The Chinese lady at my dry cleaners says i am famous because she saw me in the Northcote Leader. She wishes her English was better so she could read my book.
Happy Book Week! This is what Montello Primary in Burnie thought the future would look like in 1992. Featuring 'Heazy' and his best friend Nick.
Directed by Thomas Hyland.
GET UP MUM LAUNCHBOX
MELBOURNE WRITERS FESTIVAL
Sunday Sep 2 / 2pm. Seafarers Chapel, Docklands.
I’ll be paying homage to my boyhood and relaunching Get Up Mum. More 80s ballads, more Le Snaks, more special guests Tripod – in a church! $22/$19. Tickets will soul out!
The event will also be livestreamed via my Facebook page! So tune in and drop out (providing the signal doesn't).
(i stream you stream we all stream for<autosaved 12:09pm Australian Eastern>....)
BRISBANE WRITERS FESTIVAL
Sunday Sep 9. 11:30am. QAG Lecture Theatre. Non Fiction and Fiction: Balancing Threads of Past and Present.
In conversation with Maria Tumarkin (Axiomatic). $20/$17.
Histories of ages past
Unenlightened shadows cast
Down through all eternity
The crying of humanity
I was the "lunch" feature in The Age's Spectrum recently where you go on a blind date to your favourite eatery and are asked invading personal questions by a Fairfax journalist. This feels second only to Rage Guest Programming on the Oz media honour roll (the week after me it was Cookie Monster, good luck following me biscuit head).
We dined at my favourite Indonesian restaraunt (misspelled - the journo and me not me and cookie monster) Yuni's Kitchen. I had the Gado Gado which is a rad salad comprising of veggies, egg, tofu, peanut sauce and crunchy bits. I like to sing it to the tune of Slim Dusty's 1988 #39 hit G'day G'day.
You can read my tell-all (point-blank while hungry) interview HERE.
To celebrate being "lunch" I've shared the ultra rare recording of my first band The Harmonica Lewinski's infamously notoriously psychedelically flamboyant first underground cult single "Spankees Lunch." (No correspondence will be entered into judges decision is final).
The Sydney and Brisbane Get Up Mum launches were a hoot. In Sydney I coaxed young Ben here away from his game and we celebrated being in “dimples club.” I showed him a cassette and carefully explained how the magnetic brown ribbon captured sound. He asked "can you use it as a whip?”
INTERVIEWER: So do you have a wife and kids?
ME: (on empty stomach): I can't remember.
INTERVIEWER: So how do you support yourself?
ME: I did a pretty successful job ripping off a casino.
INTERVIEWER:
ME: That was a joke.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, I thought you meant you did a gig in a casino as The Bedroom Philosopher.
ME:
WAITER: How good are these chicken skewers?
IN ART NEWS
Tasmanian illustrator friend Jennifer Cossins got a shout-out from Anne Hathaway while on The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Jennifer runs her own shop and sells her own rad children's books including '101 Collective Nouns.' Anne Hathaway was all cranky cos she couldn't find a copy so Ellen whipped her into a retail lather and now it's gone 'full internet' which is a win for independence everywhere. Check the story and video and Jennifer's whimsical kids booksHERE. If you would like Anne Hathaway to give a shout-out to your small business please search for 'Anne Hathaway contact' and click for ages. (Disclaimer: I didn't enjoy Colossal).
ALSO: The enigmatic Sabrina D'Angelo premieres her new show about Medusa at Melbourne Writers Festival this Sunday at 1pm. (It's a 'rhumba' of rattlesnakes).
FAN LETTER OF THE DECADE
Hey man,
This isn't a business email or anything, this is just some feedback. I saw your latest newsletter/email/thing and I thought you'd appreciate it. This isn't very well formatted but that's not the point.
I've been a fan of your work since I was maybe 12 - that was in 2006. In Bed With My Doona was actually really special to me at that time in my life! I special ordered it from the local Sanity with money I found in the cushions in the couch over a period of four months, and I thought it was all really funny. (My favourite song was I'm So Postmodern and I actually knew it by heart, but my favourite now is probably Folkstar, especially the bit where I still have no car.) I even still have the rip I made, but not the CD, sadly. At the time I was actually caring alone for an alcoholic dad with seizures and an autistic brother who can't actually talk or dress himself or anything, and that really sucked.
Your music and humour really got me through that time in my life - I still care for my bro and I probably will for life, which is just as well, because he's a pretty cool dude who likes trains, streaking habit aside, and you actually made things much more bearable for me without even knowing anything about it.
(I even forced In Bed With My Doona on my boyfriend in the car the other week. He liked Happy Cow, and the factoid about wombats pooing squares, because he's an immigrant and didn't know about that.)
Anyway, just wanted to pipe in with some appreciation for your bravery in just going out and talking about this stuff, and for being pretty funny. I will probably pick up your book when I can but you know the deal with like, poverty.
So thanks again for your impact on my life!
D
(Alleged Australian Youth)
It’s the 25th anniversary of Groundhog Day. Bill Murray has clinical depression until he finds piano. Andie MacDowell spends ten years wearing a puce pinstripe vest.
Gado Gado and how you goin? Well whattaya know - a tasty salad.
"Ever since Grover screamed at me not to turn the page in The Monster At The End Of This Book I had the sneaking suspicion that there was always an invisible, shimmering gateway where the quiet paper characters and beating heart humans could connect. Sprinkle story dust in my mind and I’ll make the colours dance."
