A Dead Lie - Pt 1: Quakeys

Yacht.

The Group are a small circle of about five men with big yachts who own a chain of supermarkets around a small, obscure city in Australia called A Dead Lie. And boy, is that a weird name for a country. If you were to drive all over the city of A Dead Lie, you'd see that every large bunch of suburbs has its Woolies, its Coles, etc. But then, every smaller bunch of suburbs will have one of these little supermarkets, all of which are owned by The Group, and they will either be an Old Fonda grocery store(same business hours as a Woolies or a Coles), or an G.I.A supermarket(hours differ from store to store).

So anyway, A Dead Lie. Nice place. Not as well-known as the South Australian capital city of Adelaide. Similar geography, same population. Personally, I think that the people of A Dead Lie are noticeably better looking and friendlier than those of Adelaide, but I still wouldn't move out of Adelaide in a great hurry.

I have a cousin there. He's also a puppet monkey(we sometimes call each other punkies). Actually, I go to A Dead Lie and hang out at his place quite a lot, it's great. He lives in a suburb just slightly inland from the beach town of Thorn Vahen(pronounced thorn varn). Actually, it's not a beach town. There's no beach there it all. Thorn Vahen has a marina for the yachts, the owners of which also own modern houses that nearly fall into the stupid, fucking legoland-marina, they are built that close to the thing.

So that's Thorn Vahen. It's a fancier suburb than the one next to it, where my cousin(Quakeys is his name) lives, but it doesn't matter that it's a bit trashier than Thorn Vahen, because it has the best-ever name given to a suburb: Ape Orto...to Quakeys and I, that's really funny because we're both apes. Never fails to stir up a laugh.

Last time I was in A Dead Lie, Quakeys and I went to the Thorn Terrace Historical Museum in the CBD. It was there we learned something very interesting about the city's past. It turns out that Adelaide's first surveyor general, Colonel William Light also drew the plans for A Dead Lie. The city is actually situated in the same place as where Adelaide is, it's just in another dimension. I have always been wondering how the hell I've gotten there every time. There's no stupid little magical platform at the Adelaide Railway Station, that's for bloody sure.
But I'll tell you the most interesting thing that we found out at the museum that day: Colonel Light was a renowned fan of anagrams. (Part 2 will hopefully be better than Part 1)


Colonel William Light. Go the Grace Emily Hotel's open mike night on Waymouth Street. Light often gets up with his guitar, does a killer, absolutely killer job of Hand In Glove.

Oh. Em. Eff. Gee.

My brain has not stopped today. I've had billions of insects darting, ricocheting around in my head and no net to catch them with. Some pretty ones in there as well...a few dragonflies, even. Nice. They're cute, I like dragonflies. Dragonflies are the dolphins of the insect world. I never mind dragonflies when they're around and it's not often enough that they are around. Unlike their far-distant cousins. You know, the ones with the comparatively unsophisticated names. Flies. Yeah, flies. Those little pricks. Necessary little pricks nonetheless. But know this, dear reader: A mate of mine often says this and it's a great word to live by:


Wow. Read that last paragraph again. Maybe it's just me but...did that paragraph totally blow your mind? It's okay. I am aware that I have a gift. Possibly from God(hey back off, trendy atheists, I said possibly). I have a gift that not everyone possesses and I feel completely comfortable in saying that. If you're as talented as me and you're lucky enough to own a computer...well, then...shit! The world is your bivalve molusc.

It's an oyster, you see? Bivalve, dude. Bivalve.
Go. Fem. Fe. Ee.

the "The"

Hey there, readers...if you're even checking this site anymore. You're missing some gold if you're not.

I'm playing a gig tonight at Craphole. You should come and watch. Craphole is on Gouger St, Adelaide...you know that wine bar...is it still a wine bar?...you know that place across from the Mars Bar that was an average Italian restaurant about ten years ago and then was(and possibly still is) a wine bar? And how upstairs has been(and probably still is) a nightclub? Okay. So, just outside that wine bar/upstairs nightclub is a drain. It's one of those square ones that's just off the sidewalk and just on the road. With the metal bars, yes? Okay. By the way, I'm aware that this sounds like a total head-fuck, but once you're on Gouger street and you see either the Mars Bar or that wine bar place, it'll make total sense.

So.

Lift up the metal grill thing that sits over the drain and climb in. You'll see the ladder, they have candles in there by that stage anyway. Climb down into Craphole and enjoy $2 Coronas all night. Yes, fucking $2 Coronas. Puppet-club owners are in the know with getting cheap booze, dear reader. Some of it's not even cheap, but just plain stolen, but that's okay. We're low-life shitheads. Ethical conduct, what the fuck's that?

The club owner is Dobey. That's all he's ever known as. Dobey. He's a scary little nutcase. He's alright with you if you stay on his right side. I didn't know which was his right side when I first met him, but the side that I chose obviously wasn't the wrong side because he didn't punch me in the face or anything, so that was pretty lucky. Still, even if you do screw up when you first meet him and get on his wrong side, all you get is a punch and then he's cool with you. Everyone just thinks that he does it once to some people just to let them know that he's serious. As far as I'm aware, everyone that has been punched in the face by Dobey has never bothered to ask him what he is serious about. They just assume that it's a "general seriousness."

Craphole goes crazy every night. Live bands. DJs. Few people know about it's existence. But now you do, you know what you're doing tonight. Climbing down into Craphole, underneath Gouger St. A shit of a location, but the best live venue in town. You might even get laid.

So up above is the cover for my band's first album. We're launching it and giving it away for FREE if you come along to Craphole tonight, so do come along. It's called Trench. So there's a picture of some trench warfare. We're pretty hardcore. We've been playing together for about four months now. We're called The Fuck Sticks but we didn't bother putting the "The" at the beginning for the album cover, as you can see. It looks cooler without it, don't you think? Well...you haven't seen it with the "The" at the beginning, so you can't really say for sure, but I think you should trust me on this one. Smashing Pumpkins were funny about their use of the "The" on their album covers. Their first two studio albums, they were Smashing Pumpkins. From their third album onwards, they added the "The" to their name. Perhaps, they were doing what we, The Fuck Sticks have been doing. We refer to ourselves with the "The" to the press, on gig posters, stuff like that. But for our album covers, people know who we are. If you went in to Big Star Records and said, "Hi, have you got The Fuck Sticks' new album?" they would just as likely know what you're talking about if you were to say, "Hi, have you got Fuck Sticks' new album?" That's when Smashing Pumpkins went downhill. It is my belief about The Smashing Pumpkins(see how confusing it is, Billy? I have no idea what to call you!)that the fact that their first bad album(Mellon Collie & The Infinite Blubfest) was the first album where they added the "The" to the beginning of their name, and that every album they released thereafter was not only unlistenable but also featured the "The", is not just a coincidence.

Anyway, before I go, I was just gonna say that I was gonna put tracks from our album up here on my blog, but the album doesn't actually have any tracks. It's just a blank CD. But you can burn stuff on to the CD if you take one home from our album launch gig that you're going to tonight. You fucking better be there.

Who Is James Bogan?

Well, readers, this is really just for the sake of breaking a personal record.

The Olympic Games should really be about competing against personal records rather than just poxy little world records...I mean, when you think about it, how boring is that?

And what about my personal record? Well, so far, I've managed one new blog post a week at my absolute, very best. Today, with a good 45 minutes to spare, I've managed to break that record. Thanks very much. Forget steroids or whatever other performance-enhancing drugs there are. Forget freezing your piss. I've shattered this record with a six pack of the very smooth James Boag's Premium Lager.

"Who is James Boag?" That's the slogan that features on many promotional posters that usually feature some black and white, film noir-like scene of dangerous lust between two faceless characters. Often featured in the shot will be a cigar relaxing on an ashtray, still firm and smoking in it's own vigour.

But seriously, what fucking bullshit is that? I don't know about you if you're reading this in another part of the world, but here in Australia, most guys don't exactly need enticing when it comes to drinking beer. You don't even need to say "beer", just point to the stuff.

Anyway, it's twenty minutes to midnight now, I really need to break this record and I need to allow uploading time etc. So here's my version of what a James Boag advert should be and I will see you very soon.

Cheers!

Pancakes & Ninja Training

He told me to make him look "stately and/or presidential", the vain little fucker...

My cat, Licorice, is a ninja. No, really. Most nights, he can be heard doing his tumbling exercises that he studiously practices up and and down the hallway of the house. If he's not in the mood for pats, you'd better have a damn good reason for having your hands anywhere near him, because stroking him can end in tears. Your tears, to be precise.

He even has a Japanese code name, Kanzou, which translates, among other things, to both spellings of Licorice/Liquorice. Some of those other translations include, liver, liver cancer, liver transplantation, tempered distribution(click here)(for the mathematicians out there...I actually have no idea what tempered distribution is and I didn't understand a single word of the Wikipedia article to which that highlighted link is) and my personal favourite, beefsteak fungus(also beefsteak mushroom but the former is way cooler and would actually make a good name for a band).

When I was a kid, I was completely obsessed with Garfield. I even made sure that there were always Garfield books stocked-up in the toilet. I was quite keen on drawing and writing. I decided that writing and illustrating a hugely successful comic strip about a domestic ginger tabby was the way I'd like to make my living. Thanks, Jim Davis for making it look a million times easier than what it actually is, not to say that your comic is shit...far from it. People have criticized Garfield for not being cat-like enough, or for simply not being very funny. I disagree with the former. I think that Garfield is not only very cat-like, I also think that Davis is spot-on in regards to one important and rather profound aspect of them: Cats are remarkably self-aware creatures. I think that Davis illustrates this well when you see his protagonist admiring himself in the mirror or staring out the window while he contemplates his world. Garfield might not be the funniest comic of all time, but it has a philosophical side to it that I've always appreciated.

Jim Davis' Garfield also has an alter-ego: The Caped Avenger. When Garfield is in this mode, he can do things that his natural self might not do so well, like stealing his owner, Jon Arbuckle's pancakes. I thought that all of this was mere exaggeration for the benefit of the comic strip until I sat down with my pancakes this morning. They disappeared in a flash of black shadow.

Licorice, I love you, you little bastard. Don't ever change. You'll get all the pancakes and maple syrup you want.

Ripping On A Prayer

This happily passed for "sexy" back in 1986



"Okay, all you drunk fucking idiots singing along to this shit, listen up."

It happened at work the other night. I was shoving greasy cutlery and wedding cake-smeared plates through the ancient, nearly-broken washing machine in the pub kitchen. It's quite a lonely job by this point in the night as the chefs have always finished and the front-of-house staff tend to be gathered together in the bar, polishing cutlery and wiping tables in the atmosphere of the piss-happy, bullshitting punters, the 73 flatscreen TVs facing every direction, playing every type of sport you've never even heard of and a stereo screaming Powderfinger songs at everybody whether they like Powderfinger or not. Right next to the scullery section of the kitchen are two doors that lead out to the restaurant floor. Taking place on the restaurant floor that night, was the drunk and desperately sad dance-along, sing-along final hour of an ugly wedding reception attended by beautiful young idiots...

...Macarena? Oh, yes. That's what you want playing on one of the best days of your life, isn't it? Fucking Macarena. That's what you want to remember. Let me tell you something. If I hired a DJ to do the music for my wedding reception and he played Macarena, I would kill him. I'm not joking. I would crush his skull with one of the PA speakers...crushing the skull is the only way to release the demon...

...Better Man...What the fuck? I have no problem with Pearl Jam, but a song about a girl with no self-esteem who's trapped in a relationship with a man she doesn't love at your wedding reception? "She lies and says she's in love with him, can't find a better man..." Happiest fucking day of our lives, honey!

The dishes were finally done. I had pulled apart the old beast, descaled it, hosed it all out. The benches were clean and all I had to do was mop the floor. As the mop bucket filled, another familiar noise came through the dining room doors...a drum and bass guitar intro...Richie Sambora's talking guitar...oh...shit...Living on a fucking Prayer.

The crowd were jumping around, screaming along to the words of the song when I punched out the DJ, grabbed his microphone and made that noise that they included somewhere in every episode of Ally McBeal where the record comes to a scratching halt, "Rrrrrrrrrrrrrr."

And that brings us to what I began this story with.

"Listen to the lyrics of this song, for Christ's sakes! Nevermind the fact that it's a shit song, listen to the lyrics: We've gotta hold on to what we've got, 'cause it doesn't make a difference if we make it or not. That doesn't even make any sense!" I pointed and stared right at the bride and groom. "And if this is the way you want to start your lives together, then your marriage is going to fail. I'm sorry. I'm not bitter. I just think that if two people are going to get married, then they need to be a hell of a lot more sure about it than just leaving it to a fluttering, lonely prayer of all things, don't you?"

I don't think I made a lot of sense to the bride and groom, or anybody at the reception for that matter. You can't always get what you want, I suppose. Plus, I only had about thirty seconds to make my point before the bouncer came and UFCd me to the floor. Everyone in the room cheered as I was dragged out of the dining room. The bouncer shoved me back in the kitchen. The duty manager had words with me. The hotel management only just scraped out of having to reimburse the newlywed couple and their parents for all costs. As I resumed my floor mopping, the sounds of the partying came back and everyone was soon singing and dancing to Matchbox Twenty's breakthrough single, Push.

Your future, losers, I thought to myself. I knew that I had done my best.

And now, here's my new video, Questionable Song Lyics.

Enjoy!

Sick as a Funstrated Donkey

...or perhaps that should say, "dog-monkey," as the picture above is pretty damn sick, if you care to look at it for about half an hour and not many people would. However, that's when something is sick in a good way. Sick is popularly used in Australia by boys in the age group of five to forty-five as another word for good, great, fantastic, any word that can be used to express great delight towards something. For example, if a bloke gets his car fixed and back on the road, this will be considered by himself and all of his mates as sick. I've probably mentioned before that I wash dishes for a living. Perhaps I'm just imagining things. If that's the case, then I wash dishes for a living and I'll try not to tell you again. It was in this profession where I began to notice the overuse of sick in this way. A young apprentice chef that I once worked with, Garth, would use the word in almost any context:

"Hey Squeaky, we're gonna be running low on oval plates all through service tonight."
"No problem, as soon as they come back, I'll get them back over to your section."
"Sick. You'll wash them first, wont you?"
"Yeah, I'll wash them first. That goes without saying, really."
"Sick."

Unfortunately, right now, I am the other kind of sick. I'm so sick, that I couldn't go to work this evening which probably caused hassles for the kitchen staff, but I think I'm too sick to care.

What's the disease called where you throw up, have the runs, feel incredibly weak all over and have an aching neck and shoulders? Whatever it's called, it's that one.

Donkey Kong. A very funstrating game that's been around for...donkeys' years. Wow. I should totally write more when I'm sick. Shut up, Squeaky.

The story I had always heard about the game's weird name was one that I read in Mean Machines(click here) magazine: The title was a mistake due a blurry fax and that the game was actually meant to be called Monkey Kong. I went with this story all through my teens and twenties, sometimes even chatting up women with the story. You can probably imagine how many girls have slept with me because I told them the story of Donkey Kong. However, there are other stories, like one where DK game designer, Shigeru Miyamoto was trying to find a word in a Japanese-English dictionary to best describe a "stupid, stubborn gorilla" and "donkey" came up as a fitting option.

Also, there are aspects of the Donkey Kong game's storyline that don't sit very well with me. Apparently, the Kong character is supposed to be the pet of the then-carpenter, now-plumber, Jumpman who is now much more widely known as Mario. According to the storyline, Mario "mistreated" his giant pet gorilla and he started to go...apeshit...Squeaky, maybe DON'T write when you're sick. As part of his campaign of going bananas, Kong took "Jumpman's" girlfriend hostage up a few ladders, up a few slopes and finally to the very top. Presumably, this is where some sort of distillery or cellar happens to be located, as Kong certainly doesn't run out of barrels to roll down all those slopes towards our so-called hero, Mario. Jumpman. Whatever.

Let me get one thing straight. Anyone who mistreats their pets is no hero in my book. In fact, the only major flaw of the Donkey Kong game is that it's characters are the wrong way around. The hero is clearly meant to be Donkey Kong, the mistreated pet. But no, let's all bleed and cry for poor Mario who has put himself in this situation by being a total shit towards his pet primate. Having a pet is a big responsibility, Mario. If you neglect your pets, they run amok and will most-likely take your girlfriend hostage...Or are you just too "stupid and stubborn" to know that?