the home page of david prater

Once again, Davey Dreamnation has confounded his critics by reaching the Number 1 spot on the MP3.com.au lo-fi albums charts . That's right, Davey's sophomore album, Recognition Of Prior Learning has reached #1 for the second time. Davey wishes to thank Stung, Scaramouche and Quito for their efforts and support over the years. Read it and weep, fans.

Last week the Victoria police thought they'd scored the hit of the century: the world's first positive drugged driver. It was a little weird at the time seeing every news outlet parrot the story, which was based on a roadside test that now, oh dear, it seems was completely bodgy . The guy who was "caught" with meth and dope in his system is considering suing the police and I don't blame him. All I'm waiting for now is for someone testing positive to be charged with "possession". What's even more bizarre is that the equipment being used to do these roadside tests was actually trialled at Swinburne University , where I work. Looks like it's back to the drawing board, boffins.

so dont ever call me patch or i'll never see my hand again call me uncle touch my patch but old dog bears the replica upon his kennel birds - no! hook-eyed & emerald pirates! don't be squeamish you kids! with a blunderbuss fire away sanguine & intelligent patch will live 2 raid another day! though his beard be smashed - be his brains jellied or cool hanging there upon a lanyard - or whatever they called those props 2 many pirate years ago come salute your patched one! the other sea he sails tonight! he's after great fishfingers & crumbed dessert island shores - fire in the hole! my eyes! ah! harpoons do wedge a tad deeply pierced, my black pirate lenses the mariner's sightlines hacked now covered by a pirate patch

How's that title for alliteration. And what a moronic story. The BBC reports "backpackers" are "dejected" by the Bondi council's decision to ban drinking on the beach this Christmas day (a decision made due to the 114 people - some of them drunk - rescued from the surf last Christmas). The story's focus on travellers smacks of a beat-up (an impression given further credence by its mention of the Sunday Telegraph ), and ignores the fact that there are many thousands of people who go to Bondi beach who are not backpackers. This Bondi colonisation thing is just really weird (or is it true? I don't know). In any case, I say the alcohol ban is good. There is a thing called the pub, just across the road, where you can drink beer in a glass. Read the story and see whether you have any sympathy for this pack of "dejected" idiots. Boo hoo.

stained mice flash baby teeth incisors warped like barbed wire aerial telemetry's useless yet from the post-intellectual filmscape comes a hint of steel bayed blood & mile after mile of bricks & bayonet works detergent streams canals under streets meet the giant sprawl of the ocean's packets arrive compresed in the anti-light of yesterday evening's tide the mouse has slowly inflated from within a command not so much uttered as enacted down on the corner of sunset & tsunami recently announced redesecrated blown up & blasted from your consciousness may alcohol now become your mortar in the dim sprawls of brick & steel starve of luck and then let loose like cannon-fodder upon the narrow coastal strip river plains ideal conditions for the new urbane contagion "formerly known as ..."

finally the truth courtesy of windows a complimentary maze to hypnotise the frantic vietnamese providing us our lightning speed ADSL connection so as to send all of our banality home via AOL & thus avoiding the queues at the post office we are subsidising you so shut up & look at your screen saver instead o-or hey play patience! fucking boors probably shortchanged the honesty system too & who am I to talk expecting dongs from a dollar for a packet of ciggies looking for some things to do in timeout mags (this is living!) if you get caught in travelling habits it's a drag or else a trap! don't fall into the bamboo stakes boy your daddy didn't draw maps because he was never called up after all you're not really AMERICAN thank fuck condemned to a life of building bridges & casinos it's tough I know so take a load off buddy � don't stare at the brick maze wall today write an email to history & press s...

it's an art form staying rich fight the power or just barter cyclo donations here press my trigger shoot me please i need it (& god knows i'm paying) instead of listening bicker amongst yourselves hotel room fights the locals wouldn't care to see (viewing you & me as piggy banks) we're levees against the future's misfortunes shop-width taxes credit cards maxed to a hilt our psycho swords a single word say yes (or no) it doesn't matter now to say you don't want to feel guilty sign here (then leave) oh & stay stupid while you're at it there'll be time to think on a plane trip back home & all your regrets are simply ashes made of fake money (for your funeral) the phoenix is symbolic really if you still don't get it try non- touristique treks instead (in your own country) shaking your fist at the mirror (small man) give up trying to change this world unless you intend to fight for the privile...

y2k plus three viet man ill never say it again packets unsprawled divers glide through schools of fish though none touch him its a miracle of chaos & control � neon blades an old lake's hole marginal silent on great heights a pinstripe increases the speed the tourist's unease the matrix unloaded unpacked a dead stop bicycle heartbeat swerves & the miniscule drivers unlicensed a rich mans sons & daughters on joyrides by an hour francophone snarl we crave the roadbikes of ukraine the minsk tron: import asian tigers on the cheap cheap no horns & no tooting near our orphanages mangled bicycles a symbol of all that�s lost beyond dien bien phu y-2-40k per year or forgotten helmets quick fixes workshop decapitation freedom & democracy are only excuses a dream of one day slowing down

look back on wires guitars in anger they painted their own ruby jubilee shooting up three chords obliviously jet ski parts animated stripey tees a line a line a line a lines realign calling a verdant copse thalidomide smash hits mixed in boy band salads the sweats the threats the hot jets if musics not the drug then what is speed garage for all youse crashers (invasion of the mindless spam robot junky stubbles the new mind babble)

At last, someone else puts forward the argument that I have been making for years: Slowdive were pretty good . Sounds like this best-of compilation is well worth getting, as it features some of their early 12" single b-sides and so on. My personal favourite is "Avalyn 2" which was the b-side to "Slowdive" (I think) and which was a kind of Cocteau Twins meets MBV dreamscape. Very slow, very dive. This review also claims that one Slowdive album is the equivalent of MBV's Loveless , which could be going a little far. In any case, it confirms for me that early 90s nostalgia is on the rise, and I'm not talking about Brit Pop. Brit Pop can fuck off.

My sister Marnie gave birth to a baby boy this morning! Omygawd!

Oh yes, read it and weep all you Brisbane Bears losers, the sash is back: I'm talking about the Richmond Football Club 's historic decision to revert to the fabled yellow sash on the black guernsey. It's enough to make you want to support Collingwood. Of far grater interest is the move to introduce a silver guernsey for the Wizard Cup matches, complete with tiger's head on the front. Roar, roar!!

ABC Radio National last night broadcast what it called the first ever National poetry slam in Australia, courtesy of the Deep End program and fellow-Proser charlotte sometimes. The program featured nine finalists from around Australia (including another Proser, KL) plus yours truly performing a "sacrificial lamb" role by reading out a poem before the contest started. The poem, entitled "I Claim Responsibility" was first made famous by the Mike Oldfield Five, who used the piece during their incendiary Babble Bam Slam appearance at the Melbourne Writers Festival in August this year. Visit the Deep End website to download each finalist's piece (Real Media or Windows Player) and then vote for the one you think is the best. Please vote for Klare. The first prize is recording time at the ABC. I really enjoyed the experience of reading for a national audience. It would have been nice to have my poem up on the Deep End site too but then I guess that's w...

Thanks to Hot Soup Girl for this terrific online resource : Llama Trivia and Oddments . As regular readers of [d/dn] already know, Scaramouche the llama is an integral part of Davey's musical team, contributing backing vocals on a number of incendiary [d/dn] tracks, as well as penning his own theme song and working on an ambitious solo album with flautist Stung. Rumours that Scaramouche has left Camp Davey in order to queue up for next year's auditions for Suicidol remain simply rumours.

For the past two years I've been studying towards a Master of Arts by Research (Thesis only) within the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. My thesis is a 30,000 word novella concerning the invention of Marzipan in a fictitious village (L-) in Germany in the 1400s. I've just been informed that my thesis has been accepted, which is great news. The (also partly fictitious) introduction to the thesis has been published online in Anti/thesis , a fully-refereed journal of contemporary theory, criticism and culture, and Australia's longest-running interdisciplinary postgraduate journal. Read The Invention of Marzipan .

Well, who would have thunk it. One of my favourite Pavement songs of all time is "Cut Your Hair", which is freaky because towards the end of the song the lyric goes like this: Advertising looks and chops a must No big hair!! Songs mean a lot When songs are bought And so are you- Bitch, rant down to the practice room Attention and fame so Career, career, career.... You see, ever since I first heard the song, I've misread "career" for "Korea". Which brings me to the gist of this otherwise pointless post. I'm going to Korea next year on a residency organised through the Asialink Centre at Melbourne University. I'll be going to Sogang University in Seoul to teach a course on Australian literature and culture for two months. I am now looking forward to visiting the Hermit Kingdom and playing hours and hours of networked games while munching on kim chi. Sounds great doesn't it? You betcha!

I'm dreaming of a nineteenth century Finland Where we skied to school & my lunch was free Prior to my birth even the birds did know it I was smaller than a grain of sand inside you Mother said I wasn't even thought of then yet She could feel me stirring inside a tiny bell Pealing against the walls of her silent womb Wondering how big I would get or if not when While your children are still small draw bees Skate on ice and lead ponies through the snow Go to sleep each night and dream compulsorily They say it helps when the sun doesn't come up When the good morning kiss you once expected Has evaporated like autumn mist by eleven am Your children are no longer small but dwarvish They remember your name & they call you by it No more stacks-on of a weekend or at any time An end to giggles & those silly little jokes You'll remember them all when your time comes When they call with the sponges to bathe you Though our pyjamas ann...

summers angles false starts hits trail a fuselage of painted mist that leaves & seasons glue assist suspension under glass portraits snails delay hollowly all along convex carpets of autumns soft crackle as the lens sends back fortitude in the shapes of hell winter kills the leaves of glass passing from time to liquidity an abstract class a new botanics snake eyes in an inkwell timbre these yes more shaded areas where spring sells dynamite & downtime sodden with memory engines rhyme automated slicers of yesterday lines formed by horizons clutch as rain drops soft pleasant bells pealing sentience from mechanics tending to their hydraulic shifts whose stare disrupts the unguent on the sky made up like drought these more yes besides them the wheel was rounder in those days questions served a function yet the day he decided to drive away shards upended ceaseless sharp a hollow cloud hovered over him slow as seasons eaves o...

During downtimes I often Google myself, usually finding nothing new or old worth writing home about. Today, however, I came across a book review I wrote a few years ago for the Resource Centre for Cyberculture Studies at the University of Washington. The book's called "On a Silver Platter" and deals with the whole history of the CD-Rom. You can read the review here . What a nerd I am.

The bad news is it's not Christmas yet. The good news is that come Christmas, I'll be even more chilled than Dylan due to an injection of funds from the Australia Council. Yes, that's right, after having played the grant game for about six years I've finally been lucky enough to receive one (the success rate is about 15%). I'll be using the time and money to put together a manuscript of poems. That means about 100 poems/pages at least. I've been working on an MS for about a year and while it's currently got that many poems in it, most of them are a) crap b) old or c) crap and old. So hopefully I'll be inspired to write some new ones too. In other news, my Masters thesis Marzipan: a Confection has been given the thumbs up by the examiners. This is a huge relief for me, as I have been writing this particular story for approximately seven or eight years. Now comes the hard part: what to do with this MS? It's only 30,000 words at the moment but coul...

Well, truth be told, you've already met Clint . Now he's got his own blog. It's called CLINTBODEAN . Czech him out.

I'll make no secret of the fact that I despise Harry Potter and all he straddles a broomstick for, but this is hilarious. The NME states: Franz Ferdinand plan Harry Potter roles : "FRANZ FERDINAND have been asked to write some music for the next HARRY POTTER film and could even make a cameo! The band, who are currently touring the UK have been asked to take part in the project, with singer Alex Kapranos saying the band could play a "band of ugly sisters". He told VH1: 'We've been asked to write some music. There's a section where there's a band of ugly sisters playing and I think, well, some members of Franz Ferdinand may be the ugly sisters in the band.' He continued: 'There's an excitement and innocence about those films. I like how there's good and evil, and that's a clarity which is quite refreshing.' The most recent film, 'Harry Potter And The Prisoner of Azkaban', featured a cameo from Ian Brown." Hmm....

your journey ends & its a long way home press this button open this window roam (optional) rejection previously overcome bottled single beating caramel or licorice licorice or caramel beating single bottles overcome a previous rejection (optional) its an end a home a journey long youre here) stipulated or required by malice (no roam window the open button this press home road homes its ends a journey & if someone says how every wishing bell eradicates beginning shell inside a shell inside shell a shell beginning eradicates bell wishing every day says someone & (no malice is required or stipulated dear) your journey ends & its a long road here

Summer revolution, flowers in your Air. Nike sweatshops. You are here: be there. For Pericles' printable version of our democracy has died. Come & join the funeral, bring a Lotus. Or your own war dead. We have shredded our constitution like ham. I don't take the peace movement seriously. Then again as a National Security Anal(yst) I might be wrong & so I tell it like it used to be, with a cortege of (Shit, the Fourth Reich's appearing at the following venues! A page has been torn from our torso, I swing high my own private drive. Democracy�s dead. The hand brake's �

Jet Moon doesn't have a ticket but she'll ride on to the next station. She'll get off, ride the escalator upwards and emerge onto the street. It's raining in Tokyo tonight. She'll pass by a comic book stand, plastic meals in a window. Rain sluices down the window. There is a bar on the street. Jet Moon doesn't have any money but she goes into the bar. Jet Moon supersonically eyes off the window. She'll be watching the rain sluicing down the window. She'll be seeing exactly what she saw a moment ago outside, only in reverse. A woman entering a bar. Neon-coated raindrop on her brolley, thick clasp in her hair. A small mist of water released from there, when she turns. The bar slowly filling up with women. Women who sit themselves at the bar, stare out the window and watch as the next one comes through the door. From the door to the bar, then the window. Necks creak. Jet Moon won't notice it at first. She'll be watching the window. She'll...

Once upon a time in Japan, there was a boy named Karappo. He was empty. One day, Karappo met a girl named Okesutura. She was an orchestra. Okesutura filled Karappo's emptiness with music. She engulfed him with sound. Karappo fell madly in love with Okesutura. He asked her to stay with him forever. He wanted to hear her perfect sound forever. But Okesutura feared Karappo's emptiness might prove too big to fill. You are so empty Karappo, she said. Okesutura, I know, answered Karappo. But you sound so beautiful inside me. Yes, agreed Okesutura, there is no sound in a vacuum. Your sound is safe within my emptiness, he said. Your emptiness will decrease, she said. Then I can make sound too, said Karappo. Then we can both make sound forever, said Okesutura. So Karappo and Okesutura came together. Then they had a baby. And they called her Karaoke.

While [d/dn] looks on in grief as his popularity slips on the mp3.com.au artist charts, the exact opposite is true for the track "Foggy Dew Edit" from his barnstorming Recognition of Prior Learning LP. This kick-arse piece of noodling sits at present at #5 on the lo-fi charts, despite not possessing any lyrics or song structure. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? For the record the song is described on the site as follows: "Believe it or not, this is the end bit from Davey's recording of a traditional Irish song called "The Foggy Dew" which deals with the British occupation of Northern Ireland and other examples of historical stupidity the Easter Uprising of 1916. Check out the false ending half way through. Pogue mahone!" Help [d/dn] make his political statement by downloading the track as many times as you can over the next week. That way, it'll get to number 1. Alles klaar?

Thanks to KL and STW for this link to some astonishingly bad 80s Haiku .

I seem to be having problems with comments. Could people please try and post a comment so that we can see if it works now? Thanks.

Last night I was walking along Queens Parade when along came an old green tram. I think it was of the kind that they refer to nowadays as "W-Class": like the City Circle trams, only green. The tram was going very slowly, heading along Queens Parade towards Westgarth. I began to worry for the tram, due to the huge hill just the other side of the Westgarth shops. I could just picture the tram chugging all the way to the top, only to slide back down again. Then I saw a truck coming along behind the tram. Unlike the tram, the truck was all white. On its side was painted in black letters: "TRAM RECOVERY VEHICLE". My first instinct was to ask why the truck was behind the tram instead of in front, pulling it up the hill. Then I saw the huge bulldozer style front bullbar on the truck and understood: the TRV's job was to push , as well as (presumably) "catch" the tram should it lose its brakes. Kind of like a parent pushing a child on a swing. Well, not rea...

meddling kids with their internet pop-ups planting jitches in those unexpected drum /fill up my crevice moments inevitably doomed to fall between their terminals of thunder & the beginnings of the jaundice / plague its down on hands & hips & back to feeling aghast my baby lives on a pop-up page we shudder tho my slax stained with mustard tell me sadder tales - its possible avoid computers made entirely of mould dont mention mousetraps in this house a typewriters warm key tapped a la morse plastique i dont know french but i louvre what youre doing with that jim & please consider joining me for a snack yes or a mid-morning TV advertisement you know at least they dont pop up like some brat on amyl well i could go on but i dont want to mention the names now that my password has been hijacked by a kid with two brains

panic on the streets of south yarra geez they shut us down when im peaking its a ripoff shits been cut with something maybe brain juices? not mine got the tipoff said get rid of em ages ago i loved to dance though dont seem to have the energy anymore im still here propping up a legendary club foot & nose patches stop the bleeding bring on peace man & another buggered recovery whatever that means i forgot my own name monday what a bore youse young freaks just dont understand we all need a little helping hand to the hot water dispensers if only theyd mix it with cordial ah those good old halcyon nites hiya girls! ok sure hop in its back to mine just let me say you are you are a wonderful repeat wonderful person yeah

Well, he did it with the Mike Oldfield Five and now it's time for Davey aka Clint the 1980s Budgie Smuggler to strut his stuff once again. This pic was taken by STW (who else?) on the weekend during a video shoot for "Strike A Prose", a show being held as part of this year's Fringe Festival. Click here for more details. Oh, and by the way, I am dressed as I would have appeared in "Cats". Sniff.

Okay so this post is just to let youse know (ie you, David Lynch, Julian Lennon, Chris de Burgh, Russell Crowe et al) that due to the changeover from YACCS (which I love but sorry guys, it doesn't cut the mustard no more) we have lost all of your riveting comments. The plus side of this is that the 50+ posts in this incarnation of [d/dn] are now free and available for comment roaming - check out the "Recent Posts" links on the right hand side to access the ten posts up to and including this one (the way this works is that for each individual entry, when you access that page, the "Recent Posts" links will refer to the ten posts *before that one*). To go further back in time, click on the links listed below "Archives". Fresh fields of comments ... I feel a little dizzy with the potential of it all.

Well, it's been said that Davey's gone through more reincarnations than a Buddhist ant and that may well be true. The time has come to revamp [d/dn] once more. For the eighth time, in fact. Regular (!) readers of this site will know in advance that the weather here is quite changeable. [d/dn] v8 is actually just a re-vamp of v7 ("hey davey!") but I'm not going to let that get in the way of a good news story. I'm also considering starting a separate poetry blog so that I can rant here and bard off there. Does that sound like a good idea? Come on, am I talking to myself here?

F*** I hate Farnsie. How that man has leeched the culture out of this country. It wasn't always this way. I mean, "You're the Voice" was a wake-up call for Australia. It featured bagpipes - a la "It's a long way ..." and "Under the Milky Way .." - and I have to admit the handclaps still give me goosebumps. But Whispering Jack aside, the man has given birth to some real donkeys over the years. The worst of these was the so-called LAST TIME tour, sponsored by Tesltra I think, which occurredlast year. Anyone with two eyes has now seen the posters of Farnsie and a goatie-wearing Tom Jones (don't get me started), and it seems as if the tour has tweaked a few noses. So much so that one of the Voice's "fans" took him to the ACCC - and they found that advertising a tour as your final tour and then doing another one anyway is not misleading . And I quote: "'Dame Nellie Melba ... went on doing farewells for years,' [an ACCC...

he will tear it down himself the robots! the robots! the mud-made robots! each one he sends off into the jungle with a fig-leaf for a heart and another for modesty "ah, yes, fair senorita," he says, "i built these walls myself but now i must go to market" these words seem strange, even as he whispers them softly on the way to market "to build - the walls - i tear - my hair - fair senor... i shall build whatsoever i choose whereosever i choose and i shall build the walls myself - on the way to market..." and so he did, after a fashion - not the fashion of the aztec "senor! i show you their ancient temples!" THE ROBOTS! "ah, at last i see!" he exclaims "to build to build to market i go! a mud-brick cage, a wooden temple!" an indian temple delays and pirate ships the rivers flow with gold he will write to his brother "i shall cross the chasm myself if you find ...

A few months ago I was asked to be part of a renga with Keiji Minato (a Kyoto-based poet whom I had the great pleasure to meet last year) and another Japanese poet named Hiroshi. We wrote ku in turns, with Keiji translating between Hiroshi and myself. Here's what we wrote. The letters in brackets at the end of the first three ku indicate who wrote it - the order is preserved throughout. hello haikunauts! i write to you in autumn golden leaves flying (D) a sun's stroke has just arrived over the seas in three lines (K) look! that shooting star lets someone in love wonder where all's going to (H) make an unseasonal wish blowing out birthday candles on penguins turning their back to the north the snow in spring starts to fall unfeathered painters line up their mouths unable to keep closed birds sprout on the bough their throats swallow the new sun spring sings in the trees all peek out and see the lig...

This is bad news. The awesome and wonderful Beta Band have decided to split , only days after I got into their music. This act of musical selfishness (mine or theirs - you figure it out) will not go unavenged. My friend Richard gave me a copy of Heroes to Zeroes (their final LP, I guess) last week, which I have played about forty times since. I'm not a fan of Paul McCartney but boy do these guys sound similar vocal-wise. Hot damn. Next they'll be telling me Davey Dreamnation's retired, after hitting number 3 on the lo-fi charts !

Thank you Collette, via Martin, for this answer to the burning question - who invented Table Tennis ? Good day to youse.

As a kid who grew up on encyclopedias, atlases, National Geographics and the Seven Seas Stamp company, I must say that Wikipedia is the greatest thing on the Internet. Thank you. That's all for today.

& if on reaching Hiroshima Station You step off a bullet & wander out Into the aftermath: a diorama for Which you have no name yet here At the beginning of your tranquil 21st century journey by tram these Tracks that hold you upright squeak & scream with sixty years of shame Like destiny still wooden carrying That horsey scent rattles somehow They survived beneath the epicentre A direct hit on their infrastructure (Where it hurts) for which you are Now paying your share ironically At the exit in this civilised space & there are no inspectors merely Crayon drawings speaking of those Inconceivable first days lingering Gamma rays & the resumption of Normal services forty eight hours Post Enola Gay on track (where it Hurts) all the fragmented sitting Neatly on their familiar wooden Racks barely bandaged the tram Just trundles onwards oblivious To the empty pockets too reliable To demand a fare circling round & round...

Things move quickly in the world of publishing, let me tell you. Not one week since my poems "kyoto crow(s)" and "tonkatsu zen" appeared in nthposition but blow me down, they've decided to include "kyoto crow(s)" in an anthology, called 'In the criminal's cabinet'. It'll be a book, and it'll be out in October. Jeepers! nthposition in the brainchild of Val Stevenson and Todd Swift. Todd co-edited Short Fuse , and has written for Cordite. I met him in NYC a couple of years ago. He sure is one active guy. He also edited the "100 poets against the war" e-book, which you can download from the nthposition site.

Today two of my poems, kyoto crow(s) & tonkatsu zen , have been published in the very kewl online magazine, nthposition . The site is not just about poetry: there's articles, rants and a downloadable Axis of Evil Cookbook , containing recipes from Iran, Iraq and North Korea (though as the editors point out, there are fewer North Korean recipes, due to the serious and widespread famine in that country).

OK, this is an old one but it's an awesome one too. Avid Tolkien fans, who thankfully have not been banging on quite as much recently about Gandalf and his men in hose, may well like to follow this link to an article entitled Secrets of The King , wherein Orlando Bloom aka Legs Eleven states thusly: �I was definitely welled up, man. I was choked. I was suddenly reminded of how lucky I was to be a part of this process and how much it changed me-Viggo being a real mentor to me, and Peter being this incredibly amazing, visionary director. They cut together a little gag reel. It was, like, four minutes of all these different Leggy moments from the whole shoot and outtakes and stuff. It was hilarious! It had all this �80s music. You know that song �Hungry Eyes�? �One look at you and I touch the sky�? They had this homoerotic thing where they had a shot of Viggo pulling out his sword and looking at me, and me looking at him and drawing my bow. It was brilliant, man.� Indeed.

Ah yes. Just when you thought it was safe to simply return to reading your everyday political bullcarpet, along come Liars For Howard to tell it like it really is. Their mission? To campaign "in support of John Howard's right to lie to the Australian people ON ANY ISSUE big or small" including, presumably, the party or parties responsible for that godawful VODAPHONE/ACB tracksuit. As The Fauves sing on their song Get Fucked : "All your soldiers are disarmed/ Remember to/ Stay alert but not alarmed/ While I hit you." Go you good thing! Thanx also to Tom for the link.

What with Dapto running late, evac counting down and the whine of the scarp shuttle now approaching the interexchange, chances were this day would turn out as shithouse as the last one. And the two or three before that. Okay they've all been shit, he thought, since the fucking analogue cut-off. Dapto's text that morning had said it all, really: L8 leave w/out moi if U need. CU @ Lysaghts. Yeah, what? Weapon rolled another number with shaking digits, sweat pouring like pixels from his steel-upholstered "forehead", orbs tracking passengers like a betting man, hoping to fuckness he'd catch a glimpse of Dapto's rubber beanie in the next what? Three seconds? Too late, sorry � L8. The whine of the scarp shuttle accelerated, its sound defeating, as the puter interfacing with the scoreboard texts spat out voice recog details, the stations on this shuttle's last evac run clogging up Weapon's auto recall with extraneous invader names scarborough fairy mead...

our scarborough fairs deserted the northern end of a platform edges that escarpment hatched the shining bullet & its scythes its golden eye all gone martian destination a blurs some gilded beam where perch my destinys droid parrot whirring its bleats electrified outlasting even this most energised hillside of coal thudding then caving [ghosted rails bearing us to a new place where dawns are tarnish rocks boughs bisect & blast the limbs kenneth slessors south country gone nuclear dropping off the continents edge sending ahead its vanguards [a thousand long waves stretching out embrace the entire oceans rim pacifics centre new far south mouths a patriotic californic antipodes highway like two thin strips of cinema film leading us home

Chris de Burgh has wasted no time on spurious infotainment or celebrity TV circuits following his purchase of the alien from Alien, and is now back in the studio recording new tracks, one of them rumoured to be a duet with Wimbeldon champion and allround bore, Roger "Rogi" Federer. The track, a remake of de Burgh's classic lighter-waver, "Borderline", may well be released in time for Christmas, and has the following lyrics:   "Boredomline" for Julian Lennon   Standing by the stadium I am waiting for some rain To take the players off the court And into the dressing room Through my early morning [hangover] I see Rogi there, I can hardly even bear to hide my yawn.   Rolling through the turnstiles, Tears are in my eyes, He's going to win the game again I'm ready with my [heroin]. Smack is now the only thing to ease my pain. And I know I have to say "well played" again.   [chorus]: And it's breaking my heart! I k...

In a sad attempt to outdo his fellow has-been rivals, Chris de Burgh has bought the alien that burst out of John Hurt's chest in the 1979 terror-thriller, erm, Alien , according to the Belfast Telegraph and about 30,000 other news agencies. Fellow crooner and sad-case HoJo is said to be quietly considering his career options today, after de Burgh bought the hideous prop at auction for a paltry �29,875 (�45,000), a figure said to represent the crooner's actual worth. Further, de Burgh, whose daughter Rosanna Davison somehow won the title of Miss World 2003, had the gall to state: "I know [Nik Kershaw] very well, and of course I will give him [a five finger salute] being [a] mother [procreator]." Strangely, no mention of this absurd series of events is made on the appallingly designed Official Chris de Burgh website . Meanwhile pop-handthrob Stung is, understandably, seething. Seething .

Last year my friend Victoria Stanton, whose righteous Bank of Victoria site is an absolute classic of the genre, paid a visit to our house in Fitzroy, all the way from Montreal. I met Victoria in NYC as part of the Short Fuse book launch. She's a great performer, writer and spoken word historian. Anyway, enough preliminaries. While she was here, Victoria dared me and my housemates to engage in a bit of spontaneous art. So we went on down to the Captain Snooze warehouse to buy a bed for five people . The result is now available on Victoria's website: Untitled April 2003 is a searing comment on Western commercial aspirations, as well as a sly revisionist parable aka Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Or should that be dwarves? Anyway, you can check out more of Victoria's interventions here . My favourite: Drug - "Six couples (of varying sexual orientations) stood on the sidewalk, kissing, in front of the Export A tobacco factory for one hour." Go Victoria!

Though it still hasn't been released here, I was interested to read this opinion piece claiming that Fahrenheit 9/11 is a stupid white movie , having just read another piece on the AlJazeera website which is also critical of Moore for his inaccuracies in portraying the links between Bush and Bin Laden. Should be very interesting to see what Australians think of the movie.

Former Cordite editor and all-round good bloke Adrian Wiggins has just updated his website . Adrian's first book of poems "The Beggar's Codex" came out through FIP in 1994. I once saw him wipe the floor of a Southern Highlands hotel with the artist formerly known as Les Murray but that's another story. Since then Adrian's been pretty snowed under what with raising a family and working his butt off for Massive, a Sydney-based web design company (he's responsible for the kick-arse Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race website, amongst others. Nevertheless, he's somehow found the time to write a few more poems, which you can read on this ultra-minimalist website. Oh, and like me, Adrian's from Dubbo, "The Hub of the West". Czech it out.

string torque guts au go go strapped comment make a minor jugular apropos one dark leaving freaks his holiness headband brasilia twice mistaken for my ring toss hallelujah taurus maids of armoricas straddled shopping bags donate pipe cleaners to these worthy causeways komissars rex strassenbahn saves the kartoffeln day twas merely plasticine i took a course in x rays meted out near some disko gully trap rank as sewer me bitte of our chance zero next to rogers dance moves also shouts another dick shakes gentlemen time gentlemen time white towels non expungable joey signs the guest book

selling out quokkas pyjama friendly nation rants spoilt by boot lip hypochondria illn ois youse cats sound so darned righteously spoolin underarm flair tarmac befuddled up straight side walker both arms in the airs foul duck shootin tootin quota mobile farm anyone can do it singin along swing fallow the leider u.s.w. zeppelin nerd abreaction john cocaine & a large supreme sounds like sleepovers at bernies setonix brachyurus u funky bod tina pick a cotton wall of sound surround me daisies duke raveonettes dixie hummingbirds mortar sands mastermind final prosthetic hips to the fallen modern world

GutCult Volume 2, Issue 5 features a special selection of Australian poets including Pam Brown, MTC Cronin, Liam Ferney, DJ Huppatz "and many more ..." The selection has been edited by Michael Farrell. I'm lucky enough to have been chosen: read my poems her royal majesty the queen and america . Yippee!

softly softly through our krystallnacht geyser bowser crack pop-offs just relax black north face seventies teevee slack hostesse with remote test tubes bivouac jack in at five with first asthma snaps vacate laps tool the tried anagrama bat an independent way the roadsteads whack in maple lanes the seaside pretzel flak emergency hammer laden with drugged axe sues me sonnys walk man pow wow attacks we know the atlantic like no other macs anoraks swear blur philip k dick smacks disaster prediction no longer paperback

three burn cross the breeze breathe out the ski tube closed month admits a mike mad dog official relate my innoculation snazzy smarts dry mouth allege collapse college fund spoken speed worm generals baulk there will be non families tennis banned outskirts strip airport clearing dummy bids diplomacy karaoke insurgents freely admitted to my military hospital animal husbandry sheltered from cruelty not worried shudder bomb plots a russia b irans so far away just for todays mad world mtv iraqs top forty video smashes through to number one in the usa with a bullet yay a clip directed by al crieda

-gunter grass the piledrivers bells ding an ice rink augen auf! (so sieht es aus!) ... yah hell spokes causing a re-examinational alignment curses piano fail satiate me young man young man bucket phil & her, er ... s ... clear! cover me russia in reservoir sparrow plover drive(r) girl he looks like mikey then & gnarly zzzz green gills phonic skilz teamer hovier clever clever cried the bells of sever sheer deleer road barrier it inclement hier sounds of belgrave express alight goes pout her lips jutland junkers bee eye simon tausands wunderbar weltshake bendin & straiten zie gelden ee buckle chuckel boris instigait spazierengehen ps eyes up in such a way it looks usw.

respiratory system planted upside down in our gardens bronchially spouting white money tree flower green tear shaped succulent leaf week-long lastly admonishing the winter blast furnace winds irate five pointed stars cougher lungs white blood brown trunks enough pull good fortune sweetly from these chests of song bird petals twirling through most grey skys mote jazz bee sting even drown spit stubbed butt purple bruise turns green we pick the money trees leaves shot through many seas and sons mothers floating up a memory windpipe scattered confetti flower ten more years ten more years ten more years

horror movie suburbs darkness slashed with shining screamer picket smoking lounge rooms intercept axe overdue rentals trailer demons bong whipping body building boyfriends malt campus ripoffs damaged son o mutilate bathroom sprawling flaw light squeeze toothpaste residue bearded winter busts translate actional apartments connexion multigore (sunday

Roger Federer Part 2: YOU STINK! This is getting really silly. Roger Federer Cosmetics : "The fascinating new fragrance for men who know what they want. FEEL THE TOUCH! Feel the unique touch of the new, elegantly sporty fragrance from Roger Federer! Experience the amazingly radiant and fresh top note of citrus chords and ozone elements. Essential oils and herbal nuances, blended with a hint of green tea, accent the natural character of the fragrance. Transparent floral themes, noble woody notes and sensuous ambergris tones create a lingering background to round off an unmistakable, sophisticated fragrance image." FEEL THE TOUCH? But wait, there's more: RF After-shave balm: The mild balm for strong men "Its mild, highest-quality ingredients make it an outstanding aftershave to pamper your skin. Calms and soothes irritated and overheated facial skin. The refreshing effect helps competitive athletes and everyone else keep a cool head in any situat...

The Sonic Youth gig the other night was really good, life-affirming and out-the-jam kicking. The setlist is here , and I've made a slight contribution to the forum threads. Highlights were "White Kross" and "Karen Pt 2", not to mention the feedback orgies between almost every song. Secondary highlights were J Mascis' guitar histrionics, especially the melt-down at the end of "Just Like Heaven". Yikes, made me want to go out and buy Green Mind all over again.

For some reason, yesterday I found myself on the appallingly boring website of the world's most boring tennis player, Roger Federer . What drove me to tears was the constant stream of entries in Roger's "guest book" extolling his "exciting" style of tennis and requesting a "meeting", for exampel at the conclusion of the Halle tennis tournament (which Roger won in exceedingly boring fashion, naturlich). People, wake up: ROGER FEDERER IS BORING. I'm not just saying this because he beat Mark Goodrem last year. I'M SAYING IT BECAUSE HE IS SO FREAKING BORING. Basically tennis has never been the same since the invention of the double-handed backhand, and while RF certainly plays with the correct continental style, it's his on-court manner (NB: Nike head scarves - please!) and excruciating post-match interviews that really cheese me off. It's one thing to be a winner. It's anotehr thing to be a smart-arsed winner who thinks that just b...

While some airlines might be offering $84 flights to Christchurch, I'm not tempted, coz NZ's colder than freaking Coolangatta at the moment. Yep, I'm a Sunny Boy, no question. And while Lollapalooza may have just been cancelled , mercy would you check out the line up for that Austin City Limits festival. I'm hanging out for a northern summer, where the new B-Boys album will be played outdoors instead of in the fridge. Thanks to Jimmy for the link to Pitchfork - damn fine site even if the menus take up way too much of my screen space. Sniff. Techplaint. SY tonight. Hubba.

With news reports continuing to track the spate of cold weather , this time in northern NSW, speculation mounts that the cold snap may travel even further south, with the attendant risk that Antarctica may freeze over. Melbourne weather, meanwhile, remains as shithouse as ever.

Maybe they should rename it the Cold Coast . Stay tuned for even more pathetic puns ... heh.

You think they can�t smell your depression downwind Dust breathes in childhood�s daisy grandmother musk Practicing burnouts in half-case supermarket car parks Packs of fags stashed beneath these red cotton undies Screen printed instructions drown out the BMX blitzes Chasing crabs in the disallowed artificial white creeks First house on our block quickly joined by neighbours String beans & strawberries rattled by the odd frosts Drive-in garbage tips on a future�s Kmart swampland Lobster pot�s memory rewinds to the end of burning Match stick trawlers struggle & dunk through that bar Old men predict the ultimate immersion of the canal Atlantis is a brand of power come to think of it power Is just another conspiracy tell that to the serpentines Waterslides surf mats & Anzac marches where to wash Your hands of retirement is to hide in cigarette butts

It's here, the new Sonic Youth album, Sonic Nurse ! On the band's website you can listen to a track from the album plus some oldies in a very snazzily designed little media player shaped like a cassette tape and called (oh yes, sweet nostalgia) "Sonic Youth Mix Tape Vol 1". I'm most excited because Sarah and I are going to see them next week at The Forum, which shold be huge. I love Lee Ranaldo's grey hair. Haven't seen them play for quite a few years, and they certainly went through an obscure period for a few albums there (I'm thinking A Thousand Leaves etc) but Murray Street was a great return to form. I visited Murray Street (in downtown NYC) a couple of years back - it's literally a block or two from ground zero. Movin'. It's interesting to see the band revisiting old ground on the new album, with the first track "Pattern Recognition" name-checking William Gibson's latest travel novel, and completing the feedback loop ...

What better way to mark yesterday's 100th anniversary of Bloomsday than to admit I have never read more than twenty pages of Ulysses , due in no small part to the Leavisite method of critical textual analysis introduced in my first days of undergraduate English. Don't get me wrong: I respect the man, and having heard several sections of Finnegans Wake read aloud, can vouch for the fact that Joyce was a funny old bugger. Trouble is, the attraction of reading Ulysses has been sullied by the determination of various news outlets to strap onto the whole Bloomsday shenanigans every freaking year. Like clockwork. I propose an anti-Bloomsday as the antidote. Buggered if I know how that would work though. Anyway, what better way to follow that paragraph than to admit that I recently finished all 758 pages of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow , a book that someone once said (I'm paraphrasing) made most other books look a little simpleminded. Now, I know people say that...

Can everybody read this now?

No results found .

Indie legends The Fauves are set to release a new album on 5th July. Their website gives the low-down, as well as an excellent rant about Jet : "Doug and Doctor may have pulled out but I wasn't going to miss Jet. Mum and Dad had all their records when I was growing up and I was listening to those riffs from the time embryonic ears sprouted from the side of my head. I don't care what people say about them - I owe their music so much. Before Jet I'd never realised just how many more mobile phones, personal computing devices and white goods I needed in my life." Heh, and heh. Also, if you're halfway interested, read my interview with Fauves lead singer Andy Cox in Cordite .

So apparently Peter Garrett may not have voted in the last three elections? Well, tell me how that's worse than the 580,362 people in Australia who voted informally in the 2001 poll . And Howard would have you believe they're more passionate than Garrett. Go defenestrate yourself, wanker.

Thomas Pynchon's new intro to "1984" . Okay so it's not that new but I just found it. Wow.

Simply The Best , 's'all I wanna say. The woman is a genius, having recently sang for Oprah's 50th birthday, which would have been like de ja vu for Tina, having turned 50 herself only twenty years ago. Last week I channelled Tina's spirit at a karaoke bar in Sydney by singing my all time favourite Tina tune, "Private Dancer". The lyrics to that song, they are so scathing, so real. What a life Tina has had. She's survived Ike, Mad Max 3, Rugby League (perhaps the last time a woman involved with the NRL escaped unmolested) and more haircuts than I've had private dances. Sure, "We Don't Need Another Hero" has a few good moments, including that sax solo, but it's not a patch on PD. Yarn and Sarah both reckon, though, and this is my final word on the subject, that "Simply The Best" would be the perfect wedding song. The sax solo is, imho, superior to WDNAH. So SOTAR.

This excellent opinion piece in today's Age is all the more remarkable for its restraint, as opposed to the shrill hysteria spewing from the mouths of politicians on both sides of Parliament this week. Yes, I'm talking about the Play School controversy. The article's final recommendation - that instead of discriminating against same sex couples and their families and vilifying them in the process, the government should consider banning advertisements for junk food during childrens' programs - will, I am hoping, shut the fuckers up for once. Bob Menzies for PM - oh, sorry, that's already happened. Peter Garrett for PM!!

to HSG for this link to some choice Bento Pictures . I have to say, if I had to teach in a school where they served this stuff, I'd be pretty darned happy. Though of course the pandas, cats and dogs could be made of anything, really.

And another return to form: hot soup girl is back! Yay!

Pixies , hot damn, are back. Only trouble is, they're not coming down under. Naturally. Seems like they're in top form, though. Wish I was there.

Rocked the Celtic Club yesterday, it was my first reading for a long while, and possibly my longest reading ever. Good to get a chance to stand up and shout at people for 20 minutes. Thank you to the audience for listening and not leaving.

I'm looking for an escape route. Usually, I fantasise about running off to Wellington (NZ), growing a moustache and getting a job as a dishpig but somehow, Japan now seems a lot better than that. I found a great website where you can download thousands of jobs in a text file (maybe we should do that with Cordite). I'm not sure what the sentence above means, exactly, but I suspect it's got a whole lot to do with roe, giblets and stuff that looks green but tastes like barf.

Ahem. Sorry about that. I promise to be nice to my (s)elves from now on. As you can probably tell, I"m over [d/dn], and it's time to get back to life, back to reality. Hopefully I'll have time to work on some poems over the weekend and upload them here. Got a gig on Sunday too: at the Celtic Club on the corner of La Trobe and Queen Streets, Melbourne, 3pm. Unfortunately, STW is doing a reading at the same time , at ACCA. He's so cool, I think he's going to pull an "audience magnet" out on me. I'm told the Celtic hasn't sold out of tickets yet ... maybe see youse there?