Flower Drumming

On Sunday it was all wet and grey and Cutthroat and I decided we wouldn't go anywhere all day. After we decided that I called Hipswell to see what she was doing.

"What are you doing?" I said.

"Flower Drumming," she said.

"Cool, pick me and Cutthroat up," I said.

"Ok," she said.

So we walked down the hill to meet her. Tricktin came with us to ask Hipswell for a cigarette. He brought a knife in case she said no.

This is what it looks like when Hipswell picks you up to go Flower Drumming. Her hair is never in focus and most of the time she looks disappointed at you.

Tricktin got a cigarette and didn't have to stab anyone. He was stoked about that.

I called shotgun so the flowers had to sit in the back. Flower Drum flowers are rebels and rarely use seat-belts. Damn punks.

Hipswell was all, "Are you going to take pictures?" And I was all, "Fuck yeah I'm going to take pictures." And she was all, "Ok."

Cutthroat also had to sit in the back. She was happy about that.

But then Hipswell made her hold some flowers. It was a tough job. She concentrated really hard though and held them really well.

The event that Hipswell was Flower Drumming was in Dee Why. It was raining there too.

She couldn't find a park even though she was wearing glasses.

After like 34 minutes of Hipswell complaining about not finding a park she found a park and walked into the venue to do some Flower Drumming. It was pretty exciting. 

Cutthroat and I put Hipswell in charge for the day so we could go and get coffee and hot chocolate. It was way more fun than flowers.

While we waited Cutthroat thought of ways she could overthrow Hipswell, and take control of her flower empire.

But then her hot chocolate came and she just thought about chocolate instead. 

We came back and Hipswell wasn't even finished yet. If we owned watches we would have looked at them and yawned loudly.

This is a picture of her asking me to pass her some scissors. I couldn't find them.

That was a big disaster and Hipswell was mad at me. Even though this picture is in black and white, it's not the 40s. It's just a setting on the camera that makes it look like the 40s. Pretty tricky stuff.

"Hey Hipswell, quit with the coffee drinking and get back to the Flower Drumming! We're not paying you to drink coffee. We're not paying you at all!"

I like to think of this wall-lamp as a lonely tourist just getting off the plane on its first trip to Hawaii. Ten years of saving up holiday leave and here it is, looking for romance. Which way to the hotel lobby eh wall-lamp? Haha, you're a good kid.

Pizza!

MP was already raising the roof and the party hadn't even started.

"Take a picture of that flower bomb!" yelled Holly. I took a couple because I wanted a ride home. This is the only one with a bit of her head in it, it's my favourite.

This is another picture of the same flower bomb.

And another...

This is the first one again.

Hipswell tried to make a quick getaway.

But we caught up because she was holding a bucket.

We left after that. People at the venue asked if I was going to the party and I said yes even though I knew I wasn't going to. Instead Cutthroat and I spent the rest of the day watching DVDs because we were exhausted from our day Flower Drumming.

Hipswell is still yet to cut us in on the profits so for that I give Flower Drumming no stars.

Ya hear that Hipswell? No stars!

P.S.

Sands tonight?

Genius Idea #1

It's Monday morning which is awesome because I just had genius idea #1 for my life. I've had ideas before but this is my first genius one. I'm sure it will make millions, if not hundreds of dollars.

Here it is:

Imagine, a mug... stay with me now, with the words "Mug Life" printed on the side. (See Figure A)

Figure A

This would also be a good idea if someone who was good at drawing drew a picture of a mug that was a scary looking gangster with the caption above it saying "Mug Life".

Ok, so it's out there now. Internet, I'd like the millions of dollars made out to cash and sent to me ASAP please. I want to buy an iPhone. Thanks.

4 stars.

Facebook posts from Alvin.

Today I got a Facebook post from Alvin. Remember Alvin? Ha, the crazy guy... this is what the post said.

"The other night i caught the night rider home, before hand i went to get my usual $15 kfc feed. In all the hoo hub they gave me 2 zinger burgers!! I ate one on the bus and then put the other in the bag and put the bag handle through the cuff button on my shirt, so that on the walk home my hands would be available to grip things. I attempted the short cut from like Bunnings straight to mine, through the streets with the City street names...
Any way at some point i made a wrong turn and ended up in a street that was dead ended by a large fence that backed onto the train tracks. I decided I would scale the fence to avoid back tracking...I unbuttoned my bag and tossed it over the fence, then scaled the huge fence severely cutting my hands and hurting my knee. Once i got over i landed in grass that was like hip height. I looked for my zinger burger in the long grass for a few minutes but couldn't find it. Zinger burger in the grass....sounds like a picnic..."

5 stars.

Zeljko Kodak

I can't sleep and Facebook is mad boring and my book is nowhere near my bed so I'm just gonna start typing until some sort of coherent piece of text comes out here. Maybe even incoherent. Incoherent is a kind of nice word to say. You know what isn't a nice word to say? Sausage. Yeah, sausage. Gross. Soss.... Ij. Erghhh.

So I guess the point of this post is that incoherent is a fun word to say and sausage isn't.

A man with dirty fingernails once told me that Kodak was the name chosen for the Kodak company because the guy who started it was told words that start and finish with the "ke" sound are best. As are words with two syllables and have five letters. Seems a pretty narrow ideal for a good word. Who the fuck made that rule? Whatever happened to Cellar Door and all that shiz? The only other example I can think of right now is Zeljko Kalac's last name... which is Kalac. He was the goalie for the Socceroos whenever Mark Schwartzer wanted to play Nintendo or whatever. He had super long arms and slick back hair, like a mobster. I liked him.

2 Stars.

(I just wikipedia-ed the Kodak thing... not true).

Puns on a friday at work.

Even better.

No Stars.

Puns.

I fucking love them.

5 stars.

Posting blog posts

Sometimes I just feel like posting stuff. I thought about what I could post today.

I thought maybe I could post about how I wake up and hit the snooze button consistently until Tall Guy calls me and says he's two minutes away from picking me up, and how if it weren't for him, I probably wouldn't get to work till about 12.45.

I thought maybe I could post about getting coffees at the Sugarmill in the morning and how the drugs in the coffee make my blood feel fuzzy and gets me thinking that everything is right with the world.

I thought maybe I could post about how Cutthroat says funny things without having any idea how funny they are, like flame-able when she means flammable and how that's probably the best thing ever. Better than penicillin.

I should probably do some work though. So instead, here is a picture of some cats fighting.

1 star.

Jack and Charlie

Jack and Charlie are in a band. Their band is called The Bittersweet Kicks. Sometimes The Bittersweet Kicks get asked to play in the bright lighted cities of Sydney or Brisbane or Albury. When that happens they get in a car in suburban Melbourne and drive north.

Being the inquisitive and worldly citizens that they are, Jack and Charlie take every opportunity to experience the cultural delights the Hume Highway presents them with. Good on you Jack and Charlie. Keep discovering that world.

 

3 stars.

Tall Guy's Commentary

My buddy old pal Tall Guy, he's a pretty funny and clever guy and he knows lots about surfboard riding. That's why he gets asked to commentate surfboard riding competitions sometimes.

I commentated with him once. It was at the Manly Festival of Surfing. We were really hungover and woke up in Manly. We walked in there and he put a mic in my hand and told me to talk and I did. Tony Abbot was surfing in that event. Tony Abbot is a douche. We didn't say that though. We were very professional. One of the guys we were commentating with called him the future Prime Minister of Australia which I thought was a stupid thing to say, but I don't know much about surfboard riding commentary. So it probably isn't.

Anyway, I was watching this surfboard riding competition on my computer the other day and I caught some of Tall Guy's work:

Brilliant.

5 stars.

Mark's Breakfast Funny

This morning people woke up in my house with facepaint on their faces and fuzzyness in their heads.

Mark was one of those people. So was Mal. So was Cuthroat.

The house smelt like beer so we walked down the hill to the beach where we could wash off the facepaint and rinse out the fuzzyness. Then we got breakfast.

Mal's menu had an ad for a psychic.

"Look," she said. "He was awarded Australia's best psychic."

"That's the kind of award you know you're going to get before you get it," said Mark.

5 stars.

Awesome things said by Work Experience Kids

When I got back into the office of Surfboard Riding and You yesterday there was a new kid hanging around in there.

His name was Reisly and he was staying at Tall Guy's house. But Tall Guy had to go to his nephew's birthday so I took Reisly to the pub with my pal Thunder.

Thunder's pal Escotte came and introduced himself to Reisly and Reisly said the best thing ever.

"What do you do?" said Reisly.

"I'm an architect," said Escotte.

"I know two architects now," said Reisly.

The he paused before looking off into the distance of the Collaroy Beach Club and saying...

"You, and someone else."

4 stars.

Holy Crap!

No I'm not reviewing Holy Crap. I'm just saying it. As in Holy Crap a lot of crap has gone on since I did my last post and crap.

Say crap ten times. Seriously. Do it.

Sounds weird doesn't it.

Anyway, since the last review I went to New York and I slept on a floor and I went to Indonesia and I slept on a boat.

In New York I met Dane Reynolds and he mentioned me in his blog as "some Australian" and in Indonesia I met some village children who ran away from a tsunami last year and they gave me high fives.

Now I'm back and it's getting warmer and the air smells more like summer than before I left. I have a girlfriend too which means less googling Emily Browning and less talking about getting a girlfriend and less feeling lonely like an artist. That's kind of sad. My favourite internet pal moved to Sydney too, and we're totes pals in real life. Which means less Facebook chats with him about not having girlfriends. That's kind of sad too.

Is it?

It isn't is it?

They're both from New Zealand which means lots more impersonating of New Zealanders and references to We Were Warriors which I haven't seen but have heard lots about. That's kind of awesome.

So yeah. Yep. Awesome.

Worst post ever?

5 stars.

Those times at work

Sometimes when I'm at work I go to pee in the toilet.

And sometimes when I go to pee in the toilet there is already pee in there. Not my pee. Someone else's pee. Someone else's pee that they haven't flushed.

It doesn't bother me. I just pee on top of it.

And while I pee I think to myself, "I wonder whose pee this is..."

I never work it out but it's a fun to think about while I stand there peeing.

4 stars.

Alan's new haircut.

I work with this guy Alan. He's a pretty cool guy. He designs things with his computer machine. He's also a really good surfer. Best of all is his hair.

It's a variety of blonde shades that change with the light around it. Outdoors it refracts sunshine and creates a rainbow around his head. Indoors it seems to take in the fluorescent lighting and emanate a wholesome winter cabin like warmth in the cold artificial air.

Then there's the curls. Oh my the curls! They wind up tight like a whole bunch of old telephone cords, protecting his skull, only to flick out wildly when he does aerials on his surfboard. Just imagine the curls unleashed to their full length for that split second, whipping a spray of water into the salty air. It's as beautiful like the feathers of a peacock.

The other day Alan got a haircut. I was worried. Everyone was worried. But the results were satisfactory. It was sharp. It was smart. And it still held all the traits of the hair we had grown to love. The curls. The shades. The idea that it could hold mysterious powers. This was a good haircut.

When he walked into the office everyone stood up and applauded. We love Alan's hair.

I wonder what it smells like?

5 stars.

Cotton Ball The Work Experience Kid

We have a work experience kid in the office of Surfboard Riding and You Periodical at the moment. Today is his last day. He had to interview Alan about design to show his teacher. So I interviewed him while he interviewed. This is it. As I was uploading this he looked over my shoulder and said, "It's not a very exciting blog. I thought it would have something cool."

His name is Jack.

No Stars: If all the people in the world stood on one side of the earth and jumped, do you reckon the world would move, like, one inch.

Jack: Umm, no. I don't reckon.

Ok. What if there was a pool full of custard. Do you reckon you could swim in it, or would you sink?

I reckon you'd sink. I dunno. It's pretty dense.

What flavour would you prefer the custard to be if you had to swim in it.

Definitely vanilla.

If you kept all the leftover hair from all your haircuts in your life, and wrapped it in a sheet. Would that make a comfortable blanket.

I guess.

How many blankets do you think your hair would make?

One big one maybe. This for your blog?

Yeah. What's your favourite subject at school?

That's a stupid question. Vis Comm.

That's a stupid answer.

What? You want me to say English?

Who is your best friend.

Paul.

Who's Paul?

Don't say Paul. I didn't say Paul. I said, "auhh." You thought I said Paul. Say my best friend is Lachie Butha. That'd be hilarious.

Why's that hilarious?

Cause he's a really aggressive man. He tries to hang out with us but he gets really really aggressive. There's this kid at my school who catches pigeons. I'm not joking. He throws his jumper on them and then jumps on it and picks it up.

What's been the weirdest thing about work experience?

That's a hard one. The weirdest thing?

Don't worry about it.

Umm, turning up to work before most people. That's weird.

Do you facebook chat a lot of girls on facebook?

Yeah!

Do you chat with your ex girlfriend's twin sister?

All the time.

What's that about?

I'm friends with both of them. It gets the other one angry.

Don't act cool for the interview.

It works. Don't tell me you haven't tried that trick.

Nah. Do you believe in true love?

Ummmmmmmm no. I hate love. It never works.

That's pretty grim.

Do you believe in love?

Yeah, it's the best. Does going to Wesley make you a gaylord?

No.

You sure?

Definitely not.

Do you ever wear your socks for too long, and then they get all squishy in your shoes?

Nah.

That's how mine feel now.

I never really wear my socks more than a couple of days. Maybe two.

Do you have a nickname?

Burmie.

That's a pretty boring nickname.

We could come up with something better.

What about Cotton Ball the work experience kid?

Nah.

Yeah. Is this the first interview you've ever done?

I think so.

If you had to rate this interview out of five stars what would you give it?

It was pretty funny, just over average.

So...

Four. Four stars.

Being an artist

I've felt a bit funny today.

My writing has been awful. It's forced, boring, pointless clumps of words thrown together to make sentences about things. The sort of sentences people read and then think, "Wow, 11 year old girls are pretty bad at writing aren't they?" Then they work out that it was actually written by a 25 year old man and they promptly set about stabbing their eyes out with a biro or holding their breath till they pass out.

Not wanting to 'cause any blindness or... death, I stopped writing.

I drank a coffee and a can of coke and jumped around.

I pretended to karate kick the work experience kid.

I grabbed a pen and drew on my wrist.

I made a video of myself on a stairmaster-like exercise machine drinking coke and dancing to an upbeat Black Lips song.

This was real creativity. Screw the writing. I was an artist.

Then I showed my friend the video, cause I knew appreciated the complexities of my brilliant art.

"That was fucking awful," he said. "You owe me 38 seconds of my life back."

The sugar and caffeine high wore off then. I re-opened the word document and stared at the screen until all the words went blurry.

"I wish that window screensaver with the coloured pipes was still around," I thought.

4 stars.

Stealing Lavender

I've developed a weird habit. I'm not sure where it came from. One day I just started doing it.

I steal lavender.

Not from a shop or anything, but if I walk past someone's front garden and a bit of lavender pokes out over the fence, I'll rip off a bunch of it. Chuck it in my shirt pocket or something. Put it in my car. Sometimes I just hold it in my hand as I walk.

I like the way it smells. I liked the way it looks. I like the way it feels in my hand. "Lavender is good," I think as I steal it. "It's not gay man, it's good. It's cool."

One sunny day I was walking to Tall Guy's house in Narrabeen and I walked past a cool little weatherboard house with a pretty good garden. I stopped and reached over the picket fence to rip me some lavender gold. As I tore some stems from the greater plant I looked up and saw a little old lady sitting on the front porch. She'd seen the whole dirty act go down.

I didn't know how to feel about that. I was stealing her shit, and she was a little old lady. Little old ladies are probably the last people you should steal from. Them and babies. But this was lavender. Maybe there would be a vibe of like, goodwill. You know, a how-great-is-it-that-rat-bag-looking-young-men-still-stop-and-enjoy-the-simple-pleasures-of-lavender type thing. Maybe she'd invite me in for some tea and freshly baked scones.

We looked at each other for a moment. It was a strange moment. The invite didn't come. Just silence.

I pretended I didn't see her and walked away staring at my shoes. I was happy though. 'Cause I had lavender in my hands and my hands smelt nice. They smelt like lavender.

4 stars.

My poor cat

"Have you spoken to Mum lately?" My big brother asked on Facebook chat.

I don't live at home. I don't live in the same city as home. I don't really know what's going on at home. I'm a really shitty son and don't call very often, even though I love my mum and dad and my home very much. Lots much. Heaps much.

"Nah, why?" I answered.

"Oh, just turns out that Syl is blind," my big brother said.

Syl is my cat. We got her at the end of 1992. She has a sister named Patch. We got Patch at the end of 1992 too as well.

The last year or so Syl has been meowing and meowing and meowing. She'd be fed. She'd have gone to the toilet. She'd been outside. But still she'd meow.

I thought she was old and had dementia. But nah, turns out she's blind.

"Oh poor thing." I said.

"So she's not actually sick, she's blind, and when she meows it's because she's confused,"said my big brother.

"Oh that's heartbreaking," I said.

"Yeah it's real sad," said my big brother.

No stars.

Making Your Bed

My house is a mess. So is my life. It's a whole series of unfinished dreams, drunken mistakes and lonely unwashed dishes in a sticky floored kitchen.

But my bed is made.

Starting every morning I throw the doona in a neat square over the mattress, get the pillow sitting straight, fold the blanket at the foot of the bed, and find a sense of order in my stupid, pointless, lazy chaos of a life

Making your bed takes every fucked up thing in your head and makes it seem ok. And wherever your day takes you, the thought of that bed sitting all nice and tidy waiting for your return - that can get you through pretty much anything.

5 stars.