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July 21, 2005
Sound and Motion
Tonight Scott Dooley and I should have caught up for a few beers. Instead we did a a national radio show. I don’t think either of us was in the right frame of mind, but it was still fun. Scott has a regular show on triple j, which sometimes I’m a guest on. I like this, because I can just yarp away and I don’t have to operate any of the buttons on the control table thing that looks like it was built for a ship that navigates the deep trenches of the ocean.
What are some of the things I'd think are funny if I saw them at the bottom of the sea?
1) An umbrella
2) A hospital bed with drip
3) The crashed submarine of my arch rival, Prof. Snenmore McDervish
Once, when I was tooling around the dark trenches of the ocean, I happened upon an upturned cup in the seabed. It had a bubble of air trapped inside it, which took up about half the glass. I took a photo of it, which I have entitled ‘the optimist’s nightmare’.
Anyway, the radio. Scott told me he also keeps a website (www.scottdooley.com), but I think his is a public one, or he actually likes people to go there or something, unlike me and you diary, which is just for the two of us, and
NO ONE ELSE
On the radio this girl called up (we had asked people to ring in with problems that we could then ‘solve’) and she basically said:
‘There is this guy who I really really like – you know that feeling when your knees go watery and your heart thumps so hard in your chest that you feel like you’re going to die ... and yet he doesn’t think of me like that at all! How can I make him love me?’
Forgetting to mention that she had a potentially award winning idea for an American teen movie, I think Scott and I were a bit stuck for words and started joking around as our natural defence against such a sincere and naive problem, to which this clearly needed to be said:
Look, just because you feel something strongly doesn’t make it true of the other person. You can’t channel your love into them and expect to have it come right back at you, to ‘convert’ them as it were. So if he’s really not interested, give up and move on. Are you free Friday?
Damn it! Another opportunity blown!
I only have one pickup line, and it’s never worked. I record it now for the sake of posterity, putting in the female responses as they would (hopefully!) occur.
Me: Hello. And who might you be, you saucy vixen?
Girl: Why, I’m Sarah. I’m a brunette and a Gemini you know.
Me: Really? Get out of town!
Girl: Well I would, but I’d rather sit here talking to you!
Me: Talking is for chimps.
They kiss.
Actually that isn’t it. That’s more of an ‘ideal situation’. Here’s my pickup line:
Me: Hello. And who might you be?
Girl: I’m Sarah.
Me: Thanks. I like to put a name to a wank.
I leave abruptly.
I think this line is funny, but I’ve never seen what kind of response it gets from others.
Here’s one that I must never never EVER EVER use:
Hey babe ... how’d you like to be able to tell people that you fucked Sam Bowring before he was famous?
Ha ha ha! That’s great! Maybe I WILL use that after all, maybe tomorrow!
Soooooo, in other news. I am moving house, to Enmore. It has been a drawn out and annoying process, and I am going to record what I’ve translated of ‘Real Estate Lingo’ so I hopefully don’t waste any future Saturdays looking at mud flecked shanty huts which sounded great in the ads.
REAL ESTATE LINGO TRANSLATED
Charming: Contains fireplaces that don’t work, which jut out of walls at odd
angles and make it hard to fit furniture in.
Character: A BIG warning sign. The house will have ‘character’, but it will
probably be the character of some hairy derelict shouting at nothing in the street and
pissing his pants, as a protest of disgust with himself.
Big bedrooms: Small bedrooms.
Huge bedrooms: Small bedrooms.
Big bedrooms with built ins: Linen closet.
Beautiful master bedroom with ensuite: All the other bedrooms in the house
are such pokey shitholes that you’d be embarrassed to bring a girl back if you were
Golum.
Restored: It was already old and then things got really bad, but they’ve patched it up here and there. New taps!
Low maintenance backyard: Backyard looks like a Sarajevo war zone.
House is ‘Simply Amazing’: You’ll be amazed at how much they want for it.
Lots of space: Missing walls.
Double glazed windows: In the flight path.
Great Location: There is nothing else good about it.
Different points of entry: Tide affected.
Etc.
Anyhoo, it means all kinds of packing up and stuff. I have been investigating the lower strata of my closet, seeing if I truly intend to cart all this shit around again when I really should just hurl it off a bridge from a fast moving car. These old receipts, do I really need these? This jar of twigs and berries which I know is a memento of something but can’t remember what? These weights, do I need these? The most exercise I get from them is carting them from house to house.
And my dratting socks. Can you have so many odd socks that the one pair which actually does match is considered odd?
Gods.
What’s that Squeakfeather?
Well of course I’m taking YOU, my poppet darling! Don’t be silly! Not going anywhere without bringing my little Squeakfeather, don’t ever worry your mousey head about that my angel.
All right Diary, that’s enough or you’ll ruin your dinner.
Posted by Sam Bowring at July 21, 2005 04:04 AM