The Phil and Smiley show

Mrs. Rebby and the Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Sponges

2006-08-19T13:28:00.000+10:00

Confessions of a Former P.I. - Part Two

The lampid air hung like a heavy grey cloak over the lawn... Prada, I think. Something expensive and Italian: I can't remember the exact details - after all, it was 5 a.m. in the morning, and the urgency of Mrs. Rebby's telephone call didn't leave time for morning coffee... besides, I'd run out of the stuff, and even after waiting outside the corner store for two hours just in case they decided to open early, still no joy. I figured I'd just have to kick off this case blind.

Opening my eyes helped a little bit but it was still pretty dark as I drove through the gates of Mrs. Rebby's estate. I guess I should have asked her to open them first. But this was no time for pleasantries. The woman was in a hysterical state and no amount of face slapping was about to calm her down. Sure, I'm old fashioned, but I knew how to be sensitive - I knew what women wanted: tea. That and a nice cool face wash. Guess I'd forgotten how hot my tea was when I threw it in her face. Like I said, I hadn't had my coffee that morning, or my tea. She didn't appreciate the gesture - I could tell this was gonna be one tough cookie.

"So, it's Mrs. Rebby, is it?"

She padded herself down - "It was Mrs. Rebby. My husband died a month ago."

I pretended to write something in my notepad. Little did she know I actually was taking down her comments, word for word.
"Mr. Rebby - your husband - owner of the largest sponge company on the West Coast?"
"Yes. Most of his business came from wholesale to various retailers, chemists, carwashes and the like. Every last bit was above the board."
"Still, he did alright out of it?"
"I suppose you could say that."
"And you did alright out of it too."
"What are you implying, Mr. O'Malley?"
"Who? ...Oh, that's my name. Yeah, what am I implying?"
"Well -"
"No, don't answer, that's a rhetorical question."
"Oh"
"I'm implying that you know more than you're telling me. Where were you on the night of your husband's murder?"
"I didn't say it was murder!"
"You didn't have to. It's written on that placard over there."
"Oh, you mean the one that says "My husband was murdered by the Government because he wouldn't give in to pr-
"Just hold on a minute there, Mrs. Rebby, I'm trying to write and talk and listen at the same time, it's quite hard. I'm still back on "I didn't say it was murder!" ...
...

... g-i-v-e space i-n space t-o, okay continue please"
"He wouldn't give in to pressure. You see, my husband had a secret."
"Are you trying to seduce me, Mrs. Rebby?"
"No! What are you talking about?"
"Sorry... just, that's what usually happens by this point... I mean, not to me, but I hear it happens. That's what all the other P.I.'s say"
"Oh, don't listen to them. They're probably lying, just to make themselves look good."
"Sure, sure, it's just that, well, you're a very attractive twenty-two year old"
"Mr. O'Malley, please! My husband just died!"
"And how old was he?"
"Ninety-eight. But I didn't marry him for his millions of dollars. And even if I did it doesn't matter anymore. The City Council has made sure of that. I called you here this morning because something terrible has just happened. You see, about a month before he died, my husband stumbled upon a horrible conspiracy. You know how short the city has been on water lately: with the total water ban, business was starting to take a turn for the worse. We had plenty invested in the stock market to tide us over, but it was hardly the most prosperous time of our lives. And then some bigwigs from Town Hall approached him with an offer he couldn't refuse."
"But he did, right?"
"Yes, well, it turns out they were wrong on that point."
"Do you know what the offer was?"
"No, he never told me. I suppose deep down he never trusted me. That and the fact that he'd lost all ability to form cogent sentences about two years before I met him."
"Are you familiar with the term "golddigger", Mrs. Rebby?"
"I resent the implication, Mr. O'Malley!"
"What implication? 7 across - 10 letters, third letter is "l", clue is 'someone who digs for gold' "
"Please listen to me, Mr. O'Malley! My life might be at stake!"
"Now you listen to me, little lady. None of this 'Mr. O'Malley' stuff - call me Eugene. And another thing: I take my crosswords very seriously. They help me think. I need to think right now. You need to think too. I want you to think very hard, and try and remember why you called me here today."
"I've been trying to tell you that since you get here, you mo-"

At this point I think I'll slip back into my previous style of narration. She told me how she'd awoken, around 1 in the morning, to the cacophony of a hundred sponges being carefully packed into felt-lined bags, with cotton balls (she was certain about the cotton balls) layered on top. When I asked what she was doing packing sponges at 1 in the morning, she swore again and said it wasn't her, it was a shady character -- with a scar on his upper-left earlobe, grey-green slacks, spats from Hal Burtington's Specialist Shoes, and a slight French accent, probably from Marseilles or the neighbouring provinces -- but unfortunately she hadn't been able to get a good look at him.
"Why would anyone want to steal sponges?" I asked. She then preceeded to tell me how in his final years, her husband had been experimenting with an invention that would revolutionize the world of sponges - the extra super ultra absorbent "Spongeonmaster", capable of soaking up 1000-times more liquid than the best sponges on the market, which incidently were his as well. These same sponges - fresh from his personal workshop - had been stolen this very morning.

But by who? And what did the council have to do with it? What deal had the toughs from Town Hall tried to force Mr. Rebby into signing? A water crisis, a money-hungry widow, an invention for ultra-absorbent sponges, and then the prototypes suddenly disappear in the middle of the night... It was starting to sound eerily familiar, like the end of a chapter, like the "to be continued" thing they use in the picture shows, like the story was just gonna stop all of a sudden and you'd have to wait a whole week before finding out what happens next.

Next Week - The Mayor's Dark Secret!

"Danger" is my middle name... as is "Bob"

2006-08-13T14:53:00.000+10:00

Confessions of a former P.I. - Part One

Lemme get straight to the point: I ain't no lounge pianist who ducks for cover under his elephant-tusks every time a brawl flares up, ya shee? When you've been in this line of work for 25 years, ya learn to cope with the occasional rumble. Which is a good thing, cos more often than not it's you what's being rumbled with. Well, so, I lost an eye, an arm and my good right leg (that is to say it had been good up 'till I slammed the car door on it yesterday) - but I ain't scared o' no drug mules, triads, floosies or whatsits. I seen 'em all come and go in my time, but good ol' Walter B. Duffield is still here... that's my neighbour, is Walter. I, Eugene Bob O'Malley, have also been here all this time that Walter and I have been here also.*

It was the summer of twenty-o-six, the hottest winter on record, possibly because it was summer, and City Hall was in panic mode. Not two months before they'd done the unthinkable, and the citizens of this fair state (myself included) weren't a bit happy.

Prohibition! They declared the town DRY. We might have seen it coming. Restrictions had already been in place all that year, and probably the year before if anyone could be bothered remembering, and now it had come to this - a total water ban. The dams were empty, they said, there was nothing we could do. The usual loonies and crackpots suggested pumping more in from Townsville, but I knew the bigwigs in City Hall would never let that happen. It was all about power, ya shee? Whatever precious stocks they had left, hidden away somewhere, well, they were hanging on to them for dear life - OR DEAR DEATH!**

But we'll get to that later. First, I figure you better get wise to certain facts and figures about life back in those days. No bathing, no showering, no swimming, no splashing, no drinking, no washing, no flushing. Just imagine that: a total ban on water in all its forms. People weren't even allowed to sweat!

It was a smelly place. A pretty smelly, stagnent kind of place to be. There was only one place you could go... well, actually there were hundreds but you get the point.^

That's right kids, the SPEAKEASY: hot jazz and smooth liquor were no place to be seen in those days - all anyone cared about was the chance to sneak off into a little room somewhere and get sprayed with a little water bottle. People only went to rock concerts if they could get into the front row! Science experiments on condensation were suddenly packed with arts students, while excursions into the nearby desert suddenly became a heck of a lot more popular, on account of the rumoured existence of oasis after oasis which would suddenly appear about 3 or 4 days into the journey.

It was a mad time. A mad, crazy time. A crazy, mad, mad stupid time.^^

And when times get mad, crazy, and/or stupid, it's a fine life for a crook looking to make a little moolah on the side. And by "little" I mean a whole darn lot!

So when Mrs. Rebbey 'phoned at 8a.m. one morning telling me someone had stolen her entire Unused Sponge collection, I knew something fishy was happening.

(Next Week: Mrs. Rebbey and the Mysterious Case of the Disappearing Sponges)

* Eugene: please rephrase this - Ed.

** This isn't the Courier Mail, please make it less stupid - Ed.

^ No we don't. - Ed.

^^ You're stupid. - Ed.

A gift.

2006-08-11T00:22:00.000+10:00

I think Phil's post spent just about enough time on the top part of this blog so now it's time for me to once again grace this 'ere blog with my presents(sic) or even my present presence... so this post would be my presence's present's present, which is of course is my presence. Confused? Me to (sic). And I think that's an important way to begin any reading of philnsmiz.blogspot.com (hmmm a shameless plug for the site you're already on. But it's a darn sight better than any other darn site). Any writings from, or to, the two of us, are too likely to cause you great pain. Two for the price of one, one might say. One time, I won(der) ed if wonned was the past tense version of the verb won. Ok, enough play with homophones... time for me to talk about gifts.

So. The word gift has many meanings. It can be a rare talent or ability, an item or object that you give to someone. Or in some cases (ie. where your presence is your present) both simultaneously. I'd like to talk about the former. But instead I'll talk about the latter. The former being much too serious a topic to broach this late at night and in this particular forum.

Gifts - how do you choose them? when is it the thought that counts? How do you carefully enquire about the whereabouts* of the receipt for your friends carefully purchased token of their undying friendship. I don't know. I'm not an expert on gift etiquette... although I do know that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Of course I'd generally say that you should never look any horse in the mouth too closely for fear that it may bite** your nose off. That expression makes a lot of sense outside the realm of everyday logic. If someone gave me a horse I'd want to know if it was going to respond well to the bit (that is the bit of something that goes in the horse's bite). The only way to tell that without riding it is to look at the mouth and see what sort of condition it's in. Looking a gift horse in the mouth seems a perfectly reasonable course of action to me. I wouldn't want any wild horses roaming around in the top paddock... or in fact in the middle, lower, or bottom paddocks for that matter. Wild horses belong around wild oats. Wild oats are of course good for making wild porridge. Hippies will tell you that there are other ingredients that will make porridge wild. I'm told a dab of lavendar will improve the flavour no end. But then, everything needs an end. For example this post needed an end a long time ago. But it was all a means to an end really. Only it didn't mean much. Confused yet? Boy I hope so.

* Not so interesting footnote - if whereabouts had an i it would join a rare club of words with all the vowels represented - facetious of course holds a special place due to the fact that it contains all the vowels in alphabetical order. Spaceious would too, if it was a word.
** For many years I was terribly confused about the word bite - I always thought the Great Australian Bight was named because it looked like someone had bitten a chunk out of the continent. But that's not the ca se. However, night is always night, and never nite. Unless it is knight... and if it is knight time there better be a knight riding in on their horse...or else.

That bwessed awangement, that dweam wifin a dweam.

2006-08-03T18:15:00.000+10:00

I feel like an old man.

Old, grumpy, brandishing my walking stick as I march up and down the canned soup and condiments aisle, recalling the Battle of Britain with each twist of the knobbled cane in my hand, reminiscing the old "Thrust! Parry! Lunge!" routine of my public school days in Eaton* as I send those little twats we call the Under 70s sprawling into the Campbells Cream of Chunky, like so many grounded Luftwaffle pilots. Or is it Luftwaffer? I can't remember: further proof of my identity (that is to say, if I can't remember who I am then at least I know I'm old).

But haste I now to the reason for these strange and leaden musings:**
Today, an old school chum and I were discussing the presumedly impending nuptials of a couple of old school friends - she from our own (Eaton), he from another. As my friend and I discussed this blissful couple, I was reminded of this fact: they're not the first! No, many from my circle of friends of highschool years have already tied the knots to the shoes they wore on their wedding days (and many more besides), and I am as yet only 21 years old! In fact a few said couples are already up to the 2nd or 3rd wedding anniversary (and are, if nothing else, statistical survivors).

Now this in and of itself is enough to make anyone feel rather old, owing to the fact that marriage brings with it a certain expectation of maturity, responsibility, commitment to mutual welfare (so we can assume that George W. Bush is in a defacto with Laura?) ^; the form of traits normally associated with people of old age. But, as we well know, husband and wife kissing, "I Do" and mini spring rolls floating in the Sprite someone didn't bother to drink because heck it's a bar tab and it's not like I need to drink my money's worth: THAT is just a wedding.

MARRIAGE is an entirely different thing, to paraphrase Steve Martin. It means, for one thing, the loss of time. And I don't mean in the sense that married couples suddenly become a lot busier than they were prior to Our Lady of Mount Franklin At 3pm on the 21st of October. I mean in the sense that they seem to enter an entirely different dimension of time itself: a time-space continuum into which only married couples are bade enter, and within which only married-couples events occur. Although, exceptions do exist. For example, apparently said His and Her, though not yet even engaged, have been busying themselves with dinner parties hosted by our already-married couples from school: a process of inauguration and indoctrination, I presume.

And it is the thought of dinner parties that ages me. Not that I haven't been to any before, but that a very distinct image forms in my mind at the thought of young married couples, or indeed any married couples, meeting up for dinner.
The image runs thus: on one side of the room, the men stand talking about sport, the weather, and how much money they're making per 50 hour week. Wolf down a canape. On the other side of the room, the women laze about on recliners, occassionally sitting forward intent on catching gossip which need not be whispered since everyone knows about Gertrude's unwanted pregnancy already.*** Meanwhile the men laugh raucously because someone mentioned the chicken breasts they ate for dinner last night with the emphasis on the second morpheme. And at this the women titter (hehe) and say in loud, long, deliberate phrases how awful their terrible husbands are, and everyone has a good laugh, and then you flash forward 30 or 40 years, and there they are again, and the men stand in one corner talking about sport, the weather, and how much money they're making per 60 hour week. Choke on a canape. On the other side, the women lean forward intently listening to whatever it is Ellie just said, only to be disappointed when they discover she was just asking if anyone wanted ice, and meanwhile the men laugh raucously because someone made a joke about breasts 30 years ago "and it was pretty funny at the time I recall", at which the women roll their eyes and knock back the rest of their shandies, and they say in loud, long, deliberate phrases how terrible their husbands are, and everyone sighs and wonders how life ever passed them by so quickly.

I suppose it won't be so bad. So long as my future wife lets my future self terrorize minimum-wage Jimmy and all his little friends down at the local grocers as I pretend I'm a P.O.W. in full flight from the Laftwuffer...

... well, one needs one's dreams.

*N.B. In the UK, public schools are the equivalent of our private schools.
** I've been reading a bit of Edgar Allen Poe lately.
^ Ouch! Social commentary at it is best.
***And just in case you DIDN'T know, it turns out it was indigestion.

Esquekafka

2006-07-24T15:14:00.000+10:00

Well it's been a while since I posted anything, or since Smiley posted anything of value, so I thought I'd write a little divertissement about 20th Century Literature. You see, in a blog I posted some time ago, I made reference to the movie Annie Hall, moreover the fact that many people who know nothing about Kafka would call it "Kafkaesque".

What I didn't tell you was that I also know nothing about Kafka, and had originally been planning to describe the movie as Kafkaesque myself, until it struck me that it would sound much more like I knew what I was talking about if I pretended to know a lot about Kafka by saying that people who know nothing about Kafka would call it "Kafkaesque".

I know. I'm a horrible horrible liar. Thus stricken with a guilty conscience, I curtailed my Warpoling (well, I would have if I was reading Warpole) and made haste to the nearest library, whereupon I proceeded to borrow out the only Kafka available, a little novel tentatively entitled The Trial (I say "tentatively" because of a spelling mistake. I meant to just write "entitled" but started with a "t" by mistake and thought I might as well go with the flow).

Anyway, I recently arrived at the conclusion of the novel, and I can safely say that, while people who know nothing about Kafka will still call Annie Hall "Kafkaesque", so too in fact might people who do know something about Kafka and his works.

See, if you sum up the story of Annie Hall, it's like this:

Man gets girlfriend for no reason

Man loses girlfriend
Man gets girlfriend back because of spider the size of a Buick

Man loses girlfriend again cos he's a neurotic jerk.

And if you sum up the story of The Trial, it's like this:

Man gets arrested for no reason

Man gets lawyer
Man loses lawyer because of spider the size of a Buick*

Man gets executed cos he's a neurotic jerk.

See how similar they are? Not at all. I recommend both, although The Trial is pretty heavy going. Frustrating, but that's intentional. You never find out why this guy is arrested (in the end I think the point is that life is a trial, that you're guilty just for being alive), but at the same time, he's such a pompous, arrogant egotist that it's almost a relief when they finally give him the chop.

That's it. That's my post for today. It's over. (What, were you expecting something funny? You should know better by now)

*This is a lie. Unless one takes "spider the size of a Buick" as a metaphor for the oppresive weight of a legal system within which even lawyers of the defendant do nothing to help their client, and against which the Protagonist rails (by his losing/firing of the lawyer in his employ).

time for a little bit of Q&A

2006-07-20T19:03:00.000+10:00

I would like to answer Adam Herd's question from a previous post.

He asks: "is that here metaphysical?"

No.

The Sitcom

2006-07-17T19:37:00.000+10:00

Audience participation time - please answer the following questions:

If Smiley and myself were to write a sitcom ("Sitar Communism"), what should it be about?

Who is the main character?

Who are his/her sidekicks?

Who are his/her foes?

What is the title of the sitcom?

What happens in the first episode?

What would happen in the last episode?

What is the catchphrase of the main character?

Where is the sitcom set?

What is the style of the sitcom?

OUR challenge (and I haven't told Smiley this yet but he'll probably read it here anyway) will be to take this information and to ACTUALLY write an episode of a sitcom. But we won't just pick the best idea and write that: we're going to pick ALL the ideas (that's right, ALL of them) and combine them in one UBER episode, all within one convenient timeframe of TWENTY one minutes. ! .

Some form of response...

2006-07-16T22:04:00.000+10:00

Mr Peter Alexei Kutuzov mistakenly suggested that I may have erred in my previous post when I suggested that chloroform played some part in making grass green.

"I'd have to say it's pretty unlikely that chloroform is the cause of grass being green.
It could possibly be the cause of the elephant being pink, and the back of your eyelids black, however," he said.

Well Pete, far be it from me to correct my older,* wiser** former housemate... but let me explain for all to see why in this case*** you are wrong, and I am right.****

For the record, I fully understand that chlorophyll is a vital part of the greening process.

There are three reasons I'm happy to stand by my statement. Firstly it is theologically correct as it follows the created order. It follows then that it is also logically correct - but this is more tenuous. I can also make an illogical argument (and I will) to support my stance.

We all know that the Genesis creation account contains a nice pattern - first the elements of the earth (sky, water, land... funnily enough those are also some of the elements of Captain Planet) were formed and then they were filled. Or formed and then, in pseudo Latin/Old English, phylled. Therefore, in the grass greening process it follows that chloroforming had to occur before chlorophylling. Now that may seem like a long bow to draw (or a crossbow, which I imagine would be much harder to draw - drawing a long bow really only requires two lines, an arc followed by a straight line... a cross bow is much more complex), but the argument is actually infinitely more complex and reading it would be similar to watching grass grow... or turn green.

The above paragraph takes care of the theological, and logical, elements of proving that chloroform is the reason that grass is green... here is the illogical... actually there's a certain logic to it... We all know that to "green up" means to look sickly. Chloroform induces a comatose state in living entities that imbibe its fumes. In the dreamtime (possibly drug induced) grass was multi coloured. There are always rainbow coloured things in dream time stories. Grass was no different. Until a criminal stole all the colours by sneaking up on the grass and chloroforming it - leaving the grass feeling a little green.

So there you have it. Chloroform is in fact the reason that grass is green. QED.

* This didn't need an asterix because Pete is clearly older than me.
** Pete is "wiser" on the basis that he makes more mistakes than me - so he has learnt more from those than I have, at this point this may simply be because of the previous *. It may also be due to the fact that I am perfect.
*** There have been long running battles on the topic of whether Pete has ever been right in a discussion with me.
**** right is defined very loosely, and can in some cases be interpreted as wrong... depending on your world view.

The Golden Ball Acceptance Speech

2006-07-13T17:36:00.000+10:00

Right, well after much web/soul searching, I've finally tracked down Zinedene Zidane's Golden Ball acceptance speech, a request from Mark Nolastname. What follows is a transcript:

"Allo. Jeux boivour loi pour elle, ou comme un foi vienne d'oeuf, which also means "Allo" but with more kissing afterwards. You know, a lot of people were surprised that I had am winner of this wonderful award, none more so than I. I haven't had any to thing to do with the Australian the wine industrie since losing my ability to string a cogent sentence together the without including too many of articles and propositions... I mean prepositions. But I have the propositions also, oui, and yes Mary Kostakeedos I am looking in your direction. Phone my mother after lunch. She will organize date for us. We eat icecream and - how you say? - watch the Muppets on TV. If that uncomfortable to sit on, we watch Muppets on sofa. If too awkward for you on sofa, I happy we watch Muppets on deck also, I have good deck, with view of neighbouring wall. It is a pretty wall. Someone once painted flower on it. Then I went closer and I see is just a yellow brick.

So thank you again for this bottle of Golden Ball. I am happy to be winner of Golden Ball. It go well with the cow we - how you say? - slaughter for dinner. A fine red is hard to find, so in the words my manager used to describe my reputation following the almost-win to Italy on Sunday, "Down the hatch!". "

And you can learn more about the Golden Ball, perhaps even download pictures of the press conference at which the above speech was delivered*, by clicking here

*highly unlikely

For those of you who are reading this because you were spammed...

2006-07-13T16:14:00.000+10:00

It seems I can't spell is. And because I pointed this out first, and no one else brought it to my attention, I don't feel so bad.

We've had two requests for pieces of writing, one from Mark, one from Kutz. Our team of 1,000,000 monkeys and 999,998 typewriters (two of the monkeys are siamese, and one of the Monkee's became a court reporter and prefers to use the stenograph) is working rapidly to produce these requests, they have a back order filed for the complete works of Shakespeare but they're having some trouble consistently spelling Verona correctly (they occasionally slip into the more ancient "Siena" spelling which confuses the moose we have editing their work (editor's note: Moo)(editor's note editor's note: Siena was the original home of the feuding Montagues and Capulets in Romeo and Juliet - you can verify this information here. Wikipedia never lies).

Mark wants to see a copy of Zinedine Zidane's golden ball acceptance speech. Phil is our resident sports and culture expert so I'll leave that one to him.

Kutz asks "if you insult the reader when writing a blog, and no-one reads the blog, have you insulted a hamster in Taiwan that just had a tree fall on it's head?" "

The answer to that question, in short, is no. Let me explain in a more verbose and interesting fashion...

Hamsters do not live in Taiwan.

As we all know, Hamsters live in Holland. The Australian tendency to soften h's means that the Dutch capital, Hampsterdam has been cemented* into meaninglessness, and become Ampsterdam - this caused some confusion with a high powered art rock group who won a trademark infringment injunction and Ampsterdam became Amsterdam.

Your question is further pushed into irrelevancy and redundancy (haha, a little bit of word funniness there - the word redundancy is of course redundant in that context) by the fact that hamsters do not speak english, and for an insult to be insulting the content must be communicated to the insultee. It's like contract law, only applied to insults, and somehow less insulting to the intelligence of the common man. So unless we post in hamster language for example - hctaw tuo ssarg htearb ro lli akaerb oy ecaf - we're not in danger of insulting any hampsters. That hamster language looks suspiciously like reversed english words - however, the meaning is far removed from the interpretation of said words were they to be reversed. I just accused some poor hamster of being the bald son of a bald terrorist whore.

Now, onto the third, and deciding factor rendering** your question nonsensical and a complete waste of time is the suggestion that a hamster would ever be hit on the head by a falling tree. As we know, trees in Amsterdam do not fall. They glide. Or they are smoked. Any hamster who happens to have his cranium collide with a gliding tree is no hamster at all. In fact it's much more likely that he's an eagle, or some sort of bird. The best way to tell the difference between hampsters and birds is that birds have feathers and flock together, while hamsters have fur and like to go out at night and get on the turps (literally turps, not your every day drinking alcohol. Being often painted*** they like to be thinner in portrait form).

So a more sensible question would have been:

"Why is the grass green?"

And the answer to that is of course chloroform.

*With rendering to follow
**As promised
*** after rendering of course - otherwise it would all be a pretty pointless exercise.

Jammed

2006-07-12T10:28:00.000+10:00

Mmm. Blended fruit, mixed with sugary water. That's got to be the fastest blog digression ever. Much faster than Phil's two paragraph effort below.

I'd also like to point out that I managed to invent a time machine and post Sunday's post today. I realised the horrible implications for the space time continuium so I destroyed it on Sunday and relived the last two days, constantly hiding from the present day version of myself. Who I then shot as he climbed into the time machine today... confusing stuff.

Jammed is an interesting, multifunctioning word. In the nominal sense, in which I used it for this post, I am, or was, referring to traffic jams and attempting to tie this post in with Phil's previous post.

It occurs to me that there are many ways we could increase traffic. The easiest would be to provide spectacular content. Phil and I both proudly hide degrees in Creative Industries (whatever that means). This means we should be capable of brilliance every now and then... However, finding outside stimulus for the content of our posts has thus far proved to be difficult - resulting in a number of in jokes and content reprisals (reruns really) rendering reading redundant really (ok so that sentence lost a little bit of cogniscience (is that a word) through the use of alliteration).

There are a number of spectacularly popular blogs out there. Much more popular than nathanintownsville.blogspot.com which yesterday reached its thousandth hit. Like the blog for this guy who used his blog to trade a paper clip for a house. Unfortunately pretty much all the good, original ideas have been taken. So my proposal is this - if you want two particularly qualified types (like PhilnSmiz) writing any document for you - be it a school assignment or a letter of resignation - in their own particular bent - and you promise to assign all copyright to said copywriters... and not actually use it for any illegal purposes, or if you want any financial advice, relationship advice (Phil's good at getting out of relationships, I'm good at not getting into them), or just handy tips for around the home - let us know. And we'll blog about it. And that's a promise. From me anyway, and from Phil vicariously because his name is on the top of this blog too.

Traffic

2006-07-11T20:12:00.000+10:00

Hello.

Blog traffic is an interesting thing, isn't it? Please tell me, I don't want to be under any false impressions if it isn't interesting, nor if it is. "What we seek is the truth". I love how putting quotation marks around something banishes it to the veins of history.

In fact the last three words of the last sentence are the ones I really should've quoted, since they're not my own. 10 points for anyone who knows where I got that phrase, "veins of history" from. It shouldn't be hard to guess.

But I digress. And rhyme.

To the faithful 2 or 3 readers of "The Phil and Smiley Show", I want to thankyou for your undying support. To the 871 readers of "Nathan in Townsville", I can only say this:

Smiley, I'm so jealous.

Another in-joke. Ah well. They fly thick and fast in this particular monkey house, and were it not for a distinct lack of inspiration this evening I shouldn't have had to use an in-joke at all. But I guess one of the reasons I'm so uninspired is that I'm thinking about how few people (if any) will actually be reading this. I mean, in all likelihood, NO ONE will read this post (again with the "affirmation of existence if you ARE reading this" thing). This means in theory that I could post anything I like.

...

Heh. No.
ANYWAY, the point is not to write what no one will read, but rather to write what many will read but none will understand or be offended by. Traffic, that's the key. And I realised why this blog gets so few hits. We lack links. We are the bastard child of the country club whose chief patron squandered his wealth in a banana plantation gone wrong, leaving the management of "Rolling Hills Estature" in the unfortunate position of forced closure. No links. Not even a green, or a putt-putt. "And you can forget about a driving range". That's what the repo men told them as they rolled up 100 square hectares of turf.

The point is, "Nathan in Townsville" has plenty of links to other blogs/sites, and presumably has many linked back to himself. If Nathan would only put philnsmiz.blogspot.com as a link at nathanintownsville, this blog would go through the roof. Come on man! Get us some traffic, it's all I ask!

(NB: just to make it absolutely clear, in no way do I support drug cartells or their subsidiaries)

(NBB: for those of you who may be wondering if perhaps a party-split is forming here, don't worry. Nathan promised to hand me the blog after 2 terms, and he's a man of his word. Why should I worry? He'll let me run the blog all by myself one day. And then I'll finally feel like a real man!)

I'm with Stupid

2006-07-09T21:42:00.000+10:00

The novelty T-shirt: Pop culture, or fashion faux pas?

I've been pondering this question for some time... Obviously there are some quality novelty shirts out there... but there's a horrendous number of horrendously bad "humourous" (and that's ""'d to show that I use the term very loosely) shirt slogans out there.

Perhaps the most famous of all novelty shirt slogans is the "I'm with stupid" slogan made popular by a number of people throughout the years who perhaps don't realise the irony of wearing a stupid T-shirt that a number of historically stupid people have been guilty of wearing over the years. The old adage about pointing fingers and all that jazz (it's not really jazz is it... it's not really musical at all. It's certainly not improvised music along a theme played in a dark, smokey, bar by men wearing hats and sunglasses indoors) probably comes into play at this point. Those who wear the shirts are the basest of hypocrites. It's written all over their shirts... literally and figuratively.

The whole novelty shirt craze has perhaps crossed too many boundaries over the years to be considered a significant contribution to the culture of protest and activism. Their cleverness is now outweighed by the stigma of being a novelty shirt to begin with. Speaking of protest shirts... What's with all the people walking around in Che Guevara shirts these days? That's another example of T-Shirt irony - that perhaps the pinnacle figure in modern socialism has become the subject of such trite capitalism.

Build a Bridge

2006-07-05T16:47:00.000+10:00

That side panel thing still isn't showing up on my browser, Smiley. No one checks this blog anymore anyway. Unless you are checking it right now in which case I just want to take this opportunity to offer you positive affirmation of your soul's existence: i.e. hey you, turn that frown upside down. You're not a no-one... you're someone very special... to me...

Wow, I think I just, like, chatted up the entire internet: a feat surely worthy of Strongbadia (www.homestarrunner.com). But don't go clicking that link just yet, please. That website far outshines this one, and if you leave you'll never come back, so at least read this first. Presenting the second installment of our exclusive interview with those Pommy/Californian Art-Rockers, T-Bone and Viviyon:

The History of Art Rock

T-BONE: Art rock started one day when I went along to this audition, to play rhythm guitar in some little Irish outfit, they weren’t very good – but you know, they recognized that I had talent – I was just too good for them, that was the problem. The lead singer, Bilbo or Bono or whoever he was, he said “you’ve got a really unique style there. We can’t take you on, you’ll just outshine us”. And so I said to myself, yeh I really have a gift, don’t I? And I should use it. So that’s when it started, I decided to start a new rock band that day – a band that would incorporate my artistic vision with bleeding fingernails. That’s when art rock started.

VIVIYON: Although I don’t really think it ever “started” as such, I mean perhaps it was born or something, but I think in a very real and really… real way, art rock never started because it always was. It was infinite. I mean it is infinite. It will be infinite. It’s all the grammatical tenses all at once.

T-BONE: That’s very true, very wise – he’s a wise man - but the band itself didn’t always exist. I knew I had a vision, I knew I was a prophet with a message to share, much like Mohammed or Siddhartha or Doctor Phil, and that like all of them, I’d need help in spreading my message. Like Mohammed needed the Muslims, Siddhartha needed the Buddhists to help him, Doctor Phil needed Oprah: I needed a band.

So I called my good friend Ringo Starr, and he said “not a chance in hell”, and so I called Phil Spector, similar response – and I’m okay with that – and I was okay with all the rejections, because I knew that it would take someone very unique to be in my band, someone un-inhampered by the trappings of wealth, and fame, and talent. And that’s what I found in Viviyon here.

VIVIYON: I remember getting the fax from him…

T-BONE: … that’s right, I faxed, didn’t I? I didn’t call

VIVIYON: …that’s right, you didn’t call! You faxed. Everyone else, you called, right? But you faxed me. And I always took that as a good omen, a good sign, that he decided to fax, not call, because on the day I got the fax – I should say, the night – because I’d been out all day, you know, I’d been out all day and what if he’d called during the day? I wouldn’t have been there. We would have been like ships passing in the night, but like, in completely different oceans. But he faxed and the fax had a phone number on it. And I said to myself “Yes, I want to phone back and say – and I’d figured out the first words of what I’d say, I’d say “Hello. I’m your new band member”.

T-BONE: I promised him money.

VIVIYON: Yeh, that was a bit of a… bit of a joke that was, wasn’t it… yeh... ... Yeh... ... Should have told me that before I quit my full time job. Nah, just joking, it’s water under the bridge, isn’t it. ... ... Water under the bridge.

T-BONE: That’s what our relationship has been like over the years. During the at times temperestuous process of creating art rock, our relationship has been like a series of bridges. That’s how we work together. We build a bridge, burn it, and then we get over it, so that we can build another bridge.

VIVIYON: Often, in the process of getting over the burnt bridges, well, we had to build a new bridge – y’know, to get over the one we just burnt, before we could start building another bridge.

T-BONE: So there were two bridges. But we burnt the one we’d built to get over the burnt bridges.

VIVIYON: Only after the new one was built though. There’s not room for two bridges. We couldn’t afford the upkeep.

Culture Corner - Post Modern Art

2006-06-25T21:52:00.000+10:00

There's a long history of successful comedic duos - Abbott and Costello (the comedians, not the politicians - although they are funny too in a different kind of way), Laurel and Hardie, Cheech and Chong, Ren and Stimpy, Hamish and Andy... Then there are successful musical writing duos - Rodgers and Hammerstein, Gilbert and Sullivan, et al... If you've read MADE IN CHINA - The Art Rock Musical - you'll know that the writers of this blog have a way to go... a long way to go... before being compared to any of those cultural luminaries.

We have however at arrived at an era befitting our combined talents - while all the above duos have influenced us to a certain extent - we were also the beneficiaries of an education from one of the finest, if not the finest, educational institutions in the suburb of Kelvin Grove, Brisbane (I mean lets not sell QUT short - it's a step up in class from the Ithaca TAFE). One of the most enduring memories I have from my time at QUT was actually shared with one Mr Enchelmaier. It opened my eyes to the realms of possibilities created by post modernity. I am of course referring to the stunningly unsuccessful, but somewhat intellectually stimulating, poem Nothing in that Draw. You will find it outlined below in all its glory:

Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw
Nothing in that Draw

There you have it. Elegant in its simplicity. Notice how every line rhymes so perfectly with the previous line. In fact the rhythm is almost perfectly balanced as well... Clearly this poem was penned by a genius.

In an age where a British art gallery can exhibit a plinth as a sculpture it's becoming easier to pass material, which once upon a time might have been described as "complete bollocks" or "utterly lacking in valuable content or substance," off as a work of art.

These few paragraphs have been a much longer than necessary prelude to the next edition of the Phil and Smiley show on video - you can download the video by right clicking here - and hitting save as.

EXCLUSIVE: Interview with the creators of "Made In China"

2006-06-21T20:06:00.000+10:00

Well, you've read the magnum opus, now read the exclusive interview with the creators of "Made In China", the pioneers of Art-Rock, the greatest two minds ever to successfully hibernate during summer: T-BONE AND VIVIYON!
______________________________________________________________

VIVIYON: We’re just real proud of the show, I mean it’s probably the best thing we’ve done, y’know… It’s our magnum.

T-BONE: …opus.

VIVIYON: No, icecream. It’s our magnum icecream.

T-BONE: No, you mean magnum opus…, right? If something’s like, really really good, you call it the magnum opus.

VIVIYON: Yeah, but that’s where they got the phrase, see, from the icecreams… Cos Magnum icecreams are really really good, right, so you call your painting or your play or whatever a magnum opus, so people know it’s like the icecream, “oh it must be really really good, it’s like a magnum”

T-BONE: So why don’t we just call ours a magnum opus?

VIVIYON: Well cos it’s beyond that – y’know, it transcends that. It’s not just really really good like a magnum, I think our show is so good that, y’know, in a very real and… really, actual way, it is the magnum icecream. It’s that good.

T-BONE: Yeah. It’s so good it’s not even good.

VIVIYON: Good’s too bad a word to call it.

T-BONE: Yeah. It’s so extremely good --

VIVIYON: -- It’s like two magnums --

T-BONE: Or a whole box - and I don't mean one of those "Mini Magnum" boxes either. I mean the real industrial size boxes that go to hospitals or army barracks or whatever.

VIVIYON: Y'know, the ones that are made in the factory.

T-BONE: Yeah, it’s that good… It actually is so good that it breaks down the good/evil barrier, y’know. Like people think of good and evil as opposite ends on a line, like opposite ends of the universe, y’know, there’s infinite distance between, right? Like if you head off in one direction, like the direction of good, you’d never get to the other end of the line, to evil, right? Well our show is so good that you actually get there! You get to the other end of the line.

VIVIYON: It’s so good it’s evil.

T-BONE: It’s a bad show. Really bad.

VIVIYON: So bad it’s good… Like a Magnum.

A piece of musical history...

2006-06-19T21:24:00.000+10:00

One day in March 2006 two friends, in fact the two friends responsible for this blog, gathered to pen one of the most memorable (not all memories are good) masterpieces (ok that might be poetic licence) of our generation.

A triumph of post modernity. A picture of improvised art in progress. A monument to our times. An ode to love, to friendship, and to the humble whitegood. And so, under these conditions, MADE IN CHINA - the art rock musical, was born.

MADE IN CHINA - the art rock musical follows the path of glam art rockers SPLODGE Surround Sound and Home Entertainment Systems as they turn their attention to musical theatre.

Some critics would have described the piece as trash, tripe or trollop - but you can never truly please a critic.

The work has been hailed by its creators as a one of a kind forray into a previously untouched musical genre. They've called it a monumental step towards bringing art rock into the mainstream. They narrowly avoided fraud charges at this point by agreeing to acknowledge that monumental, in this case, simply equates to "first".

And now for your downloading pleasure, I give you MADE IN CHINA - the art rock musical.

Seems like old times...

2006-06-18T14:53:00.000+10:00

... I just watched "Annie Hall" for the second time. It's a Woody Allen movie, very funny, in an emotionally involving kind of way. People who know nothing about Kafka would probably call it "Kafkaesque".

(What is it about using words we don't know the meanings of? George W. Bush is the obvious culprit, but that's probably because he doesn't actually speak English... At least I hope he doesn't. I for one would sleep better at night knowing the man with the finger on the button is actually from an alien race of intelligences far below our own, because that way even if he does blow the whole world up with one big nuclear party-popper, at least it's the aliens who'll have to fork out the insurance settlement.)

But I digress. I was going to say, one of the reasons I like "Annie Hall" is because I kind of identify with Woody Allen's character - mainly the neurotic writer bit. People say that writing is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. That's the problem. You get on a roll, you're coming out with lines and lines of dialogue, but you constantly have to interrupting your work to go and rehydrate. And then because you're drinking so much water, every second paragraph you're at the toilet. And then you start worrying that you're not working enough because you're having to interrupt it all the time, and this makes you nervous and you start perspiring even more!

I reckon Act 2 Scene 2 of this famous play was probably written something like this:

Oh Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo? Glug, glug, glug, glug... ah, that's a good drop. Deny thy father and refuse they name: or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my - AAAHHHhhhh, what a relief - love *flush* And I'll no longer *flush* be a Capulet damn this 16th Century plumbing *flush* Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? Tis but thy name, that is thy enemy no I'm not interested in buying a peasant, I already have two Thou art thyself though, not a MontaYou again? I told you I'm not interested in buying a peasant... No, not even one that comes with a free paddock in Lancashire... (although I have been meaning to get out more) What about your refund policy? ... Yeah? Yeah? Go on, I'm listening...

Granted, I've taken certain artistic licences with this rambling, but I guess the point it really makes is that I've just spent half an hour on this blog when I have a play that I'm supposed to be writing that needs to be finished by September, and I'm way behind with it... but that's the thing about watching the work of a talented writer like Woody Allen. You know you may never write anything as good as that, so you procrastinate by writing about how may never write anything as good as that instead of actually trying.

And then you start thinking, "gee, I'm such an idiot. Why am I wasting my time like this?"

...

...

...

Goodbye.

Could this be the first blog to declare war on Switzerland?

2006-06-17T11:33:00.000+10:00

I'd like to echo the sentiments of my learned friend Phil. But I'd like to take those sentiments slightly further - I'm not content to simply expel the Swiss from the EU. I'd like to declare war on them. At the risk of ostracising my Swiss cousins (and I do actually have Swiss cousins) and in fact an entire European country, I think it's high time for somebody to do something about the blight on the world map that is Switzerland. The time for words has passed. Now is the time for action. Well actually, given that I'm acting by speaking (or typing) the time for words has clearly not passed yet.

I am not an irrational person - I would not take such steps if I had not deemed them absolutely necessary. Let me share with you the reasoning behind this decision. It has not been taken lightly. I am not a war maker, but a peacemaker. Sometimes before peace there must be war. For peace to rain, tyranny must be opposed. The Swiss need to be liberated. Their raised chalets must be razed to the ground.

And what the reasoning for my ire? The reasons are many... or would you believe two score and ten? Or maybe two? Well there's three, three if you count the cheese.

The Swiss Army Knife

How dare the Swiss, with their apparent neutrality and ambivalence to the world around them, how dare they export a product designed for an army. If the Swiss Army knife is a demonstration of their military capacity then this conquest will be over in time for us to take tea and refreshments on the lawns of our palaces. "Oh excuse me sir, is that a gun you're pointing at me, then let me have at you with my... scissors?" Nay, 'twould be folly to go to war carrying a Swiss army knife. What do the Swiss know about war anyway? The last time they fought in one was in 1847. Back then a pocket knife probably would have been enough to turn the tides of war.

The Von Trapp Family singers

If having an army knife but an army that actually does nothing to speak of wasn't enough... The Swiss stabbed that knife in and twisted it home when they agreed to take the Von Trapp family in as refugees. Life would have been quite different had the Von Trapp family been stuck in Austria. World War 2 may have finished years earlier. The Von Trapp family actually escaped through Italy by train, not through the Swiss alps as suggested by the movie - but it's this sort of deception and propaganda that has brought me to this position - how many backpackers have wasted pilgrimages to the Alps to follow in the footsteps of Maria and co, only to be disappointed when they learnt the truth?

A suitably obtuse title

2006-06-15T22:55:00.000+10:00

Well I guess we should start to think of some content to fill this blog with now that it's been plugged on my decreasingly popular other blog.

You'll notice a series of links to documents and stuff on the right as we (I) add content.

But to get you started here's one of the videos that started it all. It seems I haven't figured out streaming stuff yet - but you can right click it and download it to keep forever. Really once people told us that was funny it just set us in some sort of unfunny perpetual motion. One bit of encouragement people - that's all it took. That's postmodernism at work right there. Phil and I like postmodernism - it means we can get away with more and just blame other people's different frame of reference if people don't laugh. Which happens more frequently than we'd like to admit.

I think critical mass for a laughing audience is reached as soon as the performer is aware that somewhere out there in the crowd someone appreciates what they're doing. But Phil would know more about that. He was in "May Contain Nuts."

Eject them from the EU, that's what I say.

2006-06-15T22:45:00.000+10:00

I know Smiley didn't tell you who we are and if you don't know us, all the better: read on and enjoy the site. Think of us like Willy Wonka before he opened up the factory and everyone found out what a weird, twisted soul he was. Just a constant stream of creative output.

First, an essay.

The Holes in a Piece of Swiss Cheese
Now I don't want to be racist, but I wish the Swiss would stop making cheese. There's a surplus of dairy products as it is; we don't need the Swiss making their holier-than-thou rolls of curdled by-product as well. Think about all the space those holes take up. You're paying for air! Now this might be appropriate if you live in Beijing or Hong Kong or Los Angeles where the act of breathing has been known to cause lung cancer, but here in Australia we've got a surplus of air. We don't need these rolls of Swiss cheese being imported with their mini air-bags popping out all the way through. We've already got enough air. And anyway, who needs a cushion of air when you're eating cheese? What sort of safety feature is that? Is it to protect your nose, so that if it should suddenly collide with the rind, there's 70% less chance of nose-bleeds? "Oops, I was a little too enthusiastic with that last bite, banged me nose on this cheese, lucky there was this little airbag here to cushion the blow". And how would they test the airbags? What kind of crash test dummies would they use? Really little ones? Perhaps they get some of those white mice that like cheese and paint little yellow-and-black circles on them, then they pelt them as hard as they can at the cheese, and they measure the quality of the airbags according to how far the mouse gets embedded within the roll of cheese.

Yes, I know what you're thinking. "Cruelty to animals", and I agree wholeheartedly. It's a shameful blot on the reputation of the Swiss people. When will they learn?

2006-06-15T00:24:00.000+10:00

I haven't actually told Phil this site exists yet...

Over the years we've inflicted countless poor jokes, over used cliches, irreverent rants, and pointless ponderings on audiences all over the place.

Some of it was actually quite funny...

At least that's what we're told (largely by one another).

So here's a collection of our works - given that I've done the work of setting things up there's a possibility that Phil may actually join me in posting further works (and even future collaborations) on this very site.

Stay tuned......