Urban Decay 4

Part 3: Tonight We’re Gonna Urban Like It’s 1999.

(You might want to catch up by reading parts one, two and three first. Then again, you might want to rub butter on your torso and slide down a hill. Go nuts.)

Keith loves a party. Parties contain all of Keith’s favourite things: alcohol, pale women, and people so drunk they’ll listen to any old crap.
Recently, my mate Russ’s girlfriend had a birthday party, and I brought Keith along as my date. After all, he’s a bit grotty with a hole in the middle.

Have you ever noticed that all Australian parties have a handful of fundamental things in common? Keith did. Keith noticed. He’s asked me to list them below, because whenever he tries to type something himself, it always turns into a bad song about the bush or jeans or beer or something.
They are:

1. Nobody knows the way to the party in a cab.
Keith and Lorin were arguing about which was the quickest way, but the driver insisted that there was no road to Gundagai in Stanmore.

2. You spend more time in the bottle-shop than at the actual party.
Keith offered to buy vodka for my mate Butters, but the guy behind the counter had to verify his credit card. Nicole had spent all Keith's money on Boto… er, nappies.

3. The laundry or bath tub becomes the bar.
We tried to make Keith cool. We failed.

4. One of the chairs breaks.
This one obviously couldn’t bear the strain under the weight of so many hits.

5. ‘Preparing gourmet canapes’ means ‘Peeling the top off the tub of guacamole’.
Keith totally double-dipped. A couple of days later, half the people at the party came down with a horrible case of blonde streaks.

6. People smoke.
Butters discovered that using Keith as a filter means less tar, but more carefully-manicured stubble.

7. People drink.
Say when, Keith. Keith…..?

8. Somebody always drags a guitar out (and in special cases, a piano accordion).
Keith was crushed when he forgot the words to The House Of The Rising Sun.

9. Somebody always gets felt up by a dirty old perv.
There’s no Stairway To Heaven at this party, Keith.

10. Somebody always gets a pash.
No tongue, Keith. Not after it’s been in the dip.

And finally:
11. Somebody always vomits.
We feel the same way, Keith. We feel the Same. Way.


Stay tuned. There’s more. I know. Me neither.

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Emails I May Never Send #19

Dear Miley Cyrus,

I went to high school with a couple of girls like you.
I don’t mean that they were absolute rubbish at lip-synching, or that they were photographed from behind by Annie Leibovitz, or that their fathers were famous for one song and one haircut, or that their penchant for semi-nudity and bitchiness belied their loudly-announced churchiness.

I just mean that they were brainless skanks who irritated the living crap out of me.

Achily, and also Breakily,
Jo.

PS: “Shah” is not a real word.

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Pull The Other One.

There are many under-appreciated and under-utilised things in our world. Things that quietly go about their business enhancing our lives, expecting (and usually getting) nothing more than a limply appreciative nod in their general direction. Things like coasters. Boob-tape. Nutmeg. Dylan Moran.

I’d like to draw long-overdue attention to one such taken-for-granted entity. One that, it could be argued, is the single most efficient and simple solution to, dare I venture, eighty-seven percent of life’s most perplexing conundrums.

My admiration of this engineering masterpiece knows few bounds, and is not based on any deep knowledge of physics, mechanics, or even Bindi Irwin (file under: remains a mystery). No. The love and respeck offered to this humble mechanism stems purely from my insistence that most problems can be solved by it.

Ladies and gentlemen.
I present to you:

The Pulley System.

Before you scoff (or perhaps just after you’ve scoffed, if you tend to scoff prematurely), let me propose the following scenarios:

Problem: It’s your turn to buy drinks, and you have the money, but you couldn’t be arsed getting up to go to the bar.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: You’re drunk in bed, your blanket’s in a twist, and your feet are cold and exposed.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: The remote control is on the far side of the room, where you suspect your housemate has just farted.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: You’re dressed like a tart and one of your boobs has escaped.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: Via a memo delivered by seraph, you’re told that you have to deliver some myrrh to some illegitimate kid in a barn, but you’ve got Christmas shopping to do and can’t spare the time.
Solution: Pulley system.*

Problem: Timmy’s fallen down a well.
Solution: Lassie.*



*Yes, a trained monkey would also be fine. What’s your point?

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Urban Decay 3

Part 3: Konichiwa, Keith-San.

Just in case you’re too lazy to go back and read parts one and two, my mate Russ and I are in the middle of a very important project – the gradual destruction of a Keith Urban Greatest Hits CD. All the cool kids are doing it.
Well, some of the cool k…
Well, two or three of the c…
We just thought it’d be fun. Shut up.

Anyway, Keith has been pretty busy lately, and he mentioned that perhaps he’d earned a holiday. Keith is a whining bitch. After nagging, stamping his feet and refusing to eat his Rice Bubbles, Russ and his percussive compadre Frosty finally caved and agreed to take Keith with them on a Japanese jaunt. They also asked Keith to empty his pockets before going through Customs. You can never be too careful.

First, Russ wanted Keith to really get a sense of traditional Japanese culture, mostly involving pyjamas and pictures of fish.

He thinks he’s turning Japanese. He really thinks so.

Frosty thought maybe Keith would appreciate something more contemporary, like a foray into the Japanese railway system. And… and some stairs.

Keep left, Keith.

The main point of the trip, though, was to show Keith what proper, grown-up music sounds like at Fuji Rock at the Naeba Ski Resort. Keith was a bit hesitant and skeptical, especially when Russ and Frosty explained that the festival would be almost completely free of slide guitar. They pretty much had to drag him there by the teeth.

They eat CDs raw over there, y’know.

When it started to rain, Keith got spooked and couldn’t be found anywhere. Russ and Frosty gradually narrowed their search, and also got almost unnecessarily artsy with the camera.

Keeeeiiiiittttthhhh….

Oh, Keeeeiiiiitttthhhhh…

Keith, you scallywag. We were worried.

Russ thought Keith could do with a bath, partly because he was all muddy, but mostly because Keith told him he was dressed a little bit like a homeless person. Russ hates it when Keith does that.

Don’t forget to wash behind your ears, Keith.

Finally, although it’s a bit of a cliché, because everybody always goes on holiday and always takes a ride on the head of a mechanical shark, Keith took a ride on the head of a mechanical shark.

Now jump it, Keith.

I couldn’t be prouder of Russ and Frosty. Not only did they go above and beyond the international call of duty for the sake of the Urban Decay project, they were also willing to be seen in public with Nicole Kidman’s bitch. Gentlemen, your bollocks are robust and impressive. Or so I’ve heard.

Stay tuned for more Urban Decay, in which Keith gets all Gordon Ramsay on your arses and parties like it’s 1999. And stuff.

*

Pick Me! Pick Me!

Well, well, well.

With the assistance of a bit of vitriol, a bit of sarcasm, and quite a lot of swear-words, I'm one of eight finalists in Cleo Magazine's 'Next Top Blogger' competition.

The winner is chosen by public vote, so I'd really appreciate it if you'd click on the link below and throw a vote my way. And tell your friends to. And their friends. Etc. See how that works?
http://www.cleo.com.au/top_blogger_finalists.htm

Thank you. You smell great. Is that Paco Rabanne?

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Urban Decay 2

Part 2: Keith Goes For Gold.

(Part 1 here. Not guaranteed to make Part 2 make any more sense).

After working so hard at the office, my mate Russ figured Keith could do with a bit of a weekender up the Gold Coast. It's pretty hard work being a mediocre country singer, and even more arduous being married to Nicole Kidman (what with all the not making her frown unnecessarily, and the endless sunscreen application), so the break was pretty welcome.

It's hot up in Queensland, so Russ suggested a swim. Keith was well into the idea…

…until he remembered he's about as good at swimming as he is stopping at two beers. Drink: yes. In the drink: no.

Luckily, there was a plastic disembodied crocodile-head lifeguard on duty. Woo, plastic disembodied crocodile-head lifeguard. Woo, sir.

Knackered after his aquatic adventure, Keith had a bit of a rest and tried to get dry (and not for the first time, right Keith?). Unfortunately he picked the wrong place for a kip, and it was dinner time for the family mutt.

I can't wait for Keith's next single, entitled Cover Me In Kibbles And Lick Me Clean.
Meanwhile, Russ is booking his dog in for canine therapy and a tongue-scrape.

Stay tuned for the next instalment, in which Keith goes on an international adventure with his two good mates, Russ and Frosty. There's mud. There's guitars. There's a mechanical shark.

And, of course, there's Keith.

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Bum Shot #9: The Blokes Of Australian Idol

L-R: Teale Jakubenko, Luke Dickens, Irrepressible Fame-Whore, Wes Carr, Mark Spano.

So, it's Battle Of The Testicles in the lead-up to Australian Idol 2008, and the four remaining finalists have fulfilled one of their semi-professional obligations: lining their buttocks up next to mine and saying 'cheese'.
I'm so sorry to make you think about buttocks and cheese at the same time. Just pretend you're at the doctor.

And yes, that's a fascinator made out of coloured paper from the office stationery cupboard. Thank you for asking.

Straight From The Horse's Arse

Five steps to a less embarrassing bottom.

· Don't eat lunch from a health food shop on the same day you do a yoga class.

· If you're trying to do a silent fart, don't stand with your back to a wall.

· If he's expecting sex in exchange for dinner and he takes you out for Indian food, he's a masochist or an idiot.

· The drunker you are, the more thoroughly you should check you haven't tucked your skirt into your undies.

· If it's itchy, just scratch it. Don't do that dance.

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So, What's Noiiiir?

EXCLUSIVE!!

Because of my dozens of well-connected, expertly-groomed contacts, I've managed to get my grubby little hands on an extremely juicy and top-secret document:

I won't name my source, but I can let you know it wasn't Kane Bonke.

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Urban Decay

Part 1: The Urban Office.

Back in March this year, my mate Russ and I took part in a charity music trivia night, because we're benevolent, knowledgeable, and much, much cooler than you.
As part of the festivities, the MC told us that taped under one chair at each table was a prize in the form of a 'new-release CD'. Naturally, we all scrabbled drunkenly beneath our arses to see if we'd won anything, and Russ let out a small yelp of delight as his probing hand hit pay-dirt.* Delight quickly became drop-shouldered disappointment as he raised his prize into view and discovered that it was, in fact, a Keith Urban Greatest Hits CD.**

Our first instinct was to just use the CD as a coaster, but Russ and I consider ourselves to be constructed of more creative stuff, and figured that would be just a mild insult. Having consumed a lot of music in our lives, and around sixteen jugs of beer in the last hour, we came up with a plan. A great plan. A plan that would take us across the country, across the world, and across the line that signifies that point at which other people get bored and stop.

We decided, since Keith Urban had inflicted so much pain on us throughout his career, that the least we could do was inflict some back. Our plan was to destroy the CD. Little by little. Over the space of a year.

Also, later that night, Russ encouraged me to drink a shot by yelling "JUST TAKE IT, BITCH!!" at the top of his voice. It's not really relevant here, though.

First, we needed to document Keith in his pristine form:

See? Keith even sends Keith to sleep.

That is, before five different people drew all over him:

Now there's an over-achieving silhouette.

Then we thought we'd invite Keith along to our usual Friday after-work drinks on the balcony of our office building. See, if a lesser human than Keith were to jump off this balcony, they'd probably break a bone or two. Not Keith.

Russ does 'goblet of country/western'

He just got a little chipped.

Wanna chup, bro?

After his little fall, we gave Keith a drink (to go with his chips), and asked other workmates to make him feel welcome.

This could totally be in a magazine.

One offered him a cigarette.

Keith was the butt of all jokes.

Another gave him a makeover.

We found it really widened his eyes.

Amanda gave him a tattoo.

Everyone really warmed to him.

It's a disco inferno. Without the disco.

We even bought him dinner.

We got both kinds. Ham and pineapple.

Then we had a break and made a tower out of beer bottles. I think we deserved it.

You wish, Russ.

Stay tuned for further Urban adventures, in which Keith goes interstate, international, and in the water.
This is the start of something special.


* Wow. I should totally look into writing porn.

** Hi, Keith Urban's record company. Keith Urban is great, and people should buy lots and lots of his CDs.

Yeah. You're Pretty Much Fired.

Great advertising mysteries of September 2008:

· Still trying to get a condescending, ginger soccer mum who doesn't iron her shirts, brush her hair, or avoid hitting her "son" in the head with the car-boot door to sell me NRMA insurance. Still. I'm insuring my car against being dented suddenly in the front by a freckly chick.

· Cadbury spending over six million pounds on a gorilla suit and some Phil Collins copyright. Training a real gorilla to play drums would've been cheaper, except most intelligent primates won't go near Phil Collins.

· Telling women with thrush that Canesten Duo will leave you "cool, clear, and feeling yourself again". Awesome. You've had an uncomfortable five-day abstinence, and you're antsy as all get-out.

· Showing women breaking off bits of a chocolate man wearing Lynx and eating him. All I can think about when I watch this ad is sweat, body hair and penis. Granted, all I could think about before seeing this ad was sweat, body hair and penis. Shut up.

Look! A Shiny Thing!

I’ve just walked the twenty minutes home from the train station without my iPod, leaving my thoughts to wander dangerously unfettered through my brain, free from the earphone-delivered influence of popular culture.

Without much coaxing, my thoughts quickly became startlingly cohesive concepts, which soon arranged themselves into one or two deft theories that actually made me stop mid-stride, raise my eyebrows and go “Huh. Wow”. The kind of theories that made me think that perhaps my life might change because of them.

Of course, I can’t remember a single one of them now, because my short-term memory is completely shot from the effects of living in a post-post-modern world full of short-served information and half-baked digital entertainment.

Bugger.

Might see what’s on telly.

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Karl Stefanovic: He Is An Journalist.

Karl Stefanovic, for those who are unfamiliar, is a co-host of Today, a morning program that delivers news, sport, weather and hyperbole. He comes from a large family of news-men, his parents seemingly scattering their deep-voiced, hair-challenged spawn liberally around the globe.

Every now and then, Karl will deliver a journalistic pearl so full of insight, intelligence and sophistication that its resonant ripples stay with me all day, affecting my world view and critical stance at the deepest level.

This morning's example:

"Ooooooh. How good are beef burritos?"

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Where Are They Then?

I know.

I know.

I've been a bad, lazy, uninspired blogger.

But, like 80s fashion, New Orleans storms, and Les Hill's career, sometimes I just have a bit of a lull.

So here. Have some long-overdue Australia's Next Top Model bum-shots.

Starvation and low-level literacy never looked so good!

In this case, the word "bum" needs some inverted commas. That's not a torso, Alamela. That's just a wiggly line.

Reblacka told me that this is the fourth pose in her repertoire of four. I couldn't be more proud.

Black is so slimming, don't you think, Alyce?

Taken shortly after Leiden beat me in a beer-swilling competition. Arse? Yes. Class? You decide.

I bullied Demelza into this shot. Also, just because I'm contractually obliged to include it in this post, it doesn't mean I have to put it near the top.

A couple of arseholes.

I was going to dress as Caris for this photo, but I couldn't get the poodle to sit still.

This lady just wouldn't leave me alone until I'd agreed to be photographed with her.

And finally (although not technically a bum-shot), a reminder to Shiny Alex Perry that he should never leave his sunglasses lying around....