really only one song about buccaneering worth its salt. Go ask Stephen Malkmus about his hook, and how he got it.

That story will curdle ye blood, bosun.

Arr.

Arrrrrr.

2002-09-19T13:47:00.000+10:00

Yo ho ho, me hearties. Aye'm here to tell ye that t'day be Talk like a Pirate Day! Get involved. Wear an eyepatch. Grab a hook. Fill ye pockets with gold doubloons and pieces of eight. Borrow a parrot. Make a landlubber walk the plank. Select some pantaloons. Kill a few Spaniards.

And step to it smartly, ye scurvy dogs! Cowardly swabs! Or Aye'll give ye a taste of the cat!

Avast!

Gangway!

Land ho!

Uhm.

Shiver me fuckin' timbers.

The Monkey is Here.

2002-09-14T02:13:00.000+10:00

Police suspect 'monkey man' is alien or remote-controlled robot.

I wager it's a robot. Anyone willing to lay down a fiver?

Postcard.

2002-08-31T01:09:00.001+10:00

We've stopped to refuel, so I thought I'd drop you a quick card. Sorry about the picture - it's all they had. There's no-one with tan lines like that out here, let me tell you. Ha ha.

Now, I've been thinking. You know how, when you were a kid, you used to fantasize about there being two of you? And how you wished so often that you were a pair of identical twins? It wasn't so much about having a twin, and therefore being able to fool other people. No, no. With you it wasn't about illusion, you wanted to actually be two people. In two places at once. To do two things simultaneously. To never be alone. To read your own mind. You wanted twice as much of everything.

Remember how you could levitate? Oh, of course you couldn't actually fly, but you could definitely float a few centimetres above the ground. It was really just a matter of effort, and most of the time you couldn't be bothered concentrating hard enough. It was the same with objects - opening drawers, moving salt-shakers, bending cutlery with your mind - there was no question that you could do it. The fact that you hadn't yet was proof only of the enormity of your unexercised potential.

Then at some point you asked your parents for a magic kit, and they bought you a second-hand one. I don't know quite what you were expecting, but it sure wasn't that battered cardboard box (the same familiar shape and size as Snakes and Ladders) with the photograph of two prestigitating, white, gloved hands on the lid. There were no gloves or top hat inside though - no secret compartments, no live animals, no saw for bisecting women. You soon realised that it contained, in fact, no magic at all but rather just a clumsy set of aluminium hoops, coloured nylon handkerchiefs and playing cards, all rigged for maximum disappointment. Nothing worked. The hoops broke the second time you used them.

You would have been happier had the box opened to reveal a plain white card that read, "Squeeze."

Or, "Hover."

Or, "It's happening right now."

(Incidentally, wasn't this was the year before the chemistry set? Another failure, and for similar reasons, ie. a lack of explosions.)

But anyway, back to the twin thing. It's like that right now and I thought you'd understand. It's impossible. I want it all squeezed together. No spaces, no gaps; just maximum density. Everything existing at once. I mean, sure, I want to be here - leaning against the car, writing this and getting red dust smeared all over my t-shirt. I like standing here in the sun, wearing the blue floppy kid's hat I found at yesterday campsite; playing with the dog's ears and waiting for H to come back from the toilets with a bottle of water. I do. I really, really do.

But still. There are other places. Places I'm not. An infinite number, actually. Not even counting distant planets with inhospitable atmospheres. Not even counting other truckstops at other towns in other countries. I think you know what I mean.

Oh good. H. just came back with chips and two brand new tapes for the car stereo: Queen and Toto. Plus, barley sugar for later. Who doesn't love barley sugar?

Look at this: already there are too many words for one postcard.

I'll call when we get back. (Abracadabra.)

Influenza.

2002-08-31T01:09:00.000+10:00

I had no idea it was possible for a human being to consume this much apple juice.

Four Recent Observations.

2002-08-26T01:01:00.000+10:00

1a. Any creative idea which refuses to be coaxed into full flower or materialises during an unfortunate period of intellectual laziness is, ipso facto, a band name.

1b. If the idea contains an element of aggression and/or juxtaposition, it's a punk band.

2a. Any visual representation of giant squid will give rise to at least one 'calamari' joke.

2b. It's always the same joke.

Note to self regarding future career choices.

2002-08-18T02:52:00.000+10:00

Start a punk band called 'The Anus Dentata.'

(Additional note to self: you are an imbecile.)

Letters from our readers.

2002-08-07T16:19:00.000+10:00

Well, the response has been phenomenal. Here in the offices of Mechanically Separated Chicken, we are currently attempting to claw our way to the surface for fresh air, trapped as we are beneath fourty-four heavy bags of mail sent to us by people just like you. The teletext has been running hot, the phones are in disarray, and our resident psychic has even been driven to the morphine drip by our readers' constant telepathic demands for more information regarding Senor Hernandez. It is mayhem, but we are, as always, here to get drunk on the job and serve you as best we can.

As you no doubt know, news about this influential figure has been scant at best. Despite the many man-hours we've spent spent sifting through foreign correspondence reports, amateur video footage and fortune cookie inserts from the Tasty Taste Noodle House, we are still no closer to uncovering conclusive evidence regarding his whereabouts. Please be assured that this pains us more than it does you.

However, we are in possession of a few facts, and you have asked us about them. So, without further ado, let us proceed to Reader Letter Number One:

Hi Swanky,

Senor is being as elusive as ever. What of his childhood? Did his schooling prepare him for this shockingly fast rise to celebrity? What of the littlest senor? No mention from our favourably millened friend!!!! (sounds painful). So. Senor BITE ME.

Rinzee Soapagator

Firstly, Miss Soapagator, thank you for taking the time to write in. You have asked good, incisive questions - you honour us with your keen curiosity, and we shall do our best not to piss on it like an untrained house cat.

So, what of Senor Hernandez's childhood? Of this, little is known other than his fondness for boxkites and liqueur chocolates. His upbringing was by all reports joyful, carefree and completely lacking in adult supervision. Until the age of eight, he is said to have lived a tree-top existence in the jungles of Tasmania, descending from his leafy home only to collect fallen coconuts and visit the post office. By ten, he was in the foreign legion; by eleven he was appointed honorary Ham Inspector at the Ballarat Primary tuck shop. For a time, he was even head street urchin on Flinders Lane, leader of an unruly knockabout gang of part-time chimney sweeps with stars in their eyes and pockets brimming with other people's credit cards. Only his charming cowlick and insatiable appetite for club sandwiches served as early indication of the greatness which lay before him.

He had no schooling to speak of, but instead consumed great quantities of brain tonic as a child - and in fact, so effective was it that he accidentally memorised the scripts to every episode of Jem and the Holograms just by watching too much early morning television. In his late teens he had no choice but to undergo surgery to remove a third of his brain (grown now unfeasibly large) since the alternative - a skull too grotesquely enormous to be accomodated by his signature white fedora hat - was unthinkable.

I think it is safe to say that he was unprepared for his meteoric rise to fame (the details of which are, of course, so well known that I will not labour to reproduce them here) a fact to which his devoted but exhausted hairdresser at the time, Holly Manque, will attest. In the first few heady months of his celebrity, he was unnecessarily apprehensive about the public's affections and underwent a change of hairstyle roughly every three hours. "It's hard to convey the intensity of those early days," revealed Manque in his famous Playboy interview, "I've certainly never felt such professional fulfillment, not even during my tenure with Corey Feldman. Sometimes Senor Hernandez would call my mobile phone five times a night to come re-ruffle his quiff - and this is while he was alone in bed, with no media or cameras or anything. Eventually I just got a cot set up in his ensuite and slept on that to save time on travelling. He was very demanding. Of course he was. But all great men are."

Lastly, Miss Soapagator, I wish I could tell you more about the "littlest Senor," as you call him, but the code of journalistic ethics forbids me to descend to such levels - which is another way of saying that we are currently being restrained by a court order which, if violated, could tear our legal arses asunder. Indeed, last time we ran an article about the little one, we got slapped with a law suit the size of Bert Newton's forehead and it took us six months to get the photocopiers out of hock.

Senor Bite Me, indeed.

Fancy Pants.

2002-08-03T23:56:00.000+10:00

Okay. I'm gonna make this real simple for you. You've got two choices.

You can dress your dog in a kimono.

Or, you can create a photographic history of the world, featuring your pet cat in a dazzling array of outfits, cultural backgrounds and vocations.

What's it gonna be, punk?

A Musical Tribute.

2002-07-31T01:14:00.000+10:00

If people can grow to look like their pets, I'm gonna get me a giant squid tomorrow. Gonna go scoop one right up off the beach. Oh yes indeed.

But if people grow to sound like their pets, I'm getting one of these maltese for sure.(Turn on your speakers, kids, and brace yourself for some transcendent web design. I particularly recommend the doggy vortex - or colonoscopy video - two thirds of the way down the page. Whee! )

Senor Hernandez.

2002-07-30T01:13:00.000+10:00

Have you seen Senor Hernandez?

If so, please call our 24-hour Hernandez Hotline.

2002-07-27T00:46:00.000+10:00

This post has been removed while being considered for publication elsewhere.

Things to do today.

2002-07-22T03:17:00.000+10:00

1. Spend some quality time with my family.
2. Eat a hotdog.
3. Bug out to some fun pop music.
4. Fill out the application forms for my new ham licence.

True Porn Clerk Stories.

2002-07-21T04:19:00.000+10:00

"Nobody's thought of an answer yet, and we're not really sure we want to toss him for loitering. He is, after all, just putting on makeup.

But why in our porn section? It has such harsh fluorescent lighting."

Anecdotes from Ali Davis' journal about working in an adult video library.

How to Purge.

2002-07-12T21:12:00.000+10:00

You know how sometimes, you get a song stuck in your head that you just can't shake? Some ridiculously catchy Top 40 pop-slut chorus, or the telephone number melody from a vaccum cleaner company ad on TV? Or, fucking "Greensleeves' or whatever the fuck that is from the icecream truck that just drove past your office block a minute ago? And you know how that song - that muzak piece of shit version of 'Sussudio' you can't get rid of even thirteen hours after you've left the supermarket - makes you want to trepan yourself with a melon-baller just to make it stop, stop, oh please sweet jesus make it stop?

Well, me too.

During a recent discussion about this affliction, I was reminded of a sure-fire remedy which I feel duty bound to pass on to you. A close friend gave me this advice a while ago, and swears by its efficacy.

You will doubt me. You will think me some kind of crazy voodoo witch-doctor. But you should trust me on this one - it'll save you someday.

Apparently, the best way to delete offending tunes from one's internal playlist is to conduct a mental sing-a-long of not less than three Roy Orbison songs in a row. A cleansing medley, if you will.

The disturbing thing is that this actually works. Go on, try it sometime. I usually go with 'Pretty Woman,' then 'Only the Lonely' and finish up with 'Crying.' Once you're done, there's nothing in your head at all: no cat food jingle, no beach boys' harmony, no single intelligible thought, nada. Not even the 'Big O' song you finished with.

It's like magic. Like sorbet for the mind. Or, colonic irrigation for the mind. Pick your metaphor.

Love Stories.

2002-07-07T00:12:00.000+10:00

Me, amphibious land mammal with impressive lung capacity. You, empty parking space next to busy hat factory. Our eyes met at netball practice. Please call me.

You, pre-programmable chess robot with penchant for ASCII art. Me, Serengeti carnivore with more antelope meat that I can eat by myself. Want some?

Saw you at the front bar on Thursday night. You asked about my parasites, I pretended not to hear you. Please call, I've changed my mind. You're cute.

Me, rare seventeenth century walnut sideboard with brass mounts on tripod feet, top decorated in pie-shaped marquetry design with scalloped border. You, cream of celery soup. I just don't want to be alone any more.

You, a high pressure weather system moving in from the East. Me, porcelain figurine of a seated cat. I think we can make this work.

Met in the carpark in 1972, gave you information for some Washington Post article or something. I miss you. Can I see you again? I'd like that.

Saw you through a microscope at the lab on Monday afternoon. You were wearing flagella and the sexiest little pseudopod I've ever seen. Let's get together for dinner and dysentry; I forgot to wash my hands.

Me, salty old seadog. You, waterproof transistor radio tuned to pirate talkback. My crew doesn't understand me, but you do.

Me, seeks similar. Are you similar?

I was wearing clingfilm. You were decapitating a manatee. Your brother was only five centimetres tall and bore a striking resemblance to Roy Orbison. What was happening?

You, eleven-foot-tall shambling mass of matted hair and glistening slime. Please stop calling. It's true, I loved you once. But it's over.

---------------------------------
[This story appears on the Visible Ink 'Soundtrack' CD.]

Hat Surplus.

2002-07-01T01:58:00.000+10:00

Today, via the New York City Blogger Map, I came upon Giant Genius, a blog located, apparently, on subway line 6, Lexington Avenue Local, in NYC.

I am particularly partial to the author's Five Unnecessary Anthropomorphic Pictures Using a Single Pair of Googly Eyes and Different Hats, which includes photographs of various objects (a tractor and a giant ball of tinfoil, for example) which have undergone this procedure with understandably hilarious results.

Of special note is the last picture, right down the bottom, of a hat wearing a hat. Bravo.

You're wondering what happened next.

2002-06-22T00:55:00.000+10:00

Well, of course you are.

Did he escape? What was really inside that red patent leather handbag? Were they, in fact, brother and sister? Did he put the correct letter in the envelope before he posted it? And who was that guy, anyway? Did you see the look they gave each other? And the water, did you notice how cloudy it was? And the way the glass shattered just a microsecond before the golf club actually hit the window pane? How about that sound, the high-pitched metallic squeal, that came hurtling through the receiver each time he answered it? And the girl? What about the girl? Was it really her? Or was it someone else who just looked exactly like her?

Answers on page 74.

Five.

2002-06-14T20:17:00.000+10:00

The carpet is full of electricity; his shoes also. He holds them up to the light and sees a blue shadow.

Five minutes, to the deli and back. The dog follows as far as the corner; it wants your peppermints.

I think you're getting uglier; just thought you should know.

Grass, like a cloud of green gas, rises up from the mower. He kicks it and it starts again.

There are no awards for intensity. If you want applause, learn magic tricks.

Awkward Retail Conversations.

2002-05-18T01:43:00.000+10:00

Customer: What's this shiraz like? Easy to drink?
Me: Absolutely. As opposed to this one here [indicates different wine], which is extremely difficult to drink.
Customer: Really?
Me: Yes. Because, you see, it's a solid.
[pause]
Me: Solid wine.
[pause]
Me: Kinda like a salt-lick.

Customer: ... So yeah, the council's totally irresponsible when it comes to building permits. The new block of units they're building next to our house is going to overlook our back yard. With balconies. I'm worried about lack of privacy most of all.
Me: Yeah, we've got the same deal where I live too.
Customer: I mean, it's not that we wander around the garden naked or anything, but still...
Customer's nine-year-old-daughter: Yes we do! We do all the time!
Me: We do too. Or, we did, until we realised people could see us.
Customer: [looks at nine-year-old daughter, then at me] Hrm.

Customer: [points at wine] What's this wine like? Is it terrible?
Me: Yes.
Customer: What?
Me: Yes, it's terrible.
[pause]
Me: Also, it's poisonous.

Customer: Is this vodka?
Me: No, actually it's wine.
Customer: Aaaah. Is it made from vodka?
Me: No, wine's made from grapes, whereas vodka's made from grain or something, I think. Vodka's a spirit.
Customer: Aaaah. Is this vodka?
Me: No, that's wine too. In fact, we only sell wine. The pub on the corner has a bottle shop though, if you're looking for spirits.
Customer: Aaaaah. Is this vodka?
Me: No, that's wine as well.
Customer: This? Is this vodka?
Me: No, that's wine. It's all wine. We only sell wine.
Customer: Vodka?
Me: No.
Customer: This?
Me: No.
Customer: Vod...
Me: No.
Customer: Hm.
Me: Hm.
Customer: ...
Me: ...
Customer: Is it brandy?
Me: No, it's not brandy.
Customer: Is it made from brandy?

A Day In The Life Of A Writer.

2002-05-15T02:10:00.000+10:00

Young creative writing students, eager to emulate my successes, often write me letters asking about my daily routine. I am more than happy to describe it, though I doubt it will do any of you much good since each man must find his own path up the mountain, so to speak. All I can say is that for me, life is an unremitting struggle with nature, to the death. Or at least until tea-time.

Each day I arise early, and splash my face with water to the sound of the Upfield train thundering into Jewell station. I wrap myself in an old, threadbare woollen blanket and a tartan cap worn at a jaunty angle. I wear no other clothes at that time, since I find that my body is at its optimum and most masculine when cold and slightly itchy.

I sit on my front porch with my morning pipe and a full continental breakfast (including yoghurt, nectarines, yesterday's hard croissants and a pot of strong Turkish coffee) and nod a gruff Good Morning to the Greek family tending their tomato plants in the garden across from my own.

At around noon, I compose several letters to the editor, addressing the following topics:

1. The Pot-Holes On Grantham Street, And Why They Are a Menace To The Suspension Of My 1994 Nissan Patrol.
2. The Benefits of Poetry; More Particularly, My Poetry.
3. Why I Should Be Permitted To Walk About The Town Wearing Only My Tartan Cap, Woollen Scarf And Knee-High Football Socks.
4. Bull Fighting: Its Beauty And Why It Should Not Be Illegal.
5. My Neighbour Mister Barney Langham, And His Dog That Won't Stop Barking Even When I Poison It.
6. Eight Things Everyone Should Know About Pantoums.
7. The Corruption of Arts Funding Bodies By Economic Rationalism And Youth Culture.
8. My Books, And Why They Should Be Taught In Schools.
9. Osso Bucco, And How To Prepare It.
10. The Erotic Potential Of Librarians.

After posting these missives, I prepare myself for the hours of vigorous lovemaking which may be required of me at a moment's notice, depending upon the schedule of the nearby Young Ladies Writer's College. If it is Modern Poetry Day, I can expect several visits throughout the afternoon.

My preparation consists primarily of rubbing down my powerful body with a handful of coarse sea-salt or sand, followed by a quick shower beneath my fibreglass waterfall, a garden feature in my back yard roughly eight feet in height which I had a friend construct for me last summer. After bathing and perhaps a few push-ups, I coat myself liberally in a lotion of castor oil and lemon juice, a recipe I invented myself and find invigorating, and then dress quickly in a manly shirt of some kind and a pair of moleskins.

Then I eat a sandwich.

While I am waiting for any Young Ladies who may arrive, there are a number of writing activities I might pursue, including working on my column about trout fly fishing for the Moreland City Neighbourhood Watch Newsletter or perhaps jotting down some haiku or tanka. I may also continue my ongoing and extremely vitriolic correspondence with the poetry editor of Cordite magazine, who is an ass.

I then write ten thousand words towards my latest novel, which is about a young man with pleurisy working in a video rental store, and snack on trail mix I keep in a Groucho Marx biscuit tin beside my desk.

It's worth mentioning that any and all writing is executed via either a battered Underwood typewriter or my grandmother's badly leaking fountain pen. In fact, I have rendered many pairs of pants unwearable with smudges of indelible navy blue ink or the stream of hot urine I find myself unable to repress whenever I produce yet another Perfect Sentence.

The remainder of the day is spent smoking cigars, cracking walnuts open with my bare hands, and watching documentaries about the ancient pyramids on SBS. Eventually I fall asleep on the banana lounge beneath my hills-hoist, with a copy of 'Rex Hunt's Guide to Big Game Fishing' on my chest, dreaming of robust women.

Young writers, take heed: it's a rigorous life, full of socratic dialogue and firm erections and stamped, self-addressed manila envelopes; none but the brave of heart should attempt it.

Dress Your Penis In a Tiny Outfit Day!

2002-05-15T01:19:00.000+10:00

Lack motivation? Confused and insecure? Considering joining the army just for the personal guidance? Then fret no more -- visit Girls Are Pretty every day and be told what to do. Recently we've had "Sit In Abject Terror Day," "Masturbating While Lying Naked On A Full-Length Mirror Used To Get You Off In No Time But Lately It's Just Gotten Really Belabored Day" and "Heatedly Debate Whether The Strokes Or The White Stripes Is The Better Band Until You Do Us All A Favor And Put A Fucking Bullet In Your Head Day."

Some people, however, deal with their boredom quite differently -- by dressing up their genitals in cute little outfits, for example.

Very nice. I'll have one dressed like Corey Feldman circa License to Drive, thanks.

Bert Newton Google Poem.

2002-05-09T17:22:00.000+10:00

ROCK ANIMALS These really ridiculous animals are easily made ... Milky Way, using black paper and glitter (or sand)... easy-to-make Spring hat. BALANCING BUTTERFLY A ... them from profiting immediately. The paper was guilty of some sloppiness ... when they meant Red Hat. But hats off to ... thing wasn't necessarily ridiculous. French, attired in ridiculous costume with red wig and dilapidated top ... Throws hat, plate, small ball of paper. Catches hat on head and paper ball under Willy Smith locked the door. Closed at last, he thought as he took off his ridiculous paper hat and stuffed it into his back pocket. All he had to do now ... To call the hats ridiculous would be an understatement ... The picture appeared in the paper, a very large picture ... the question, "Where's your hat?" Now I not only ... x1, dark glasses x1, old man's hat x1, mobile phones (trigger happy ring tone) x2, phone shaped box with paper aerial (ridiculous size) x1, lecture notes to ... or a rectangular piece of paper into a cone, hold down ... suspenders, a jacket, a hat, and the biggest pairs of ... is an exercise in the ridiculous. On the floor or ... blues By Andrew Johnston Flat Hat Staff Writer. ... The interplay of the ridiculous reality of how individuals ... can also bore the listener. "Paper and Ink," one of ... the spectacular seven-foot hat so loathed by Carlyle ... the numbers are not ridiculous, all the names will ... the program. People submitting paper proposals may also ... corner for ten minutes, wearing a pointy hat with a big 'D' on it. ... a moral uplift for nurses the ridiculous paper mountain they have to wade through on ... except a crumbled ball of paper!) Submit your worst rendition ... mom didn't have ridiculous weekend ponytails sticking out ... not liking the purple hat I put on him ... car. It came for Christmas with a ridiculous doll wearing a dwarf’s hat, Noddy ... around her and put on a black paper hat) and built a gingerbread house with ... 2001) Have students explain the ... poem on large chart paper. Leave out the rhyming ... mug came with a removable hat. Manufacturer: F & F. ... books. Description: In pack paper folders with six different ... Milton's Ridiculous Riddles: Product: Danish Go ... A poster is a piece of paper. That T-shirt or hat ... person wearing that shirt or hat is not effective. Twelve people ... This may seem ridiculous, but several of the ... A to Z/Doggies/Blue Hat, ... that makes the Phantom look ridiculous! ... a lone horseman in a derby hat, astride a horse called Spark ... is funny. This makes Funny Paper smile. 38k - Cached - Similar pages

[Now, go visit Davey Dreamnation, founder of the Search Poem Movement and international superstar pop-icon. Go on, scoot, or I'll set fire to your toupee.]

Bert!

2002-05-08T05:34:00.000+10:00

In this extract from his autobiography, Bert Newton reflects upon the experimental LSD therapy he was subjected to during the 'sixties as treatment for a nervous breakdown. He was also encouraged by the nursing staff to wear a paper hat...

"Therefore... I was on a travel of the LSD! Do not believe to me, for it has formed the vacation for all. In no case I punish medical people, but it was a lot (the journey) that it is much defective one for me.

"It is not according to the drunk thing being. Nothing.

"Under LSD in me in the zone which disowned was turned totally the pieces. The startings of the light, that one had played flied sights they of my window, become the sun of the blaze. The nerves of the doctor of words of an illicit voice that effectively with me one echo zone. All the colour, the rainbow flickered with me like lightning bolt. They had been frightened here and the terror.

"More subsequently, one of the nurses has asked me if I would want to be based with the sun. I have received that one favorably, but because I have made the life of the inside to lead a life it the excited saying nurse that I would have to transport a hat in the strong sun. When I have said to it, I have not had within, it I have shown it, like one the fixed paper, which from a newspaper, right as the use of the marks of the paper a point of the children of the nails head eliminates to the parts.

"Therefore here, resplendently be firm, on the balcony of the heart crowned, in clean dressing of the elevation, pyjamas and the this hat of paper ridiculous to transport perched on my head."

(nb. Bert's original text has been run through the Multibabel translator, for extra Bert!-ness)

(extra-special nb. for non-Australians: Bert Newton is an avant-garde morning television presenter. If you ask him nicely, he will allow you to polish his round, moon-like head with a soft rag; a genie will appear.)

A Question for Scientists.

2002-05-02T14:04:00.000+10:00

For an incisive critique of our fast-paced and ever-changing modern world, I direct you to this fellow,
Mr Big Dumb Bag of Meat, and his wistful essay on job dissatisfaction, yeast and the lamentable state of public signage, "A Question for Scientists."

To quote:

PLUS, it is over one fucktillion degrees today, and some fucker tries to race me, plus they have this sign that says "Trucks Trucks Trucks" or something, plus when I go to work, it says on this one bridge "PREACH," and on the way home, it says "SLUTS."

I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, yeah. So then, also, today I am next to a WATER RENTAL TRUCK. WATER RENTAL TRUCK. FUCK YOU, WATER RENTAL TRUCK!!! FUCK!!! YOU!!!

End quote.

(via oblivio)

Welly.

2002-04-28T02:03:00.000+10:00

The smoking gun has an impressive list of entertaining backstage riders requested by various performers, from Moby to Prince to Kenny G. There are some gems to be found, ranging from the reasonable (like Sting and Beck) to Cher's wig room and the ten different salad dressings David Copperfield wants on hand at all times.

And hey, here's a tip: if Brian Wilson or indeed anyone from the Beach Boys approaches you with a cigarette and asks you for a light, whatever you do, make sure your lighter's "NOT GREEN!"

In other news, a new eatery called 'A Clockwork Cafe' has just opened up a few doors down from where I work, and considering that the artwork for their sign is totally ripped off from the 'Clockwork Orange' movie poster, I'm greatly disappointed by the lack of nadsat menu items. No moloko. No milk plus. No mounch-plates or eggyweg sandwiches. No 'red red vino'. Not even a fucking "chicken focaccia with rocket, sundried tomatoes and lashings of the old ultra-violence."

Never mind. I shall distract myself with these unusual fortune cookies. Apparently they're all real. Even this one. And this one.

Manties. Again.

2002-04-22T02:11:00.000+10:00

In response to the high number of queries our service desk has been receiving regarding men wearing panties, our team has collected a number of testimonials from satisfied Manties customers:

"So silky and soft, yet roomy enough to accommodate my entire ball sac. I love them!"
Ethan Hawke, janitor.

"I've got a stiffy just thinking about it."
Harold Bishop, jewel thief.

"Disgraceful. I'm appalled by this smutty innuendo."
Sidney James, gymnast.

"Every minute of every day, I feel my testicles caressed by a powerful yet erotic satin glove. I never want it to end."
Sarah Jessica Parker, pharaoh.

"My sales figures are up 400% and I owe it all to wearing Manties!"
Noam Chomsky, real estate agent.

"Tsk. Isn't this all just a tad undergraduate?"
Bert Newton, transient hobo.

"Tying up all the little bows each morning before work is a real bitch, but well worth it when I see the admiring glances I'm getting from my colleagues!"
Phillip Ruddock, part-time sandwich-hand.

"My wife loves them too! Now she can carry a 300g salad onion down the front of her underpants all day, just the way she's always wanted to! Thank you, Manties!"
Darth Vader, antique dealer.

Welcome, perverts!

2002-04-20T03:21:00.000+10:00

I'd like to take this opportunity to greet the surprising number of visitors from all over the globe who have arrived at this blog as a result of searching for "men in panties" on Google:

Welcome. Take a load off. Make yourself at home.

The cigars are over there, the chesterfield sofas are over there, and the trestle tables piled high with fresh, silky, aromatic 'manties' are over there by the water cooler. Help yourself, buddy.

Bellow.

2002-04-17T01:45:00.000+10:00

Off. On. The light blinked at him through his closed eyelids.

Off. It took a few minutes for him to open his eyes and even then he couldn't be sure if they were really open. They felt sticky, as though smeared with jam, and it was dark everywhere; the same colour outside his head as in. Pitch black.

Well, except for that fucking green LCD blinking overhead. At least it looked like an LCD, from what he remembered of them. Bellow supposed it could have been a retrofit of some kind like those old coldcan trectors sometimes had, but it looked pretty 2D. It was too far away to read, but he thought he saw numbers.

And goddamn, his head hurt.

An electrical cord brushed against his face and, panicked, he swatted it out of the way with a drunken, uncoordinated kung-fu move that even in his half-conscious state he felt vaguely ashamed of. He tried to get up and succeeded only in filling his body with a sickening white-hot pain that originated at his elbows; after gritting his teeth in silence for a few seconds he checked them with his hands and found them wet. Gingerly, he ran his palms over the rest of himself. Arms, face, chest, stomach.

And it was at this point that he realised that he had no legs.

No. Fucking. Legs.

A sound went off inside his head like a siren or a chorus of shrieking slaughterhouse pigs and he began to hyperventilate. His neck went rigid and a series of images of shredded meat flashed though his mind; almost involuntarily, he began thumping his fists against the floor.

Gradually he became aware that he was moving. Although his sense of direction was shot and it felt like he was lost in zero-grav, he could feel his head grating slowly against the broken concrete or whatever it was he was lying on. In increments, he was being dragged in the direction his feet should have been in.

Bellow began to cry. He tried to turn on his side and struck out impotently, hoping to hit something; a snout maybe, or a face. But the struggling did him no good, and whatever was pulling him started to pull faster. He tried to grab onto the cord but it slid away from him, or he from it, faster than his fingers could react.

And all of a sudden he lost his grip on everything, as in a single quick, slippery movement he slid downwards through a hole in the floor, into an entirely different room.

He had legs after all -- a trickle of moonlight from a broken window above his head showed him that -- but he couldn't feel them, much less move them. That didn't matter though; just the fact that he was whole and could see his surroundings was enough for now. Looking up, he saw the hole in the ceiling he must have been stuck in at the waist before gravity brought him crashing down. There was an upturned table to his left and an old fashioned plasmaboard smooshed against the far doorway with its screen half-melted. It was covered in black dust and there seemed to be something drawn on it. A gylph, or a child's picture.

He squinted and spent the next four hours trying to work it out. Eventually, morning arrived and the dull early sunlight puddled through the window and allowed him to read it clearly:

"TOYNBEE IDEAS"

The words looked like they'd been etched in the soot with a finger, and underneath them ran two columns of numbers and a diagram that looked a bit like a jumble of triangles but more like a badly-drawn tortoise. The light also revealed that although the plasmaboard was jammed in the doorway pretty tight, there was a good two feet left clear between it and the ground.

"Great," said Bellow aloud, "Really, really great," and wincing, began to drag himself across the floor towards it with his crippled arms.

My name is Frank. Yes, I am a robot. Don't mail me and make fun of me because I am a robot.

2002-04-17T00:08:00.000+10:00

To the best of my knowledge, Robot Frank is the only robot currently maintaining his own website. He has adventures. He also has a lion-head hat, a george foreman grill and a cold, black heart. When asked if the glass is half-full or half-empty, Frank replies, "My glass is half-full. Yours is half-empty."

Frank would like nothing better than to crush your bones with the awesome might of his mechanical robot fist but he does, however, have a soft spot for Gary Coleman and would like you to send Gary some toy trains.

Frank is a fearsome robot, and I'd like to see some kind of deathmatch between him and Chengwin. Chengwin is a kind, graceful and gentlemanly half-chicken/half-penguin whose foes include the evil Chunk (half-chicken, half-skunk), and Chixon (half-chicken, half Richard Nixon).

They seem suitable sparring partners, and I, for one, would pay good money to see steel and feathers locked in mortal combat.