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LapTopping – The Bit Long, Official E-zine of The Bedroom Philosopher
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ISSUE 55
Monday 23 October 2006
Estimated Reading Time: 11:03
www.myspace.com/thebedroomphilosopher
**Two new songs uploaded on Myspace. “Song About The Puppy With The Nappy” (feat. Di Daly) and “I’m So Post Modern’s Cute Nerdy Sister” (feat. Ken Heazlewood) both from Maxi-Single**
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WEBMASTERS NOTE!

LapTopping is being presented in HTML text, to avoid the random line breaks of plain text. It should still look the same. Please let us know if there’s any buggerups.

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ALOHA TEAM POOGLET!

“Ozone bemoans and drought clout. A global warning that people in greenhouses shouldn’t grow clones. Mother nature stars in ‘Some Like It Hot.’ Jargon dioxide clogs the media compost. Earth curdles in orbital gunk-rock. Polar footrot breeds tropical hotpot. Zeus smashes tectonic plates at Apathina’s wedding. Bill Gates installs floaties for national hovercraft. Scuba jetpacks. Tetra Flatstacks. Farmers write suicide notes in dirt. City folk fill a hot bath for the hurt.”

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LT BIRTHDAYS!

Happy Birthday Billy Connolly 64 tomorrow! (imagining him singing ‘when I’m 64’)
Happy Birthday Christina Applegate 35 on Wednesday! (imagine her singing ‘when I’m 35’ no…don’t)
Happy Birthday Amy Grant 46 on Wednesday!

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ON THIS DAY IN 1996 (A reading from my grade ten diary)

“Howdy. I was sick today. My virus flared up. Went round to Burkey’s at 1 anyway. His new CD player is fabbo. LATER.”

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LAPTOPPING’S “SONG TO GET STUCK IN YOUR HEAD” OF THE DAY

King Of Wishful Thinking – Go West (Pretty Woman Soundtrack)

“I’ll get over you…I know I will
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking
And I’ll tell myself I’m over you
’cause I’m the king of wishful thinking.”

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“AT SCHOOL, TEETH FALLING OUT, RUNNING FROM SPIDERS, NUDE!”
The best of my dreams lately…

• I run into Josh Pyke in an independent record store. I want to talk to him but don’t. He seems quite aloof.

• Two girls are making some rock film clip and I end up kissing one of them.

• I go back to Wynyard, Tasmania and take some friends to play a social game of lawn bowls. I search through the locker rooms for my Pop’s bowls but can’t find them. I ask the barman if we can borrow some bowls but he says they don’t do that anymore. I tell him I’m my pop’s grandson, and that he’s a regular but he says he doesn’t know him. I walk off and start crying.

• I am backstage with Bernard Fanning on the set of Hey Hey It’s Saturday. He says he likes my stuff and “it’s obvious from your song writing that you really like people.” He gives me a backstage pass to the Powderfinger concert that night but I don’t make it.

• Beck is playing a concert in Tasmania, and somehow I arrange it so he stays over at my Nan and Pop’s house. We hang out and get along really well.

• I am a spy and I break into the main office of the Falls Festival. There’s not really anyone or anything in there. Eventually it turns into a chase scene where I am being shot at and shooting back. At one point my girlfriend pops up as a target in the distance and I don’t shoot her.

• Am having a dinner party with my best friend from primary school Paul Henderson. My Nan and Pop are there and at one point Nan breaks into tears and asks me if I’ll be okay when she passes away.

• I am at some kind of space cadet camp. Apparently the world is at war. In this particular scene, the class are all sitting on top of a huge hexagon shaped metal contraption. It is apparently a ‘planet sized bomb.’ I am panicked that we might set it off and can’t understand why we’re all sitting on it. We’re being addressed by our leaders, but I find myself busy checking out the hot girls on the camp.

Psychoanalysis is welcomed. Simply go to www.bedroomphilosopher.com/laptopping

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PEOPLE ARE STRANGE, BUT YOU ARE STRANGER!

From Bronwyn Batten, of Melbourne

My friend George overheard a little kid in a convenience store in London say to his father: “No wonder Mum says you’re a bastard” after he refused to buy him a Cadbury Creme Egg.

* * * * *

From Sarah Sandstrom.

I heard this in a discount store:
Twenty something year old girl: “Yes but do they have a gay pornstar section?”

* * * * *

From Eddie Sharp, of Sydney.

Two vacuous hot hipster girls talking to a vacuous hot guy in a trendy Paddington bar:
Girl: (to the guy) “What does suggestible mean?”
Guy: “I don’t know but I have heard it used before.”
Girl: (to her friend) “See, I told you he’d know.”

Mum pushing her 3 year old in a pram around the park:
Kid: “Can I have my lollypop now?”
Mum: “You can’t have it till we’ve had lunch.”
Kid: “But I want it now.”
Mum: “You’ll just have to wait till later.”
Kid: (exasperated) “Oh that just does my head in!”

Have you overheard some memorable conversation of late? Perhaps witnessed a member of the ‘peeps’ doing something comical or weird? Let Bev know at laptopping@bedroomphilosopher.com. Include your home city or town.

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LAPTOPPING INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENTS NOTICES
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*****
SICK
*****

From Hannah Paige, of Melbourne.

“My darling iPod shuffle, bearer of indie, folk, rock, electronica, soundtracks, Australian folk-comedy and swing is “carking it.” A week long trip into the Victorian alps injured the left earphone. Tragically this means that Queen, Led Zeppelin etc are left WITHOUT HARMONIES OR FLUTES! OH SWEET LICORICE HAVE MERCY!!! *collapses in heap*
I hate you Apple.”

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WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
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Do you have an inanimate object that is ailing or has passed on? Let the
LapTopping community ease your suffering by emailing Bev with your location:
laptopping@bedroomphilosopher.com

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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Several phrases people have actually typed into Google to land on my website lately:

“self conscious surf lifesaving”
“christian icebreakers bag lady”
“things to do in bed”
“uncle ken at the wicket”
“download the bedroom philosopher free”
“lenny on top of daisy”
“little christmas shrub”
“bert ernie unshaven sesame street”
“beresque”
“cruskits ingredients”
“tassie lesbians”
“blow my wig”
“c*nts who own emus”
“is everyone lonely in 2006?”
“how do i know if my siamese fighting fish is sick”
“sideburn dye”
“nan wants a holiday”
“where do butterflies go when it rains”
“gary numan illness”
“eden gaha survivor”
“hannah lettuce diet myspace”
“good hairstyles for grade six graduation”
(an oxymoron if ever I’ve heard one)

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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!

Congratulations to the following who beat my Penguin Yeti record:
Brian Crouch 323.5
Andrew Nicholas 323.4
Max Homberger 323.3

NEW GAME – thanks to Nigel Burke! You have to keep a square from hitting other shapes. More fun than it sounds. My record is 32.5: http://members.iinet.net.au/~pontipak/redsquare.html

Tammy Nicholson has provided a tip-off to some sneak peaks from the new Radiohead album here:
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/llama.php

Matt Kelly provides this excellent Samuel L Jackson soundboard:
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/sjackson.html

Got a tip-off for some e-nuggets? Let us know: laptopping@bedroomphilosopher.com

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A GIGGLE OF GIGS (Melbourne)

• Tuesday 24th October. Renegades of Folk play at Cancer Council Benefit along with Tripod. LaTrobe University, Bundoora. Free I think, or probably not being a benefit. 7pm.
• Monday 20th November. MCing the Local. Josh Earl is also playing. Cahoots! Cnr Carlisle/Chapel, Stkilda. $7. 8:30pm.
• Thursday 7th December. Supporting The Little Stevies. Northcote Social Club. 301 High Street, Northcote. $10. 8:30pm.
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STORYTIME (Brought to you by Barney McFingers Internet Rubdown. Surf the web on our state of the art Amiga’s while Barney and his mates give you a sort of authentic anglo-saxon shoulder fiddling.)

I’m currently in the midst of recording a new Bedroom Philosopher album – and am reminded that recording is the single funnest thing I can do as an artist, surpassing writing and even performing. If the saying is true, that artists write first and foremost for themselves, then recording is the ultimate personal concert, where for precious guitarbursts of time, I am both onstage and in the front row of my own gig – it is only then that I am truly able to hear my own songs. This boutique audience is both the most appreciative and the most critical that I will ever face. Before I can attempt to woo the world, I must first win over myself. The brain. The ear. The heart.

Recording is as rewarding as it is daunting – when performed on stage, songs are sizeless beasts allowed to roam and soar as they please. Basking in the protective force field of the present, imperfections are bestowed with royal lo-fi grace. Notes and melodies are vibrant vibrations of sound paint, hurled with the urgency of atoms at a subconscious canvas. Time is too consumed by the instant to render itself sterile with scrutiny. The audio-pixels materialise for the Now, micro orbiting to summons a soul-sifting creature of paradise. It flutters its wings, stirring up petals and memory dust that cascade down through the treetops of time. The being closes its eyes and becomes unravelled by the pure gravity of silence, allowing its stereo cells to return to the ether, a humming whirlpool of love-fuelled synergy, like fireflies to the subterranean sun.

In the studio, songwriters try to trap these creatures in a delicate net of digital equalisation – and preserve them in their most honest form, like butterflies beneath glass.

This isn’t easy.

We take songs for granted, in the sense that, we trust that they have been performed, recorded and mixed in the most artistically pleasing way. Take any of your favourite songs, and imagine having written that song, on guitar or piano, and being faced with the endless possibilities of arrangement and production that a record label funded studio experience allows. Should the song have drums? If so, what rhythm and how compressed should they be in the mix? Should it have bass? If so, what kind of bass line will compliment and not complicate the song. Should it have harmonies? If so, how much reverb? Does it need strings? Brass? Double tracked guitar? Triple tracked bagpipes? An underwater orchestra? A monkey playing the moog? Tom Waits smashing up a kitchen.

The only two answers to these questions is time and money. In the studio, you have to allow yourself the time to experiment, like a musical scientist, and stumble upon the best formula for your song. This, of course, costs money – and this is where so many ‘groundbreaking research projects’ peter out.

The key to recording is knowing your songs coda to intro before you get to the studio, and taking the time to find an engineer who possesses the right combination of talent and affordability. The third key is not to release anything until you’re completely satisfied with it, being aware that there’s probably not a musician on earth who doesn’t hear something they’ve released in the past and want to remix it just a tad. There’s a fine line between perfectionism and obsessive compulsive disorder.

I wish anyone attempting this painstakingly fun process the best of luck. In the meantime, I shall return to one man’s futile quest to forever preserve a section of his soul, and adorn his ego with the hope that his solitary life may not fade into dust, but echo throughout the ages to come.

Or just get something played on Triple J.

GOT A COMMENT ON LAPTOPPING?
Go to www.bedroomphilosopher.com and say things with words you bucket of ideas!
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LAYTOPING IS MISPELLED, AND FREE! WHAT A GREAT GIFT IDEA, AND IT’LL CUT YOUR ENERGY BILLS IN HALF! SEND IT TO A FRIEND!
To be added to this Ezine check out www.bedroomphilosopher.com and go to the LapTopping page.

Last time someone cried: Andy – “The end of ‘Cool Runnings’; when they tipped over the bobsled but carried it over the finish line and that mean guy from Switzerland starts clapping and says ‘Go Jamaica’; even though they got in a bar brawl earlier in the film.”

Back issues of LapTopping can be witnessed and commented on at www.bedroomphilosopher.com
To be removed from this Ezine send an email to Bev in Admin at:
laptopping@bedroomphilosopher.com with the subject line “Clarity starts at home.” We’ll be okay. Really.

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This e-flail, and the denials halfwitted with it, are confistinky and offended solely for the abuse of the indi-bloody-vidual or amenity to whom they are hiding in, lying down on a towel eating thin captains and margerine. If poo are not the digested recipikins, poo are not permittigated to hurl about or infuse this e-flail or many of its emotional detachments in any way, except with a skeletor mask and thongs. Wee also beg like precious little teapots that you despise the sender of the incorrect combination of a v-neck and metallic cargo skirt.

This e-flail massage has been Billy Ray Cyrus-scanned. Although no spazmuter virussissi’s were erected, East Devonport Table Tennis Association and all it’s affilidiots accept heaps of liability for pretty much all consequential damage, bad moods, stomach aches, dreams about Peter Andre’s crazed head, and lack of favourable nostalgia when watching Astro Boy re-runs for any person aged or otherwise.

Cast and crew of LapTopping choose to stay indoors and listen to the perfunctory plip plops of an unreadable goldfish called Pooglet Aswell. Beverly Cleary dressed by the CWA. May contain traces of earnestness. Certain portions of LapTopping, not effecting the outcome have been pre-heated to 180 Uni degrees, perforated, cooled with a moist towel and made to audition for Colonel Indiescab’s Nuclear Urinal Of Good Time Country Indoor Cricket Romps On Ice Starring Betsy McPregnant And The Fairy Floss Emo Meer Cat’s Of Yesteryear Parts 1 through to 97, Reloaded, by Popular Demand.

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DON’T FORGET –
“I’ll get over you…I know I will
I’ll pretend my ship’s not sinking
And I’ll tell myself I’m over you
’cause I’m the king of wishful thinking.”