the home page of david prater

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!