Shackin’ up with mum.

What with the rising cost of both petrol and choice cuts of beef in these trying times, I have decided to move back in with mum for a few months to sort out them finances. Please, don’t be fooled into believing for a second that I have given up any creature comforts for the sake of saving cash – nothing could be further from the truth. I write this I sit in a room with a 150 cm rear projection television blaring Foxtel-quality entertainment as I type into my Mac with cable internet connection and built in testicle massager.

Let it be known – thanks to Biff Lewis vacating the premises, I am back in the high life again, Steve Winwood style.

Three are of course a few pitfalls when re-entering my mother’s uterus. There’s just so much complicated etiquette to follow. For example, usually I leave my dirty clothes in a pile on or near the bed until James picks them up, washes them, dries them, folds them, places them in a neat pile on the bed again, waits for 24 hours and then places them inside the wardrobe himself. This is often just in time for me to get home from a sleep in day, followed by a two hour shift tutoring, only to Demand My Dinner Because I’ve Been Busy And You’ve Been Wasting Precious Cooking Time Cleaning The Bathroom, Fool. Nowadays, I don’t know who’s supposed to be doing my washing – mum or Mr. Mum.

I’m also enjoying the passive aggressive exchanges that mum and I experience on a daily basis. After heading downstairs for another glass of wine a few minutes ago, I walked past mum who was sitting on the couch eating from a bowl that contained both a slice of cake and half a custard tart. I was almost about to say “Muuuuuuum… You’re binge eating” in a sympathetic tone with my head cocked to the side in a concerned and sympathetic manner, when I realised that just fifteen minutes ago I had eaten the larger end of a box of peppermint chocolate pods and had just started on a large bag of roasted peanuts in the shell.

Another great exchange occurred early this morning after a cripplingly short eleven hours sleep on my behalf. Usually, our extremely complicated morning rituals will run separately because mum leaves for work at approximately 8AM and I usually set my alarm for an excruciating 9AM start. On Wednesdays however, mum has the day off and chooses to wake naturally at 9AM, throwing my morning routine into pandemonium.

On a normal day (after my 45-minute snooze quota is filled) I like to slowly make my way to the ensuite where I brush my toilet, pee in my teeth and then waddle to the shower. After this, I demand a naked Mick Jagger-strut through the lounge where I make my way to the stereo, switch on Neil Mitchell’s dulcet tones and let the word on the street according to only Melbourne’s most educated delivery drivers and Toorak housewives fill my freakin’ ears. I’m in heaven as I jiggle to the main bathroom with breasts akimbo, where soon I will set the makeup gun to whore, fire it point blank into my face and then wobble back to the bedroom ready to put on my brown tracksuit, beige skivvy and orange Homy Ped loafers.

But oh no – not on Wednesdays my friend. On Wednesdays, there’s no Naked Neil ‘til Noon. With the main bathroom right next to mum’s bedroom, I feel too guilty to even make the sound of drying my hands with a towel let alone using the hair dryer. Despite my efforts this morning, somehow I managed to wake mum from her Magic1278-induced snooze-fest, resulting in us crossing paths in the hall just before I was about to leave. It was at this time that I was confronted by mum’s alter ego, Senior Constable Lewis. “So why did you use my toothbrush this morning? I just wanted to know… that’s all,” says this flannelette-clad Columbo. “What What WHAT?” says I, taken aback by her accusing tone. Of course, we all know that I brush my teeth pre-shower, as often I’ve often no time for breakfast if I want to make it to uni by 10.30 (in time for a forty five minute coffee session). Shocked, I told her I had used my own toothbrush and didn’t know what she was talking about. I was then led directly into the crime scene where I was shown her wet toothbrush (Exhibit A), and a spot of toothpaste on the basin (Exhibit B) that “could only have been created by Emma Lewis”. At this stage, I led mum into my bathroom, where I presented her with my own toothbrush (Exhibit C), a brush suitably soaked with moisture as to suggest use approximately 15 minutes previous to that time. After solving the crime I grabbed my things and made a run for the door, leaving mum to compile her report and add it to her log ‘Lies and Deceit in the Lewis Family Home Volume XII'.

I must now vacate the computer so that mum can check her email and I can get some bed rest (only eleven sleeping hours before rise and shine). Since I just caught her typing her own email address into the address bar of Explorer on James’ laptop, this may take a while.


Figure 1 - Mum and I inspecting the crime scene at 9.30AM this morning.

breakin' down the cultural barriers, 2006.

Sunday night’s alright for shit fan fiction.

After another hedonistic weekend of indulging in all of the pleasures this fine city has to offer (snorting cocaine off Daryl Somers' salty man boobs), I’m usually too burned out to be creative on Sunday nights.

Because of this, I hereby declare Sunday nights to be shit fan fiction night. Here's a Moulin Rouge/Rocky Horror slashy for your reading pleasure. It even comes with the following disclaimer: I do not own Rocky Horror, and I'm not making any money from this. I am losing money by writing stuff like this rather than getting a real job.


Does everyone else think this



after reading that disclaimer?

There was a boy.

I had only just arrived in Paris two days ago, yng, foolish, full of beans. I didn't have a place to stay, nor did I know anyone there, but I had to escape my father, who was always criticizing me for my belief in love, and for my desire to be a writer, instead of something more stable and secure, such as a lawyer, or a banker. I quickly found a place to stay at a small, decrepit apartment building and set up my typewriter. I sat for hours a day, wracking my brain, but unfortunately getting no more inspiration here---in the city of love---than I had back home. But today, as fate would have it, someone dressed in a black suit and a gold and pink party hat crashed through my ceiling and landed right on top of my typewriter (with quite an impressive crack I might add). Then, just as suddenly as this all occured, my door swung open, and a man with a hump on his back, and long blonde hair (though was bald on top) barged in.

"Oh, so sorry. We were just rehearsing our play, and it seems Rocky got a tad bit too excited. Do forgive us." He said through his nose.

"Erm. ...Sure..." I sputter out, not quite knowing how else to respond. For one thing the deed had been done, for another this dude was freaking me out.

"Pardon me." he said as he stepped past me and bent over the person that had fallen through my ceiling. "Oh he's dead," he lamented, looking up through the hole in the ceiling at a muscular man with blonde hair and a tan. "You've killed another one Rocky, you bad, bad boy!"

"Ugh!" was all the blonde man responded with.

Then a woman with a sickly pale face, and impossibly frizzy red hair appeared in the hole alongside the blonde man

"So now how are ve going to finish rehearsals if Rocky keeps killing the main actor?" she deadpanned in an accent I didn't quite recognize.

Then all three turned to look at me, as if I of all people could help them.

"Won't you come up and have a drink? I think there is a little favor you could do for us." The freak said.

Against all shred of common sense I had, I went ahead and went up with him...not that I had much of a choice since he had taken me by the wrist and dragged me to the stairs before he could even finish his sentence. He pushed me through their apartment door and slammed the door shut behind us. All in all there were five of them: of course the freak, the red haired woman, and the muscular man with blonde hair and a tan, but there was also another girl with red hair, but hers was short, and impossibly straight instead of frizzy, she wore multicolored sparkly shorts, a sparkly gold jacket, and a top hat to match, and she was tap dancing to music being played by the fifth person, who was an old German man in a wheelchair. The girl with the sparkly outfit she saw me, and danced over to me.

"Hi! I'm Columbia! What's your name?" she said in a voice that not only grated on my eardrums, but on my nerves as well.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you over your outfit." I said, though I didn't mean to and I suddenly felt like a pompous goat. But apparently all was well because she just laughed (momentarily making me wish I had offended her afterall.)

"I know it's a bit loud... it's my costume for the show we're putting together. Anything for the sake of showmanship!"

"I mean I think it's neat..." I fibbed, "it's very, erm, er..ummmm...eye-catching."

She just laughed again, and backtracked to where we were before her shorts interfered. "Your name?"

"Oh, sorry. My name is Christian."

Just then the freak came over with a bottle of green liquid and escorted me over to their set they had put up for rehearsal. He introduced himself as Riff-Raff, and the redhaired woman as Magenta, his sister and girlfriend. I already knew Rocky's name from moments earlier, and the man in the wheelchair was called Dr. Scott. They then dressed me in a corset, knickers, stockings, and garters and resumed practicing their show. For awhile I didn't know what to do, or why I was there, or how it had come to pass that I was a 25 fucking year old man standing in a room of strangers wearing women's lingerie. Not to mention the fact that I had no idea how to discreetly dislodge a killer wedgie...


I think that there is something in that for all of us.

A trip to the country.

When James and I arrived in town X* for a three day holiday last week, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The main street was empty but for a few senior citizens, and the bakery offered little more than yesterday’s bread and a few apple cakes. When you ask for a cappuccino somewhere, nothing says ‘absence of a sufficient crema’ more than when the lady says “our cappuccino machine is in the dishwasher. You’ll have to wait ten minutes”. Suffice to say, sufficient crema was indeed absent from the bakery coffee, and each subsequent coffee during the trip.

But James and I are no showbiz assholes. We were happy to be staying in a ghost town with no one under the age of 72. These kids these days with their hippin’ and a hoppin’ and a bippin’ and a boppin’ – we were after some peace, quiet and violent fish slaughter for the purposes of food and sport, god dammit, and we weren’t leaving until we got it.

On our second night in town it was decided that we would have to hunt for our own dinner after an attempt to ‘dine’ at a local ‘restaurant’ on the first night failed us. After looking at a selection of menus from local eateries at our B&B, we choose somewhere based on a menu that had the requisite amount of star anise, compote, spatchcock and jus to render it a classy establishment. So when we arrived at what looked like a cross between a hunting lodge and a retirement village, we swiftly lost our optimism. This was going to be molto craptuacular, and it was too late to escape - we had already been locked within the gaze of the single waitress working that night. We were going to have to eat there, or face being chased out of town by locals with pitchforks on the back of pick ups for cancelling a restaurant booking at short notice.

Of the five hundred or so tables available, only two others were occupied, mostly by holidaying octogenarians who were just finishing up at 7pm, probably after a 5.30pm kick off. By the time our entrees arrived at 7.30pm, all other tables had cleared off to bed. So there we were, alone in room that looked like this.



Things weren’t looking promising for the start. Not knowing what to do with our inexplicable bread plate that was just a few ‘heat and eat’ dinner rolls and those tasteless dried bread stick things that nobody likes, we decided on a little pantomime before waiting for our mains to arrive.




I don’t even need to tell you how crap our mains were – lets just say that we’ve established two dining rules for the Yarra Valley.

1) Never order $30 salmon a restaurant where complementary coffee and tea from an urn on the table next to you is available.
2) Under no circumstances do you turn a spatchcock over to reveal its internal architecture before you have finished eating it.

So faced with another night of Town X’s cuisine, we spent much of Thursday at the trout farm just out of town. I love the fact that James is by far the keener angler, yet despite dangling his artificial fish pheromone-laden worm (I’m referring to his fishing tackle, of course) in the water for longer than me, I landed two enormous trout in fast succession, one of which we took home for dinner. I spent the next hour or so watching the trout farm lady shouting fishing tips at James, just so he could catch one large enough to cook up. That woman was a classic - I’ve never seen someone holding up such delightful pleasantries with two strangers whilst violently smashing a trout’s skull in with a steel rod in a kitchen sink.

So anyhoo, the trip was quite relaxing, and plenty of trout we did eat for dinner that night. Overall we had a lovely time, but I would have to say that the whole trip was worth the effort for this gorgeous photo of James and I – dreamboats that we are.



* Name of country town deleted to protect our delightful bed and breakfast hosts.

The finest scripting of all time - dedicated to Lesleigh Kraft.

NEED A BODY.YEAH.

"IN DILMAN'S GROVE,
"MY LOVE DID DIE."

DRIVER...FOLLOW THAT CAR.


BEAUTIFUL. WHERE CAN I SEE
THE REST OF YOU?



MAMA.

WHERE CAN WE GO?

WELL, WE CAN GO TO MY ROOM. IT'S ON THE FOURTH FLOOR. MY NAME'S FRAN. I'M AN AMERICAN. I GUESS YOU COULD SAY I'M A MEMBER OF THE PIECE CORPS. HAHAHAHAHAHA. GET IT?

WHAT IS IT? MY VOICE? DID I BLOW THE DEAL? I KNEW I SHOULDN'T TALK UNTIL I MAKE THE DEAL. I KNOW MY VOICE IS TERRIBLE. IT IRRITATES PEOPLE SO MUCH THEY USUALLY JUST WANT TO KILL ME.

KEEP TALKING.
KEEP TALKING.

OH, GOOD. I NEVER GET TO TALK. MY WHOLE FAMILY LOVES TO TALK. COME ON IN, HONEY, AND MAKE YOURSELF AT HOME. I'LL, UH...BE RIGHT OUT, OK?

DUKE, DUKE, DUKE, DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.YOU LIKE MUSIC?
THT'S MY FAVORITE SONG, YOU KNOW?

DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.

COME ON, DUKE, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE SOME FUN.

DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.

IT'S MURDER.
NO, IT'S NOT MURDER.
HER BODY WILL STILL BE ALIVE...

DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.

BUT HER MIND WILL BE DEAD.

DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.
DUKE OF EARL, EARL, EARL.

BUT HER BODY...
HER BODY.

I CAN HAVE IT ALL-THE PERFECT MIND IN THE PERFECT BODY.
YES.
YES.
KILL.
KILL.
YES.YES. YES.
KILL HER. YES.
YES. YES.
KILL HER.
KILL, KILL, KILL.
KILL HER. YES, YES.

I CAN'T.

CAN'T WHAT?

I CAN'T INJECT YOU WITH WINDOW CLEANER.

I DON'T MIND. HEY, WHAT DOES IT DO,
ANYWAY?

IT CAUSES YOUR BRAIN
TO DIE LAST.

I DON'T MIND!!!!!!!!

Not the Pearl Jam album.

One of the most treasured volumes in our family bookcase is our copy of Vitalogy, an ‘encyclopedia of health and home’. Inherited from our grandpa and written in 1927, this book has provided the Lewis family with a plethora of modern medical advice over the years, curing both father of his recurring gout and mother of her gathered and inflamed breasts. As children growing up with this book, Amy and I soon began to appreciate our spirit vapour bathes followed swiftly by our ice-cold enemas as cold as the Baltic Sea.

You know a book is going to be great when Chapter One is entitled ‘DISEASES OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN’. But it doesn't end there. Once you’ve glanced over diseases of the weaker sub-members of society, you can move straight onto ‘MENTAL THERAPEUTICS, MAGNETISM, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, PALMISTRY AND MIND CULTURE.

Gordon Lewis, this book means so much more than any stolen books from Essendon Library ever could.

Here are a few highlights, so best get your pen and paper ready. These are directly from the book - no editing, no shit.

PARENTS MAY REGULATE THE SEX OF THE CHILD AT WILL.
Every intelligent person who has kept up with the modern advance in scientific and pactical discovery knows that it has been proven beyond any reasonable doubt that all parents posses the power to regulate the sex of the coming children at their pleasure. Ever since the time of Jacob, the son of Abraham……and it goes on.

CONSECRATED BY THE TIES OF PARENTAGE.
When the loving wife ripens into maternity under the chaste and tender influences of her husband’s embraces, she is not only fulfilling the ends of Nature and the law of God, but she is adding another and equally essential constituent to the home.

HYSTERICS
This affliction generally occurs in women between the ages of twelve and forty-five, and is more frequent at menstrual periods than at other times.
Causes – The present cruel method of bringing up young ladies favours their development of this disease by rendering the whole system delicate and nervous. Hot rooms, unnatural confinement in schools, crowding of the intellect to neglect the body, solitary vice and novel reading are among the many causes of this disease.

SELF POLLUTION
The foregoing article on self-abuse should be in the hands of every young person as it would be the means of saving many bright intellects from becoming stupid or imbeciles, or lunatics from filling premature graves and be worth to them more than Astor’s millions.

BEFORE PERSONAL VICE



AFTER PERSONAL VICE



"If this young man escapes the asylum, he and his parents will be fortunate."

For gods sake people - he’s still wearing a bow tie! In 2006, our parents could only dream that we turn out that well.

There are 1004 pages in this book, I shit you not. Next time, we are going to learn more about Phrenology, and how phrenological analysis (in conjunction with your parents advice, of course) can help you to choose the correct partner.

In the meantime, I’m just going to slip off to dab a little squirrel corn on my secondary syphilis.

Excuse me.

Just do it.

I drove all night... to have my camel toe surgically removed.

Meet Nudge Lewis.

Ladies and gents, please welcome my cousin Nudge to blogspot. Sure, he may not be my cousin by blood, but he is a Lewis just the same. As far as our family is concerned, if you have attended over ten Lewis Family Christmas Dinners™ and provide poker chips as christmas presents, you are officially one of us and may sit at Uncle Bob's™ place at the table.

I have provided a photograph of my twin sister Amy and me with Nudge on our first birthday for the purpose of identification. Who would of thought there was seven years between us?

Just in case you were wondering, Nudge earned his nickname thanks to the hit T.V. show Hey Dad™ - named of course after the annoying neighbour who always hangs out at the Kelly's house and drinks all of their milk and the like.



Whilst on the topic of Hey Dad!, here are some unedited quotes about the show that I found on tv.com whilst I was trawling the internet for Hey Dad! related business.

'Andyt30' states that "Hey Dad has to be the best show i'd have a good old laugh when betty comes up with great excuses I loved it when she wanted a dick tating machine and she act as if she was deaf:)"

'Mathew' adds " I loved Hey Dad...!. I have been watching it since it first started. I liked Jenny Kelly played by Angela Keep because she is one of my favorite characters in the show. Hey Dad...! was set in a house with the Kelly household.For years the main characters have remained in the story. Others came and went sometimes for short periods and sometimes for many episodes. They helped to make the story more exciting.Some of the main chracters were Martin, Betty, Matthew, Debbie and Nudge. Each episode was a story on its own but it formed part of the whole story".

The most incisive and cutting review goes to 'Kerna', who simply states that Hey dad! was "A stupid show about a widow and his two kids, a stupid secretary and the kids stupid friends."

He also gives the show a rating of "0.9 out of ten". Hmmm.....how did he crunch those numbers???

Unfortunately, I failed miserably in my search for Hey Dad fan fiction, so i'll leave you with some Frasier fan fiction of which I CANNOT GET ENOUGH OF.

That Night

Summary: Lilith and Niles' one night stand was more than just a desperate attempt for them to reaffirm their own worth. Takes place sometime after "The Life of the Party" but before "Sweet Dreams".

Lilith Sternin could not bring herself to open her eyes. She knew that the bathroom door was locked, so there was absolutely no way Frederick could find her. She doubted her son was even awake. It was only one thirty in the morning after all.

I have to know, Lilith thought to herself. Why else would I have woken up forty-five minutes ago and taken the damn thing? The mere possibility of this has been driving me crazy for over a month.

Lilith drew in a deep breath and finally brought herself to open her frightened, anxious eyes. She instantly brought her free left hand up in front of her face, shielding her eyes from the harsh bright light in the bathroom.

"What are you doing?" she asked herself angrily. Her tone was still soft as not to disturb Frederick. "You're only putting off the inevitable," she reminded herself.

With that being said, Lilith lowered her left hand towards the bottom of her purple bathrobe where it joined with her right one. Both hands now grasped the small wooden stick she had previously been holding in her right hand. She slowly raised both hands until they were even in height with her breasts.

Come on, Dr. Sternin, Lilith commanded herself. You have to look at it.

Lilith nodded then slowly turned her head down. Her eyes slowly looked across the pregnancy test. A thick dark purple line was present in the control window.

Lilith's eyes finally looked to the second window- the window that would tell her whether or not she was carrying a child. She drew her breath in again and looked at it.

In it, there was a solid dark purple line.

The pregnancy test was positive.

Lilith was having another child.



AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

*Fembotanist gasps for breath clutching chest*

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Fanfiction.net will never get boring, EVER.

Separated at birth?

Figure 1 shows a picture of me singing karaoke at my cousin’s 29th birthday. Figure 2 is an actual photo of Jesus.

Can you spot the difference?

Ode to Matt Simpson.

This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

After weeks of what can only be described as a lacklustre footy tipping performance, I was pleasantly surprised to find the following news in my inbox this morning.

Just to add to the exquisite pleasure of Carlton beating Essendon on Sunday, it seemed as if I had also picked the winners of all eight games over the weekend, in addition to picking THE EXACT winning margin of Geelong over St Kilda.

So not only was I number one on this weeks tipping ladder by score alone – I also had a cumulative error margin of ZERON.

For those of you playing at home, that my friends is A PERFECT SCORE.

The icing on the cake? James Hird has soft tissue damage.

This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

Squintin' with Rolf, Trafalgar Square, London.

Keep your water levels high when spending time in the sun.

Ever had your photo taken when you thought you looked tanned and healthy on your beach holiday, only to find that the photo comes out like this? I just came across this one from my holiday about 15 kilos ago.

I consciously remember looking in the mirror that night in Port Douglas and thinking to myself “I look FABULOUS tonight”.

I also remember having sunstroke for ten days and throwing up off the side of a boat mid sentence, with James sitting 15cm away.

The lesson here is this: When in Queensland, if you have transparent skin yet insist on going outside between the hours of 9 and 5, drink plenty of water, no matter how much you deny being delirious with sunstroke to your long suffering boyfriend. One glass per hour should do.

Also, avoid alcohol to reduce ballast of brine accumulating around your abdomen (see photo)

HOLD THE PHONE!

I was just watching music max 'Soundtrack to your life - 1985' on Foxtel, when the film clip to 'boys of summer' came on. I was all, like "That guy looks like Don Henley", and it like, IS Don Henley.

Note to self number 1: update list of known Don Henley songs.
Note to self number 2: do not update list of known Don Henley songs that I like from 412 to 413.

Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade....

I've been thinking about the music that I like lately, and wondering how to define my taste. Not satisfied with anything I could come up with myself, I have turned to the Internet to tell me what I think.

Websites such as Pandora claim to be able to come up with a list of songs that I will love by simply knowing my favourite song. However, faster than I could type 'Lets dance' by Chris Rea into the search engine,'goodbye my lover' by Softcock Rocker James Bl(c)unt began playing. Sometimes I wonder if ANYONE understands the mind of a regular 24 year old female Chris Rea fan in the year 2006.

Pandora don't freakin' know me, man... but then, I may have been to paradise, but have I ever been to ME?

Its funny - Sometimes you just like everything that one artist produces because you like what they've done in the past, or just really like the artist for the person she or he is. I could just end this here and let this post degenerate into some fan fiction about being called up on to stage by James Taylor but I can't get on stage because of my wheelchair and then I like, get out from my wheelchair and then, like sit at the piano and then my plastered arms start cracking down the sides and then I like, spontaneously burst into "How sweet it is" whilst the whole audience rise to their feet and clap as one and then James Taylor lifts me up high above his head and holds me in his big strong father figure arms and then he falls to his knees and starts singing "you've got a friend" and then my parents walk back onto stage and like, get married again but then, like, James Taylor IS my dad... but I digress.

What I really want is to know why I like certain songs that in my opinion are musically perfect, yet are lyrically shithouse.

Example 1 (and possibly the finest song in existence)
Something got me started - Simply Red.

Mick Hucknall, you rock my world. You are more unattractive than Phil Collins and you hair is as red as the fires of Mordor, yet you are a successful, popular musician. Kudos for that alone. This song is a song to dance to... no matter how many times they remind me that this isn't King Street, I’m not wearing black stockings with a black dress and it isn't 1991. The only reason why this song hasn't remained at number one for the last fifteen years is that the lyrics are fucking SHITHOUSE.

Example 2 - Some like it Hot - Robert Palmer/PowerStation

Combing the worlds of Robert Palmer and John and Andy Taylor from Duran Duran, this song is full on fucken unreal. Driving alone is a pleasure with this song pumping. I love it so much, I turn it up loud and simultaneously indulge in constant drum solos, lyric screaming, toe tapping and operating heavy machinery.

If only they could have come up with alternative lyrics to
"We want to multiply, are you gonna do it?
I know you qualify, are you gonna do it?
Don't be so circumscribe, are you gonna do it?
Just get yourself untied, are you gonna do it?

Why do I feel like a middle aged pornographer when I listen to this song? Because the lyrics are SHITHOUSE.

Whilst on the topic of songs, isn't it amazing how even the best artists with plenty of great songs manage to produce an absolute stinker that everybody hates? Most often these are the political/historical songs that popular artists write for movie soundtracks, but sometimes they are completely random and therefore totally inexcusable. Think 'Twisting by the pool' by Dire Straits. Released at a time when Mark Knoffler could fart on a chocolate cake, press it into the shape of a record and still make number 1, this song came along just so we had to get up and press 'skip' whilst listening to 'Money for nothing'' on dads new CD player in 1988 (time I could have spent as a seven year old sending my underwear to Iva Davies of ‘Icehouse’.

Well, I would love to write more, but I’m off to listen to the Lewis Family theme song, that - you guessed it – is the only song in all the history of the world that is both musically AND LYRICALLY perfect. Enjoy.

I was a highwayman. Along the coach roads I did ride
With sword and pistol by my side
Many a young maid lost her baubles to my trade
Many a soldier shed his lifeblood on my blade
The bastards hung me in the spring of twenty-five
But I am still alive.

I was a sailor. I was born upon the tide
And with the sea I did abide.
I sailed a schooner round the Horn to Mexico
I went aloft and furled the mainsail in a blow
And when the yards broke off they said that I got killed
But I am living still.

I was a dam builder across the river deep and wide
Where steel and water did collide
A place called Boulder on the wild Colorado
I slipped and fell into the wet concrete below
They buried me in that great tomb that knows no sound
But I am still around..I'll always be around..and around and around and around and around

I fly a starship across the Universe divide
And when I reach the other side
I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can
Perhaps I may become a highwayman again
Or I may simply be a single drop of rain
But I will remain
And I'll be back again, and again and again and again and again

I’m going to show you what it is like when you can play..the piano... well.

Just when I think the internet has been completely trawled for goodness and there is nothing left to amuse me, something that I come across will totally reassure me that there will never be an end to the wonderful useless shit online.

Come with me on a journey if you will.

A few months ago, I was looking through the urban legends on snopes.com for shits and giggles, and I came across this.

Fast forward to a few months later, and I’m looking at Chelsea Peretti’s fabulous blog and find this.

Weeing my pants, I send the original snopes link to Dave on msn.

Not to be outdone, Dave sends me a link to this.

Oh my goodness, there are people out there who waste more time and do much less useful work than me, every day of the week.

My personal highlight is this.

When I think about the kind of mind that creates something like that, I feel a strange mixture of abject horror and insane JEALOUSY.

Boulevard Haussmann, outside Galleries Lafayette, Paris.

The Mr McGregor Saga.

Me? I like the simple things. After a long days toil in the salt mines, there’s nothing I like better than slipping on a pair of flesh-coloured size 20 tracksuit pants and sitting down to a piping hot cup of ‘shut the fuck up’.

In these rare moments of leisure (I’m currently down to a crippling seventy or so hours of relaxation time per week these days, what with uni and all), there are several pastimes that I thoroughly enjoy.

Short of being the solo witness to an air disaster that occurs just outside my window resulting in me providing a chilling blow by blow description to Today Tonight about the fast depressurising 747 fuselage burning up as it impacts with a passing Zeppelin from Nazi Germany that also crashes to the ground in a Hydrogen fuelled, terrifyingly luminous corpse fire (or something), there’s nothing I like better than popping one of my all time favourites into the DVD player and letting the grey matter drip out of my ears. This is a DVD that will take me to only one man.

That man can only be one man - The Man From Snowy River.

You know a DVD will be great when on the box is the disclaimer: This product has been made for TV and therefore contains edited ad breaks.

The Man From Snowy River, the McGregor Saga is set in the fictional country town of Patterson’s Ridge. The series was produced in Victoria in 1993 on a tight acting budget (and even tighter script writing budget). Amy and I walked through the film set on grade six camp, and therefore decided it was our job to support the show when it made it to TV. So at 7.30pm every Sunday night, we put the cassette deck recording of our weekly Pet Shop Boys radio tribute show on hold and got ready for some Snowy River action, 1893 style.

Before I go on, I should let you know something.

In Patterson’s Ridge, one man is the law.

His name is McGregor.

Matt McGregor.

Nobody gets my fires burning like Matt McGregor, played by the incomparable Andrew Clarke.

Liked him as the dad in ‘The New Adventures of Skippy’? You’ll simply LOVE him as The Man from Snowy River.

As if he wasn’t enough eye candy for one prepubescent, undersexed tweenager to bask in, Clarke was flanked by Guy Pearce, Brett Climo AND Josh Lucas. All four of them on screen at once? I nearly jizzed in my pants (red gangsta cross colours, matched with a mustard ‘ya dig’ skivvy, if my memory of 1993 serves me correctly).

Please, Don’t get me wrong - the entire show is shit in every conceivable way. However, if I wanted intellectual stimulation, I would retire to my room with my father’s pipe,London Review of Books folded under arm, wanking claw at the ready.

Snowy River is enjoyable on every perplexing level imaginable. You can let your mind boggle at the scripts full of good ol’ fashioned family values, develop nausea from the editing and continuity issues, or simply enjoy the fact that no matter what happens in Patterson’s Ridge, everything seems to be wrapped up in a neat little package by Matt McGregor himself at the end of each episode.

In any given episode, the following elements will always occur.

1. If a new character enters scene looking a little shifty or a little mysterious, It is guaranteed that by the end of the episode, that character will have been kicked in the face by McGregor with a stirruped foot, from nothing but the finest horse in the district*.

2. If a family of foreigners moves into town, they will be initially persecuted by local farmers and schoolchildren alike. Racial tensions will culminate at either the pub or general store, before a member of the McGregor family steps in and stands up for the newcomers, resulting in the community feeling shame and then acceptance of the strangers. This will inevitably be followed by the new family having a wholesome dinner at Langara (the McGregor’s property). This meal will be prepared by Collette Mann, with that girl from Round the Twist pouring gravy. Mrs. O’Neil will be in attendance, but will NEVER stay the night.

3. Any horse in the district deemed ‘untameable’ will be tamed by Mr McGregor in front of the entire town. However, this will only occur after both his sons and only daughter (most likely disguised as a man to avoid creating a town scandal) give it a red-hot go.

4. Sexual tension will be rife between Victoria Blackwood and McGregor’s son Rob (Guy Pearce), despite the fact that her father is the richest, most evil man in Patterson’s Ridge. Many delightful misunderstandings and coincidences will arise resulting in the two spending plenty of time together unchaperoned in long underwear beside the river.

5. Stampedes and avalanches can be caused by the firing of a single bullet, and be graphically represented by stock footage from 1972.

6. Aboriginal characters will pass in and out of town, never staying for more than one episode. The Aboriginal people will speak English at all times, even when alone and amongst only other Aboriginal people. All Aboriginal people will have surnames like ‘Possum’ and ‘Wombat’. Before they leave town, Matt McGregor will again state his offer for them to make camp on his land “anytime”.

Oh, I could go on. A thousand monkeys on a thousand typewriters typing for a million years couldn’t summarise this fine example of Australian television history sufficiently. Sometimes I don’t even know why I love it so much… I guess it was just a time and place in my life that could only be filled by Andrew Clarke's Akubra.

Now don’t be mistaken – I don’t have father issues. I just think I would feel so safe and secure in Matt McGregor’s big strong arms…but I digress.

If you’re looking to fill a spare weekend (and have a spare $17) go down to JB HIFI, buy season one and join me in Patterson’s Ridge – you won’t regret it. I've just finished season one and two, so for now, its back to staring out the balcony window, waiting for planes to fall from the sky.


*Health Warning. If you decide to play a drinking game whereby participants drink every time McGregor kicks someone in the face whilst on horseback, prearrange your ambulance and consult you mortician.

Hangin' with Mr Lewis.

Crisis averted.

I think I may have just narrowly escaped running myself over with my own car. I was pulling into the driveway at home, chewing the memory cud of a most resplendent evening past watching Judith Lucy at the comedy festival, when I switched off my engine with the plan to exit my vehicle in an orderly fashion.

Upon opening the door, I attempted to place a dainty hoof on the pavement, which was immediately scraped along the ground and then twisted towards the belly of the car. That’s right – I was being sucked under, soon to be sandwiched between a Holden cruze and the cold, hard reality of a driveway in Tullamarine, where my body would likely remain until the following afternoon. I could picture the scene when James finally returned home from work to discover my bloated corpse being noisily devoured by alley cats and minor birds.

Not willing to accept this upper middle lower class North Western suburbs That’s Life! Magazine cover article– “I came home to find my partner crushed to death by her Holden but its okay because I found true love with the funeral director and now I’m being paid $1000 for this story”-type fate, I came to my senses and realized that given the fact that the driveway isn’t on much of an incline (approximately 0.0000001 degrees) and the car was only rolling at approximately one cubit per hour, I was probably going to be okay. In fact, I still had enough time to reach in, place the car in park, put the hand break on and remove my stereo face before being sucked into the murky depths of the 2006 Darwin awards – a fate worse than death considering THEY HAVEN'T BEEN FUNNY FOR YEARS AND THEY AREN'T TRUE SO STOP FUCKING FORWARDING THE EMAILS TO ME, CUNTS.

Footnote: When I finally got inside the house, I made a beeline for the toilet and had one of those dreaded “we ran out of toilet paper last night, so I hope you don’t have to do number twos tomorrow morning” conversation flashbacks to the previous night, just as I began a much needed number ones.

Can anybody spare a square?

Obligatory travel stories

Travel blogs seem to be so popular with the kids these days. When I went overseas last year, I didn’t blog - I just sent out a few group emails to keep people posted. This was pretty much just in case anyone was wondering if I had discovered a lemon flavoured, carbonated beverage to my liking in the USA yet, or if my lower colon had recovered from the Giardia-tainted chicken wrap I ate in a pub on Mayfair, which later resulted in me spending two agonizing days ‘sweating it out’ in Matt Simpson’s bed, spastic colon in hand.

I still can’t believe that I got food poisoning on the most expensive Monopoly street of them all, and not when we ate at a pub on the Angel Islington - clearly the lesser-valued, lighter blue, more poisony Monopoly street.

An even better window into my soul (and large intestine) was my written journal. When I was happy, the red-leather bound pages were neatly written, the handwriting consistent (well, consistently shit, but still… consistent in size) and the reports of the day extremely complimentary. As the days wore on and the gossamer thin layer of my patience wore away around me like so much deodorant at Bangkok airport, the diary become a collection of shallow rants, describing trip highlights like the constantly steam covered, poo-stinking hostel bathroom in Vancouver with no dry surfaces to place ones towel where I was forced to spend a grueling single night. The best part about that bathroom was how I decided at the time that the experience had helped me to understand “exactly what Schappelle Corby was going through” in Balinese prison. Now, I don’t want to look too much in to this, but I may have been just a little homesick, and perhaps the teensiest bit overdramatic at the beginning of the solo leg of my journey.

Clearly, this journal is chock full of riveting stuff.

I honestly can’t believe what I sometimes wrote, considering that through the misty rose-coloured fog goggles of retrospect, I had a wonderful time. There was perhaps ten whole ordinary days out of about seventy, but it seemed only to be the homesickness that was recorded ad nauseum. Consequently, I thought I would post a few diary entries from the trip, solely for the purpose of hanging shit on myself for being such a pissy, 1st world weenus.

I promise that in all future posts, I will write about the good times… and I promise to keep my poo references to a bare minimum.

Sunday, August 29th: San Francisco

“…I’m sick of my own negativity…. I tried to call James before to talk and it didn’t work. Why don’t phone cards have instructions? I wasted 75 cents trying to call, and I have no coins left now.”

“… Alcatraz was actually better than I thought – I had zero expectation.”

“Had lunch at some T.G.I. Fuckwits sourdough bakery on the waterfront, and then caught the tram back to town.”

Monday, September 5th: Vancouver

“Now I’m back at the revolting hostel, after having a shower in the revolting bathrooms. I may not leave the confines of my cell until morning.”

“I don’t know if it’s the lonely talking, but I want to settle down with James and have 19 children and never leave home again”.

“Why am I in the worst hostel room in the worst city on earth?”

Thought I made a pit stop in Ethiopia? I wrote this in VANCOUVER!! What was I thinking?! Of course, I flew to Chicago the next day, and had possibly the most tops week of all the tops weeks there ever did was.

Wednesday, September 15th: New York City

“Slept in Late this morning, in an attempt to cure my tiredness, sore feet, sore knee and unexplained arm rash (did I mention I had the runs as well, dear diary?)”.

“Will need to force my feet into recovery to prepare for Anthony’s endless agenda of walking and touring”

Sunday, September 24th: New York to London

“Watched ‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’, ate my plastic meal, and then passed out in my chair.”

“Ben Elton hasn’t been funny for, like 10,000 years. What a cunt.”

Friday, September 30th: Paris

“Is Anthony reading this diary? Is Anthony reading this sentence RIGHT NOW? Hmmmmm…he’s over there on the bed right now, probably thinking I’m fucking insane”

Wednesday, October 5th: Night train to Milan

“Despite Anthony’s unconscious corpse on the next bunk, I felt alone and vulnerable.”

“I assume most people come here to buy expensive, useless shit.”


-o0o-

I’ll leave you with a delightful diary entry from NYC, just in case anyone still wants to be my friend after this window into my world….

Friday, September 16th

“It’s hard to believe how lucky I am sometimes”.

Sure – this may have been in some way related to seeing Christopher ‘Shooter McGavin’ McDonnell ACTUALLY DO THE SHOOTER MCGAVIN FINGER GUNS as he ran backwards up the stairs in a white suit during the encore of Chicago on Broadway – but you get the point.

Lucky be this happy little clam who gets to travel the world just because she wants to, I say….

mmmmm...fascinating.

An insight into the mind of the feminist botanist!

Now, we all know that's one too many 'ist's's's' for one blog name, hence the FEMBOTanist business. Lucky you for stumbling across my blog.. my public comments are now no longer restricted to the 50/50 section of the Herald Sun!

Huzzah!