LapTopping – 65 – “Bananageddon”
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LapTopping – The Bit Long, Official E-zine of The Bedroom Philosopher
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ISSUE 65
Wednesday July 23 2008
Estimated Reading Time: 10:01
**Join the BP’s Facebook page!**
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URGENT! POSITIONS VACANT!
A video editor / animator is desperately required to finish post-production on some background animations in my latest film clip. It’s done in Adobe After-effects. Being based in Melbourne is preferred. Enquire within.
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LT BIRTHDAYS
Happy Birthday Daniel Radcliffe 19 today!
Happy Birthday Monica Lewinsky 35 today!
Happy Birthday Slash 43 today!
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SONG TO GET STUCK IN YOUR HEAD OF THE DAY
Martika – Love thy will be done.
“Love thy will be done
I can no longer hide
I can no longer run.”
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LAPTOPPING INFREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q. Why has it taken you so long to do an issue?
A. I did one but lost it in the back of a taxi.
Q. For reals?
A. Reals.
Q. Is that a euphemism?
A. Yes. LapTopping was temporarily suspended by the National Ezine Investigation Scheme (NEIS) who, after monitoring us for several months, ordered that we conduct routine emotional maintenance.
Q. Is that a euphemism?
A. Yes.
Q. For sitting in front of a blank Microsoft Word document eating nutri-grain and crying?
A. On a good day.
Q. Are you okay now?
A. Is any of us really okay?
Q. Um, yes some of us are.
A. Right. Then…yes?
Q. I’ll ask the questions.
A. Ooh feisty, I like that.
Q. You make me ill.
A. In the words of Kermit, “and on with the show!”
*flails hands in air*
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EMAIL OF THE MONTH
“Hey, cool biography, nice web layout, the colours are too contrasting though, maybe tone down the red?” ADRIENNE.
“Dear Adrienne. Hey, nice message, very direct and to the point, a little conservative though, maybe tone down the beige? Booyow!”
JUSTIN.
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THINGS ON E-BAY I PROBABLY SHOULDN’T HAVE BID ON
9-volt dual motion novelty chin massager . (Still in box).
Rage – The complete first series. 900 VHS set.
Johnny Cash endorsed casserole dish with patented “ring of fire” technology.
Five speed motorised beanbag. (Some damage).
Complete set of ‘great moments in illegal drag racing’ commemorative stamps.
Vintage bag of assorted rocks dated to Jurassic era. Authentic! (Paperwork missing).
Laminated Daryl Somers promotional poster. (Some damage, including signature).
Burnt purple three piece corduroy suit. (Allow three weeks for postage and three decades for fashion).
Set of talking Knight Rider coasters. Put your coffee down and hear KITT say “careful Michael it’s hot.”
Antique Amstrad CPC 464 computer. Comes with joystick, monitor and 50 games – some still loading. (64k memory can be emailed).
Vintage Charles and Diana commemorative dinner set. (Will separate).
Copy of self-help book ‘I’m okay, You’re okay.’ (As is).
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NEW! GUERILLAGRAMS
How it works: You know those moments where you overhear a conversation and you desperately want to add a comment. This section is devoted to those brave souls who stare defiantly into the face of social norms and say “If all the world’s a stage then I’m Rick Moranis.” We want to hear about jokes you made that totally bombed, and pearls of wisdom you offered to dudes on the bus who blanked you.
On the streets it is cold, but here it is warm.
To kick off, here’s some of my recent examples:
In vintage shop, Fitzroy. Sales girl is talking to a friend.
Girl: What is it with guys who think they can have a one night stand and that it means nothing?
Me: (from shirt stand) Sex is always emotional.
Girl: (after ten or so seconds) Hey, thanks for your honesty. Are you Ben?
Me: No.
Girl: It’s just that someone said I’ve got a secret admirer called Ben who comes in here a lot but is too shy to say hello. I just hoped it was you because you’re cute.
Me: Thanks, I’ll certainly take that on board.
(I later get shirt for half price.)
In trendy café, North Fitzroy. Some disastrously long experimental violin based song has been playing for ages. I am paying.
Me: Is this Rage Against The Machine’s new album?
Girl: (blank) Hmm. This, you mean this album? No I’m not sure who it is.
Me:
Girl: $12.50 thanks.
In Bar, Fitzroy. I am buying beers.
Girl: That’ll be $10.80.
Me: Rabbits really hate that price.
Girl:
Me: In Tasmania they lay a poison called 1080 to get rid of rabbits.
Girl: That’ll be $12.80
SEND US YOUR GUERILLAGRAMS!
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INANIMATE OBJECT BEREAVEMENT NOTICES
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KIDNAPPED
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From Sareh Sangsari, Sydney.
“After failing to run away from my boyfriends pocket in the train station in Tokyo two months ago, my digital camera of three years finally escaped by staging its own kidnapping in Cuba. I think from inside my little bag it telepathically communicated with two guys walking past, who came and pulled my bag from my neck and got away. It probably overheard me saying I was gonna buy a new one and give it to my friend. I hope it enjoys its new life in Cuba.”
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WE PRAY FOR THEIR RECALIBRATION
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WANT TO CONTRIBUTE TO EITHER OF THESE SEGMENTS? EMAIL BEV IN ADMIN, INCLUDING YOUR HOME TOWN.
Laptopping @ bedroomphilosopher.com
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GET A WRIGGLE ON GOOGLET!
Several phrases people have typed into Google to land on my website lately:
“wallaby poems”
“a country practice theme remix”
“australian cordial platypus”
“ladies with harry armpits”
“where to buy modified starch in Brisbane”
“jatz biscuit cake”
“nice thought for a lonely person”
“reviving old blankets”
“what is commonsensically challenged?”
“bernard fanning skydiving”
“value of alf doll”
“unemployment doll”
“im a dog im a working dog im a hard working dog song sesame street”
“how to write dirty emails to your partner”
“gaga the game for the trampoline”
“pretentious Melbourne”
“pull centrelink chick”
“how do i achieve a triple em dash on my home computer?”
“cokie barman in a country practice”
“myspace smithton Tasmania”
“can i get into a club with an expired license”
“ideas to get out of the call centre rut”
“bulgarian squid”
“smock on the water lyrics from deep purple”
“does this awkward guy like me or is it in my head?”
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TIME IS CHEESE AND MOUSE IS HUNGRY!
The best television commercial ever made. Snack packs! (1987)
Arrested Development’s Michael Cera teaching us about confidence (2007)
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A GIGGLE OF GIGS
• Monday July 28. MCing the Local. Melbourne’s best stand-up comedy night. (Justin accepts no responsibility for any damage to your sense of humour sustained during the other acts.) Local Taphouse. Corner Carlisle and Chapel, St Kilda. $12. 8:30pm.
• Wednesday July 30. Northcote Storytellers. This is a marvellous new evening where comedians / performers are encouraged to sit in a big comfy chair with a granny rug and tell stories. The night is free and starts 8:30pm. Willow Bar. 222 High Street, Northcote. I will probably tell the full story of the first time I smoked a joint, or my disastrous 18th birthday.
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STORYTIME
(Brought to you by “Dummies for dummies” a guide to infant teething devices and shop window dressing for perplexed gen-y parents and boutique retail fashionistas.)
I found life much more hilarious after I broke up with my one true love. Yeah. Hard to believe huh? Correct. Such a paradox. An oxymoron if you will. Yes, I just called you an oxymoron. For I have no respect for you. Honest. I’m not just being facetious or overly controversial for the sake of evoking a response. Sometimes I am just so crippled by unease about my own upbringing that I assume the rest of the world has had a better life than me and that you have probably just like, I dunno, paid off a car that you went halves in with your parents who both have full time jobs and planned family barbecues that were hilarious and had cool half-drunk conversations with you when you were sixteen about their past and made you realise how decent these people were and playfully ruffled your hair when you were rabbiting on about some high school crush you had and caught you off guard with their graceful perspective. Dad’s with Steely Dan T-shirts and attractively greying facial hair. Mum’s with beyond their years luscious red locks and room filling laughs. Neat houses in prime inner city locations, but always a underlying sense of modesty and ‘oh this place, we do our best but it’s no paradise.’ When actually you’re living in fucking mansions with trust funds acquiring an extra figure a year which you can access in your gap year and buy $5000 Epitone guitars and take advantage of the childhood of Kinks and Byrds albums that your dad brought you up on and fool about in your twiggy poster adorned rumpus room and come up with some jangly open chords and wail on some nonsense to your painfully side swept fringed friends off their block on pricey gin and accidentally stumble on some easily marketable fortuitously trendy retro psych-rock that your swollen bank accounts can accommodate with a super producer who turns your handful of ideas into some radio friendly pop-smart EP that gets so ‘accidentally’ sent to the most influential indie-website that so effortlessly emblazons it with its gold seal of oh-so-fleeting approval, enough to get some equally ‘now’ kids with parents helping them pay off their Mac G5’s so they can get their underground film movement off the ground to your gigs where your ‘double garage’ rock is spurted out under a safety blanket of reverb and drums riding higher that your ironic 70’s jeans, accruing to such a potentially awesome racket that the artfully aloof crowd for fear of being the only ones not reading between the lines of your genre-defying genius are forced to bang their fifty dollar hair waxed hands together and anoint their shrill lips with over fermented European beers that feel good against their hot little nail bitten hands ‘cos they find life “so stressful like, today I saw a homeless guy on the street and I would have given him money but I was halfway through a McOz and like, y’know?!” Yeah, well, where am I during all this? I’m standing up the back next to the slimy A&R rep who left his wife of twenty years for his teenage daughter’s best friend, who despite an arse to declare war for also has a wicked sense of humour and isn’t laughter so healing when you’re a pseudo paedophile in Italian leather shoes. And he really thinks these kids have got something, and through his chauvinistic, ego smoking poker games knows the bloke who runs some big label and can get these kids hooked into the right ‘mechanics.’ I’m standing next to this guy. I’m not smiling, not frowning not drinking, breathing or blinking. I’m very disappointed and at my best guess it would take at least one lifetime of lending me money and introducing me to your good looking friends so we can fool about on your cousin’s waterbed to prove to me that you’re worthy of being exempted from my A-1 100% counsellor proof cheer destroying scorn.
THE END.
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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 subscribe to this Ezine check out the ‘LapTopping’ section of the website.
Last time someone cried: Erica B – “When I laughed so hard that I threw up water all over my bad. this hurt, this made me cry.”
(Have you cried recently and think the occasion noteworthy? Let us know.)
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NOTICE & DISCLAIMER:
This message is detached may not contain perspective or respect for itself. It is intended solely for the gloriously anonymous close friend who may click on it hurriedly while waiting on an important e-mail and tut to themselves ‘gee, if only I could dip my cup into Justin’s never-ending well of self-aggrandisation perhaps I’d publish my memoirs and get to do a literary book tour and give Douglas Coupland a temple massage and drink cocktails on the Thames.’ If you are not the addressee indicated in this message or are just generally over it then you are permitted to scroll angrily like a disappointed teenager butts out a cigarette and flash your eyes around like drunken doves and scowl and swing wildly with judgement, deeming all of the pathetic rhetoric that might have bemused you a while back superfluous with today’s petrol prices out of hand and a million starving in Zimbabwe and you just bought a boost juice and didn’t even finish it and none of us asked for this but what are you supposed to be doing about it, are you really doing enough, and is even being distracted by some obscure comedian’s psychological problems a dull, pale crime in itself, like glaciers melting drop by drop and you steering your yacht off course to a point where the sea drops out and you literally hit the wall like in the Truman show and climb out the door and find a white room that smells of clinical noodles and you are still wet from the sea spray but out here its a fluorescent blue and you see an art-deco red couch and decide to have a little lie down and you dream of bicycle races in school and riding so fast you take off and you ride over your university and there’s a dragon in a classroom below eyeing you off and you catch its eye and it takes off out the window after you and you can feel the heat from its fire behind you but then you wake up and there’s three men in business suits standing around you looking confused and sympathetic and they try to tell you that your real name is actually Helen and you are two years younger than you think and that your whole life has been watched by millions just like the Truman show and the reason that film was made was just to make it seem even more unrealistic that it could actually happen to you and anyway, we’re sorry you found your way out here but the truth is even worse I’m afraid, it seems that they cancelled your show about five years ago due to low ratings. Rival channels have since started up three more lives and well, you were kind of in an awkward, nervous phase of your life. With respect, you were old news – not quite the cute aspiring teenager we all grew up with. So here’s a pamphlet that should act as a guide to getting used to an entire dimension of society you’ve never experienced, and a good psychologist, but also, we should warn you that The Kinks are a made up band that don’t exist on the outside, also, we ran out of real life cheese ten years ago, gin tastes like bourbon, chickens are extinct and Lou Reid is the prime minister.
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DON’T FORGET –
Love thy will be done
I can no longer hide
I can no longer run.
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