Big Brother

I’m writing this from the Melbourne City Dry Cleaners and Self-Service Laundromat, 244 Russell Street…again. I didn’t expect to be back but the washing machine I so proudly installed and pampered with a new hose from Bunnings exploded mid wash and released a plume of acrid fumata nera to announce it wasn't sure who the new Pope was. It wasn’t a surprise. For months it had been stopping mid-cycle and refusing to rinse or spin. Like an angry washing jockey who thinks of nothing but getting his clothes drying over the finishing line I had to viciously whip its lid up and down repeatedly to make it perform.

Those who know me know I’m not an angry man. It’s hard to press my buttons because I don’t own an ironing board. As far as I can remember the only time I truly lost it was three years ago at the Dunedin Fringe Festival when I hurled my flyers in disgust because the feckin Irish fiddler before us kept going over time…the same feckin Irish fiddler who the Herald Sun gave four feckin stars to yesterday. He’s still doing the same show he did in Dunedin so I pity the poor fool on after him. He also said I had skinny legs, which is true, but not something a tardy Irish fiddler should be pointing out while I'm picking up my flyers.

The one thing guaranteed to make me angry is when my machines go bung. When they go bung when I'm skint I get very angry. Right now I’m brassic and besieged by bungness. My iPhone is bung. My washing machine is bung. My Brother HL-2040 laser printer is bung. At the moment everything I touch blows up or shits itself. If I was a suicide bomber or pooh whisperer this wouldn’t be a bad thing but I’m not and it is and now I’m in a laundromat typing a document I can’t print.

Like the washing machine the printer has at least been kind enough to go bung gradually. My pages had started to go all Jackson Pollocky but the text was still readable. For a while it was quite exciting to see what abstract arrangement of toner splatter each page would reveal until it went all Mark Rothco.

Mark Rothco/Brother HL-2040 No. 7

It was a very cheap printer; I think it cost me about $120. I thought this was a bargain until I found out the toner cartridge TN-2025 for the HL-2040 costs more than the feckin printer. You know the toner cartridge needs replacing because the Brother printer helpfully flashes a red light at you and refuses to print until you go and get dicked at Dick Smith. Lord help you if the drum light starts flashing. Then you need to buy a DR-2025 drum unit which will set you back the better part of $250. And there's no way of knowing if you have really run out of toner or if Big Brother has programmed your printer to fake it so the Brother CEO can buy a Mark Rothco. Well, that was before the internet. I googled and found this. I had not run out of toner. All I had to do was put a bit of tape over the hole on the side of the toner cartridge and suddenly I had black gold and toner tea gushing all over my reams. My printer had been lying to me. I was being diddled by my own device. And it wasn’t just a smidge more toner left. The printer said I was out of toner in March last year and I’m still using the same toner cartridge! That's 13 months of bonus toner. I’ve got a toner tardis sitting in my printer now because I covered up its little hole so the printer couldn’t spy on it.

However my Rothco problem obviously wasn't a lack of toner. Since I'd covered it's diddle hole the printer was keeping stum on what might be up. I went to the Brother Solutions Centre and received the dreadful news that my only remedy was to splash out on a DR-2025. Then I found another site telling me to wear a mask, turn the lights down low and treat my drum with alcohol, paper towels and a cotton tipped swab. I wasn't interested in having sex with my printer drum so just gave it a good blow and a brush and what do you know, right as rain.

People all over the world are spending hundreds of dollars unnecessarily. Now I know why printer companies encourage you to place your ‘used’ toner cartridges in recycling boxes. They recycle them by selling them again. My printer still isn't quite right though. It keeps flashing its light for paper jam when there's no paper jammed but I can override that by viciously whipping its front panel out and in repeatedly to make it perform.

I will stop now because I smell smoke.

Cucumis Sativus

I'm sure you will all be pleased to know I made my Melbourne theatre debut last week and yes, I was entertaining children. Thankfully I wasn't dressed like this.

Thanks to Phineas Phrog Productions for permission to use this even though I haven't asked them.

I've always wanted to write an educational children's show that rips of Disney's 'Never Smile at a Crocodile' called 'Never Smile At A Paedophile' and this photo would be perfect for the poster. I would also be ripping off my friend Jared's idea but after my Simon Sweetman experience, in the ripped off words of Roger Whittaker, I don't believe in IP anymore.

This was taken at my final Halloween appearance as MC for 'Boo At The Zoo!' Auckland Zoo is very progressive and has created a whole raft of events that rhyme with zoo, including 'Woo At The Zoo!', for Valentines Day, 'Jew At The Zoo!' for Hannukkah and my favourite 'Hugh At The Zoo!', where every June 27th a Hugh Grant impersonator asks zoo visitors for blowies in the carpark. I think my character in this photo was a Glampire but as you can plainly see, I look more like a scary old paedophile or Gary Glitter. I just hope I didn't mentally scar and feather those two young boys too severely. Anyway, I'm not to blame. That woman in the background booked me for the gig and organised the whole thing. I think she may have organised the costume as well. If you want to see a really scary costume that I organised for myself have a look at this...

Can you guess who I'm meant to be? No you can't because your eyes are bleeding. There is so much wrong with this picture you could probably film people looking it at for the first time and put them on the YouTubes. I made the fateful mistake of not trying on a costume before a gig. It's commonly known that everyone fits a dog costume but not everyone fits a white lycra spandex unitard designed to be worn by an extremely skinny girl. Can you work out who I am yet or are you busy clawing at yourself in the foetal position? Of course, I'm Freddie Mercury. It's obvious isn't it. The moustache, the cape, the half a cucumber wrapped in gladwrap because I'd forgotten to hire a microphone. The moment I put the costume on I knew everything was in the wrong place and no matter how much I tugged and pulled I might as well have been a slow-mo-promo-girl in white body paint...you could see everything! Everything! There were young children at this party and as I shamefully strutted with my cucumber and lip-synced to Bohemian Rhapsody, I could see the hands of their mothers shielding their children's eyes as their own eyes and mouths expanded in unqualified horror. Thankfully I wasn't being paid a cent to thrust my meat and half cumcumber round willy nilly, I was doing it as a favour for my friend Sue, so luckily Sue couldn't sue me for metal anguish or causing her party guests to choke on their own vomit. So remember, never, never shake a cucumber. And always try on your costume before you get to the gig.

I didn't have a costume for my Melbourne debut, I got to wear my own suit so it fitted perfectly. Here I am...

Photo - Hilary Walker

I can't remember what I was doing in this shot, either teaching the children about obtuse angles or pretending to be Jesus. It was lots of fun and I got to work with lovely people who have their own Wikipedia pages like my dear friend Cal Wilson, Scott Brennan, Emily Taheny and Mike McLeish.I even got to perform in the Famous Spiegeltent that Marlene Dietrich sang 'Falling In Love Again' in during the 1930's. Here's a lovely photo of Marlene in what looks like a white lycra spandex unitard and cape.

I will stop here as this photo has given me a great idea for a late night German one man cabaret fringe show called 'Verstecken Sie die Gurke!'

Men Who Like M|A|R|R|S, Women Who Like Venus

Imagine coming home early and finding your partner in bed with these three men.

And then you hear a noise in the closet and the men in the closet won't come out so you open the closet and find these four men.

You feel disgusted and dirty so you go take a shower but you can't because this man is already there, washing the salt off his skin after using your partner as a sexual surfboard.

You feel like killing yourself by stepping on a landmine but these men come out from under the bed where you store your landmines.

Nickelback tribute band No More Landmines

Is finding out your partner has terrible taste in music as bad as being cheated on? No, it's not. It's far far worse. When your partner cheats on you it means they don't love you anymore. When your partner likes bad music it means they never loved you and are insane. You have wasted years of your life with a mad person incapable of love who listens to Coldplay.

Thankfully my partner has very good taste in music, except for Placebo. The word Placebo originates from the Latin 'I shall please', as in 'I shall kill myself please turn that off.' She loves the high pitched nasal vocal stylings of Placebo lead singer Brian Molko, especially when Running up that Hill. I love Running Up That Hill as well but when Brian sings it I want to run up the hill after him, punch him so he falls down and breaks his crown and tumble down after him and punch him again. Now though I have overcome the Placebo effect by taking drugs to make me feel better and can almost listen to all of Every Me, Every You without harming myself.

So what can be done? I suppose the first thing you have to find out is if your partner was faking it. When you both listened to ABC were they dreaming of Elemeno P? When you listened to the New York Dolls were they fantasising about The Goo Goo Dolls and just wanting you to know who I am?  Perhaps they were the person that left the comment, "This is one of those songs I just understand for some reason, but I have no idea why. It just makes sense to me." During those nights spent watching YouTube videos of Kate Bush would they have been happier watching just Bush?

When confronted they will simper and blubber and say they were only doing it to make you feel good but don't offer them any comfort. They have lied to you and betrayed you and God only knows what's on your iTunes. It could takes years to delete all the crap they've downloaded late at night while you've been polishing your records and arranging them alphabetically by the name of the band they've been influenced by. Or by genre. Or by the matrix number on the run-out groove. They have soiled your hard drive with filth like Genesis after Phil Collins started singing and Phil Collins.

...this is a serious issue.

That Feelers fetish may just be a passing phase but you cannot wait and hope it will go away. You must take immediate action. Try and reason with them. Tell them The Feelers were originally called Naked Toddler. True story. Naked Toddler! If your partner doesn't feel uneasy and queasy listening to a band that is essentially called 'Feeling Naked Toddlers' they are beyond hope and you should slip out the back Jack and make a new plan Stan. Don't be afraid to lie for love. Creed are a bunch of God botherers who sacrifice puppies. Jack Johnson uses puppies to wax his surfboard. Nickelback blow up puppies with landmines. It's for their own good.

If after all this they still refuse to listen to sense and good music just do what I did when I discovered a Creed CD in my brother's music collection and throw it out when they're not at home. I left his Jewel on the shelf because he was very generously letting me crash at his house and drink his wine cellar dry, but it had better be gone by now or there will be trouble...big trouble.